THE DAILY ATHENAEUM City talks changes to airport
“Little good is accomplished without controversy, and no civic evil is ever defeated without publicity.”
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Wednesday November 20, 2013
by Laura haight staff writer @dailyathenaeum
At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, City Manager Jeff Mikorski gave an update on the Morgantown Airport. Mikorski said permits from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and the Army Corps of Engineers were approved, and construction will begin soon on the airport aAccess road.
“This allows access to the opposite side of the airport terminal that will allow permanent access to the National Guard Readiness Center,” Mikorski said. “We are also looking to expand hangar activity once the road access is complete.” “This is long awaited, and lots of hard work to get here. One of the biggest issues is reliability of our new airline partner Silver Airways,” said Glen Kelly assistant city man-
ager of operations. Improvements include cheaper rates that are less than $100 roundtrip. “The good news is to test them we have a $38 rate from Morgantown to Dulles International Airport (in Washington, D.C.),” Kelly said. “If you’re making plans for the holidays, this is a good opportunity.” Mayor Jenny Selin read from a proclamation that declared the Saturday after
Thanksgiving “Small Business Saturday.” Selin said this is a great opportunity to get some holiday shopping done. There will be free parking downtown and anybody who spends $25 or more will be entered into a contest for an iPad. “Spend your dollars on the businesses you want to see open,” Selin said. Mikorski also spoke about raising the health premiums by 3.9 percent, and the City
Council voted to review possible changes. “Our rates are very low with the highest class, class 3, making over $39,000,” Mikorski said. “For family coverage it comes out to be around $68 a month. There are some minor changes because we added vision, we allowed employees to decide if they wanted vision, dental, or medical only or combinations of the three.” A new plan has been devel-
oped to bring better rates and reliability to repeat customers and give benefits to citizens. “This should increase reliability and now we’re going to test it,” Mikorski said. Council member Nancy Ganz announced Morgantown is still having problems with dumpster and street fires after sports games. “As our University is ex-
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Abbey Estep, Amanda Stoner and Brady Smith make calls to West Virginia congressmen and senators as an effort to stop human trafficking.
by evelyn merithew staff writer @dailyathenaeum
The West Virginia University International Justice Mission set up a booth Tuesday in the Mountainlair to involve students in the anti-human trafficking movement. The student organization reached out to students, asking them to call their state’s senators and representatives to encourage them to pass the Human Trafficking Prioritization Act. The bill is currently being reviewed by congress and is sponsored by Congressman Chris Smith, representing New Jersey’s fourth district. Abbey Estep, a sophomore at WVU and member of IJM, said WVU is one of many universities that are part of this movement. “There are a lot of dif-
ferent college campuses around the country that are doing this today. The student organization for International Justice Mission is based in (Washington) D.C., and they are sponsoring the whole thing,” Estep said. West Virginia has just begun implementing policy that combats human trafficking, including paying researchers to investigate human trafficking in the state. In the last five years, there has been very little data recorded on the issue in the state. “Because West Virginia is one of the latter states to start enacting policy, as of now there has only been one reported human trafficking case in Morgantown in the last year that I am aware of,” said Brady Smith, an IJM member. “We are hopeful that in the next
SGA hosts three-sided political debate by jacob bojesson staff writer @dailyathenaeum
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ChillFEST gives students opportunity to relax, unwind
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A member of WVU’s Young Republican Club makes a point during the debate.
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A member of WVU’s Young Democrats reacts to a point made by a member of the Young Republicans during Tuesday’s debate.
The Student Government Association hosted a debate among the political organizations on campus Tuesday evening. The College Republicans, Young Democrats, and the Students for Liberty organizations battled in the Mountainlair commons in front of a large and active crowd. The debate was moderated by Patrick Hickey, an assistant political science professor, and touched on health care, U.S. foreign policy and the private sector. Despite their differences in ideology, the three sides seemed to agree on many of the topics at the start of the debate but got heated as the discussion leaned toward the government’s role in the private sector. “The fact of the matter is: the government does not regulate business,” said Colin Wood with Students for
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SGA gathers student feedback at meet and greet By Alexis Randolph Staff Writer @DailyAthenaeum
Shannon McKenna/THE DAILY ATHENAEUM
Students enjoyed various relaxing activities including free massages during WELLWVU’s chillWELL event in the Health Sciences Center Tuesday.
By Jacob Bojesson Staff Writer @DailyAthenaeum
WELLWVU: The Students’ Center of Health hosted a chillFEST in the Health Sciences Center Tuesday to provide students a relaxing break in between classes. A series of activities took place throughout the day including yoga, meditation and relaxation.
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Many students also took the opportunity to get a free massage from professional masseuses. “They’ve been coming pretty steadily all day as the time fits for them, and they’ve been leaving looking a whole lot less stressed than they did when they came in,” said Colleen Harshbarger, director of WELL-
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THE BIG APPLE Our A&E editor recently took a thrilling trip to NYC. A&E PAGE 3
West Virginia University’s Student Government Association is working to gather feedback from the student body. Members of SGA were in front of the Mountainlair Tuesday engaging students and asking for suggestions of ways to improve WVU. They will be in the same place again today from 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Between the two days all elected SGA officials will have spent time meeting with students. Me m b e r s o f S G A handed out T-shirts for students who were willing to share an opinion on a dry erase board. The board filled with ideas ranging from the need for the PRT to run on Sundays to the lack of healthy food options on campus and even a push
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Melody Bowman, a forensic science student, writes her WVU idea on a large whiteboard set up by the West Virginia University Student Government Association at their meet and greet Tuesday. for an on-campus Chipotle restaurant. While stationed infront of the Mountainlair, SGA will host a Twitter questions contest. T h e o rga n i z at i o n ’s Twitter accout, @wvusga,
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ON THE INSIDE Take a look at our tips for beating the seasonal blues. OPINION PAGE 4
will tweet questions every half hour. The first person to tweet the correct answer back will receive a free T-shirt. Chris Hickey, SGA outreach director, said the meet and greet was in re-
sponse to previous concerns voiced by the student body. “We have had a lot of complaints saying we haven’t done a lot of outreach, so we decided to do something outside of the Speak Up events,” Hickey said. “With this meet and greet, if there is an overwhelming push in one area of concern, it can help lead us in the right direction. It is hard to be a student government without input from the student body.” At the beginning of their term, the SGA administration created a goal list to work toward during the year. According to Hickey, the ten-page list of goals was about 55 percent complete as of October. “Given that 55 percent was the number in Oc-
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JOURNEY TO RECOVERY Womens soccer midfileder d Karoline Szwed has had to bounce back from a tough injury this season. But she is no longer able to play soccer. SPORTS PAGE 8