CHARLESTON, W.Va. — On Thursday, Charleston Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin and GAI Consultants held a media briefing at the Kanawha County Library to unveil a first look at a draft concept of the Capital Connector Project.

The Capital Connector is a project that aims to connect Charleston’s East End and West Side by enhancing the area by the Kanawha River, specifically the Kanawha Boulevard Walk and Bikeway.

The project will begin at Magic Island on Charleston’s West Side and will go for over three miles to the base of the 35th Street Bridge. Upgrades will also come to parts of Greenbrier Street connecting the East End and the West Virginia State Capitol Complex.

Mayor Goodwin says plans are coming to fruition and just now becoming available for the public, but the work to get this project started goes back to the beginning of her time in office.

“Five and a half years ago when I first became mayor, we started on this,” Goodwin said Thursday. “We started going after the funding to do this type of planning. This is something that, for five and a half years, we’ve been working on, but honestly, the city has been asking for this for decades.”

Charleston received a $25 million RAISE grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation in late June after receiving over $1 million in 2023 to do an initial study.

Kanawha County resident Heidi Talmage says she was surprised at how much funding is going towards the project.

“I was stunned at how much funding is going to be available for this project,” Talmage said. “It sounds like they are really expecting to be able to do something very meaningful and not just a little band-aid on a long-term problem.”

Talmage also says she thinks this project bringing in more people to the city.

“I think this is going to be a big benefit to the town and to make it more attractive to a bigger variety of people,” Talmage said.

One of the ways the Capital Connector Project may attract more people to the city is the vision to enhance commuter trails along the Kanawha Boulevard. To make the Kanawha Boulevard Walk and Bikeway better, the City of Charleston and GAI Consultants want to reduce four to five 12-foot traffic lanes, allowing for expansion of the pedestrian pathway. In addition, the concept has intersection signal modifications, lighting upgrades, and better stormwater management.

James Yost, Landscape Architect manager for GAI Consultants, says this project means a lot to him and is worth the long days and late nights.

“I’ve lived in Charleston my entire life,” Yost said. “At 36 years old, I’m able to do my most important project that I’ve ever had to do to date. I’m very excited every day I get to work on this. We’ve had many late nights, and it doesn’t matter because I’m enjoying every minute of this.”

Yost was the main presenter at the hearing Thursday night, and he answered questions from community members about the plans.

Community members were able to write in public comments Thursday evening to help expand the vision and can do so until September 14.

Goodwin says it’s the citizens that need to make their voices heard so the project can be catered to them.

“We can come up with what we think would be really great for the city, but it’s you,” Goodwin said. “It’s the public telling us, ‘Hey, I saw this when I was traveling to this city,’ so obviously there’s great inspiration you’re going to see from different cities, but it’s coming from our public.”

Goodwin says there are so many ideas for the project, that some may be put on the backburner to fit the budget.

“The construction grant is $25 million, that’s the funding that we have,” Goodwin said. “We also have to look at what we actually can do within those budget restraints.”

Yost says GAI and the city are keeping their eye on future projects that might not be within the budget.

“We are also looking at even future projects as well,” Yost said. “We’ve highlighted a few areas along the trail that might not be within this first round of money that we get, but it’s something else that we can add on to because the $25 million is going to go so far and then there’s always the future as they continue to add on to the space and then expand into the communities as well.”

There will be another meeting regarding the Capital Connector Project in the coming months that will focus on design development.

A summer 2025 groundbreaking is the goal for the Capital Connector.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The letter was signed Thursday that will reduce the state’s personal income tax by another 4% on Jan. 1, 2025.

The letter, signed by state Auditor J.B. McCuskey and state Revenue Secretary Larry Pack, acknowledges the trigger mechanization for the tax cut was met.

Legislation approved by state lawmakers in 2023 establishes a process by which the personal income tax can be reduced annually if certain marks are met.

The trigger measures general revenue collections in a fiscal year minus severance collections compared to 2019 as a base year, adjusted for inflation. If collections are ahead of the base year, that would activate the trigger. That’s what happened in the most recently completed fiscal year. The cuts, according to the trigger, can go no lower than 10%.

State lawmakers passed and Gov. Jim Justice signed a bill last year to reduce the tax by 21%. Pack said Thursday the additional 4% will begin coming off next year.

“It’s effective Jan. 1, 2025. We just made it official. We’re very thankful for the governor’s leadership and legislature to allow us to continue to cut the tax burden of West Virginians,” Pack said during an appearance on MetroNews “Talkline.”

Pack said the the new cut will be about a $100 million savings for taxpayers, Pack said.

“That’s on top of the over $800 million tax cut the governor pushed forward and the legislature passed last year,” Pack said.

MORE see letter here 

Meanwhile, Justice has said on more than one occasion that he plans to ask lawmakers to cut the personal income tax by another 5% during a special session either later this month or in September.

“We’ve done the right thing growing this economy; we’ve done the right thing keeping this budget flat. Why in the world would we now do the wrong thing? For people who want to sit on the sidelines and do nothing, then at the end of the day we will get exactly, ultimately, in the end — mark it down because I’m not going to be here very much longer — in all honesty we will get exactly what we deserve,” Justice said in early July.

But there doesn’t appear to be any widespread agreement on Justice’s proposal. He said as recent as this week that his office continues to talk with lawmakers.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, has been one of the critics.

“Either you’re going to have to go in and reduce spending that is so bloody that you can afford that — bloody by, I mean, it is going to be politically challenging and it will be citizen uproar on some of those services because we’ve been catching infrastructure up, we’ve been getting sewer and water done, we’ve been getting roads done, we’ve been getting broadband down. You want to stop all that then go ahead and throw another $100 million in expenses there for perpetuity before we get the opportunity for revenue growth for the things we’ve done,” Tarr said last month on 580Live with Dave Allen.

Pack said what is known is the personal income tax is going down another 4% on Jan. 1.

“We’re able to let people to keep more of their money while at the same time we’ll able to run government efficiently,” Pack said.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Neal Brown leans forward in his chair, which might as well be a soapbox.

“I’ll tell you, this is a unique area for food because there is a ton of Italian influence here,” Brown says.

In the early 1900s, tens of thousands of Italians immigrated to West Virginia to work in the state’s rapidly growing steel and coal industries, bringing that home cooking with them.

“So there are some great, old-school Italian American restaurants down in Clarksburg and Fairmont just south of here,” Brown says. “But people don’t realize that. It gets overlooked.”

He sits back, hands interlocked behind his head. The history lesson is done, but Brown’s not. Because the head coach of West Virginia just so happens to feel the same way about his football team.

“I just think our best players are being undervalued,” Brown says. “The amount of production we have coming back and what we’ve added, it’s significantly better than where people have us in preseason.”

Coming off an unexpected 9-4 record in 2023 and entering his sixth season there, West Virginia was picked seventh in the Big 12 preseason poll and landed just outside the initial AP Top 25 rankings. Brown says folks are once again sleeping on the Mountaineers, a mentality that dates to more than a year ago, when he sat down in front of a Big 12 media days contingent that voted WVU dead last in the preseason poll.

“I can guarantee you that we’re not going to finish last,” Brown said last summer. “We’re looking forward to proving everybody wrong.”

Scoreboard. WVU tied for third in the Big 12 standings and remained in the conference-title race until the final weeks, ending the year with a bucket of mayonnaise dumped over Brown’s head after routing North Carolina in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. Brown went from a scorching-hot seat to vindicated, earning a one-year contract extension through 2027. It gave the 44-year-old an opportunity to bet on himself yet again.

Brown signed the extension in March. And a voluntary pay cut.

“You can talk about selflessness and being a good teammate all you want to, but you also have to show those things,” he says. “You should have win-wins. I think it was good business for both sides. I like it here.”

As part of the extension, Brown essentially forwent $400,000 in salary increases over the next three years of his contract, electing to reinvest that money in his staff. All eight of WVU’s returning assistant coaches received raises, including coordinators Chad Scott (offense) and Jordan Lesley (defense), as did numerous support staffers.

Brown’s $4 million salary in 2024 ranks in the middle among conference head coaches. Between the pay cut and an additional bump from the university, more than $700,000 was added to the staff salary pool for the upcoming season, with additional flexibility for the future.

“I tried to talk him out of the pay-cut piece, to be honest. I was worried that people wouldn’t believe he did it voluntarily,” WVU athletic director Wren Baker says. “It’s highly unusual for a coach to do that, but I think he wanted to invest in those around him.”

There was no posturing. Brown’s reputation as a pragmatic and analytical thinker precedes him, a badge from his days as an innovative Air Raid disciple and offensive coordinator at Texas Tech and Kentucky, followed by a successful head coaching stint at Troy. He knows that if WVU can continue the momentum of last season and can be in the mix for a Big 12 title and the expanded College Football Playoff, West Virginia will reverse that pay cut and then some. He has reason to be confident in that outlook. Aided by the recent growth of the Country Roads Trust NIL collective, which has helped recruit and retain talent, Brown has the deepest and most experienced roster of his tenure — starting with quarterback Garrett Greene.

“If you put up Garrett’s numbers in terms of key stats and win-loss record, he’s going to be near the top of our league,” Brown says. “But he’s not getting talked about that way.”

The fifth-year senior threw for 2,406 yards and 16 touchdowns in his first year as a full-time starter in 2023, finishing sixth in the Big 12 in QB rating (142.2), fifth in yards per attempt (8.7) and with only four interceptions, the fewest among qualified passers. But his dual-threat capabilities set him apart, leading all Big 12 quarterbacks with 772 rushing yards and another 13 touchdowns.

It gave WVU a triple dipper in the backfield alongside running backs CJ Donaldson Jr. (798 yds, 11 TDs) and Jahiem White (842 yds, 4 TDs), combining for the best rushing attack in the conference and fourth-best in FBS at 229 yards per game. All three are back in 2024 behind an offensive line with three full-time returning starters, led by preseason All-America left tackle Wyatt Milum — another overlooked player who Brown believes will be a first-round NFL Draft pick next spring.

“He hasn’t given up a sack in two years and he didn’t even make the all-conference team last year,” Brown says.

The offense wasn’t pure ground and pound. WVU had 34 plays of 30-plus yards last season, tied for fifth in the Big 12. The biggest issue was efficiency. West Virginia scored touchdowns on 60.3 percent of red zone trips in 2023 (eighth in the Big 12), and Greene completed only 53 percent of his throws, lowest among the league’s qualified passers.

“He’s better than that,” Brown says. “We’ve worked hard to change his fundamentals.”

An older and replenished group of receivers should help. Hudson Clement, Preston Fox, Traylon Ray and tight end Kole Taylor are back, and WVU added a pair of power-conference transfers in Jaden Bray (Oklahoma State) and Justin Robinson (Mississippi State).

Up front defensively, Brown expects linemen Sean Martin and Tyrin Bradley Jr. to take leaps and Ty French (Gardner-Webb) and T.J. Jackson (Troy) to bolster the rotation. The questions are in the secondary, where all-conference safety Aubrey Burks and transfer corner Garnett Hollis Jr. (Northwestern) will lead a revamped group.

“This is the most talent we’ve had in the secondary, but they have to be able to mesh together,” Brown says.

The 2024 schedule doesn’t do the Mountaineers many favors, with nonconference games against Penn State and Pitt and a grueling five-game stretch to open league play: Kansas, at Oklahoma State, Iowa State, Kansas State, at Arizona. But in a new-look, 16-team Big 12 that expects plenty of parity, West Virginia has as much of a path to the top as anyone — a journey two years in the making.

🗓️ 2024 West Virginia Football Schedule#HailWV pic.twitter.com/1oBhlJwlAT

— West Virginia Football (@WVUfootball) January 30, 2024

Coming off a disappointing 5-7 2022 campaign and with Texas and Oklahoma on their way out the door, Brown hit the reset button on his team’s identity, homing in on discipline, effort and taking care of the football over raw talent, and turning those intangibles into tangibles. WVU saw marked improvement in penalties and turnover margin in 2023 after ranking last in the Big 12 in both the year before.

In a suddenly wide-open conference, with a first-round Playoff bye at stake, that attention to detail can reverberate.

“The talent disparity from team one to 16 in our league is not this drastic gap like there is in other leagues,” Brown says. “So many games come down to the fourth quarter. Your margins are small, so we have to be really good situationally.”

The make-your-own-luck mindset is particularly crucial at West Virginia, where geographical and financial challenges are baked in. It’s one of the reasons Baker opted for patience when he was hired in November 2022, just as the Mountaineers wrapped up a second straight losing season and public perception of Brown was cratering. Baker assessed a head coach who still had the respect and support of his staff and the locker room, as well as being someone who understood the proud tradition of a place that has always done a little more with a little less.

Wren Baker, left, chose patience regarding Neal Brown after becoming West Virginia’s AD. (Ben Queen / USA Today)

“The longer you’re in a job, the better you recognize what works,” Brown says. “We’ve done a better job of understanding our location and the type of personalities and players that can be successful here. I think it’s carried over.”

Baker, like many athletic directors, has plenty of big-picture items crowding his desk. There is the widening financial and competitive gap between the top of the Big Ten and SEC and schools like West Virginia, whose $106 million athletics budget in fiscal year 2023 was in the bottom half of the Big 12. There are the strains of a conference that now stretches 900 miles south and 2,000 miles west of Morgantown. There is the pending House v. NCAA settlement that stands to reorient college sports, including the burden of an additional $20-plus million in annual revenue sharing that Baker is determined WVU will fully participate in.

All of it can make the future seem murky at best. But the intriguing subplot of a league without Texas and Oklahoma is a relatively level financial playing field for the new Big 12. Conference title runs and Playoff bids are now much more attainable for a Mountaineers program that hasn’t won a league championship since joining the Big 12 in 2012.

And it’s not lost on Baker that the little things have put Brown and WVU in position to seize those opportunities — in 2024 and beyond.

“West Virginia is very much a fit job. Not just anyone can come in here and win, particularly in football,” Baker says. “Coach Brown and his staff have done a good job of focusing on what they can control. Eventually, I believe the scoreboard metric catches up to that.”

(Top photo: Ben Queen / USA Today)