Observer Weekly

Observer Weekly March 26, 2026 Jefferson County, WV news & events Its local budget season in West Virginia. The County Commission as well as the School Board and the five municipalities in Jefferson County all finalize their budgets this month and submit them to the state. In this issue, we highlight early takeaways from the County’s revenue and expense projections for the next fiscal year (below). We’ve submitted a series of questions to county officials and are awaiting responses; once we...

Observer Weekly March 19, 2026 Jefferson County, WV news & events While finishing up this week's issue, we tuned in to tonight’s Jefferson County Commission meeting — and caught some significant news. The commissioners voted to hire a commercial real estate broker to sell the county-owned downtown buildings. The first properties available will be the Mason Building (116 East Washington St.) and the Hunter House, at the corner of Washington and Samuel Streets. A recent change in state law now...

Observer Weekly March 12, 2026 Jefferson County, WV news & events The West Virginia legislature is closing in on the end of its regular 2026 session at midnight on March 14. A lot can happen in the last two days as the House and Senate take turns asking each other to concur as each body votes on last-minute floor amendments to legislation. Last year, the HB 2014 “data center & microgrid” legislation changed several times during the final week as the two houses traded amendments. This year,...

Observer Weekly March 5, 2026 Jefferson County, WV news & events The Observer spent a lot of time in Bedington this past week, getting the lay of the land around the new data center project. There are a lot of unanswered questions but we were able to get a good sense of where the project might end up (see our map below). More to come as we keep digging into this. We thought we’d be reporting on the state budget this week, but that process seems poised for a few more rounds before the numbers...

Observer Weekly February 26, 2026 Jefferson County, WV news & events This was shaping up to be a slow news week, with not much to report from our local governments. In Charleston, the Governor and legislators have been jousting about the state budget, but anything we write today might change tomorrow. But then we heard early this morning that Shepherd University had selected its next president, and we scrambled to arrange a quick interview with Dr. Cameron Wesson. Just as we got off the phone...

Observer Weekly February 19, 2026 Jefferson County, WV news & events Most of the government meetings I attended this week had a common theme that was pretty clear — infrastructure, and how to pay for it. What wasn’t as clear was how committed all of the participants were to finding solutions. You can read our summary of this week’s discussions about the Summit Point utility project below and also find a deeper analysis at ObserverWV.com. Given its potential impact and the layers of questions...

Observer Weekly February 12, 2026 Jefferson County, WV news & events In this issue: This month’s Shepherdstown Snapshot Ranson annexation Summit Point water and sewer project developments Events calendar And more... Both the City of Charles Town and the Jefferson County Development Authority have meetings scheduled next week to discuss options for moving forward with the Summit Point water and sewer project — we’ll be there, and elsewhere around the county, to keep you updated on what...