JUNE 2012
03
FROM THE EDITOR Big Plans Are Never Easy
The blogosphere, media, and
STAFF DAVID LILLARD, Editor/Publisher DOMINIC VALENTINE & AUNDREA HUMPHREYS, Art Direction TARA SANDERS LOWE, Director of Advertising
PROOFREADERS: HALI TAYLOR, ED ZAHNISER
CONTRIBUTORS THOMAS HARDING CHRISTIAN & DAVID ASAM CLAIRE STUART ELIZABETH WHEELER JEFF FELDMAN STEVE CHASE
DOUG HUMPHREYS MISTY HIGGINS
COVER PHOTO AUNDREA HUMPHREYS
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JULY. DEADLINE June. 15th
www.RiverandTrail.com888-i-go-play
Near Historic Harpers Ferry, WV
social media world have been abuzz about the planned move of the Shepherdstown Public Library to a new site at the old town dump. Meanwhile, roads in Jeffer-
son County built for bygone days—many of them for wagon travel—are becoming more hazardous with each boom- let in population growth. And even the new Route 9 high- way’s design, with its at-grade intersections and traffic lights, resembles a rural four-lane of the 1950s. What do these two situations
have in common? Both are il- lustrations of how a community grapples with change. Or not. Shepherdstown’s library,
which more accurately should be named the Northern Jef- ferson County Public Library because it serves a third of the county, needs to be expanded and modernized for today’s library patrons—and tomor- row’s. Previous attempts to ex-
pand the facility at its current location failed. Just as shovels are ready to
hit the ground on remediating contamination at the old dump, some folks who live in town are questioning the move. It’s completely understand-
able. Everyone loves that old building down on German Street. And change isn’t always easy.
Still, proponents of smart
growth say green means ex- panding the boundaries of towns. In un-smart growth, when a town gets too crowd- ed to grow, new projects get pushed into the hinterlands where nobody lives—as hap- pened when Jefferson High School was built. Smart growth means making the town a little bigger to facilitate easy connec- tivity between neighborhoods and facilities. But that’s just one part of
the discussion. All opinions and concerns are welcome and needed in the public sphere.
This one might heat up a little. Everyone won’t get things ex- actly the way they want them, but good, honest, open, civil di- alogue always makes a commu- nity stronger and better able to address its future. In this edition, we publish
the first in a two-part series on the decades long effort to im- prove library services. Speaking of the future, as construction on the final leg of the new Route 9 gets going, many people are asking wheth- er the project even begins to solve our transportation chal- lenges—particularly those re- lated to growth and safety. As with the library project,
we have to be willing to look into the future to make deci- sions today. A guest commen- tary by Earl L. Jackson, Jr., asks that we do just that, and get on with the business of open conversation about where this place is headed.
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