It's been 13 long months for residents and business owners that depend on Keystone Drive.
The road was covered in more than 500,000 cubic yards of material following a landslide at Yeager Airport a little over a year ago and still hasn't been opened.
So far, 300,000 cubic yards have been removed, and the county, state and Yeager Airport are trying to figure out who's going to pay to get the rest removed so the road can be used again.
Jeff Joseph, the general manager of the Foodland on Spring Street, said that he has been waiting patiently for the road to be cleared.
"There's a lot of people who used to be customers of ours who no longer are," Joseph said. "The revenue that we depended on, for most businesses to sustain a 10-15 percent drop in revenue, that would spell bankruptcy. We need the road opened."
All parties involved said that they want the road opened, but there's a struggle over who is going to pay for it.
The county says that it's a state road and should be cleared by the state, and the state says that it's the county's dirt on their road.
"The slide is mostly not our slide," said Greg Bailey, an engineer from the Division of Highways.
While it was determined Tuesday at the County Commission meeting that everyone was on the same page that the road should be cleared, there wasn't a resolution as to who will be footing most of the bill.
Commission President Kent Carper said that he's willing to put in matching funds from coal severance taxes to get the road cleared and will be meeting with Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin about the issue.
"There's nothing else I want to work on this year until we get this road opened," Carper said.
But he did work on other issues at the meeting.
The packed county commission courtroom had at least 20 people from the Advocates for a Safe Water System wearing what appeared to be blue tourniquets.
When their time came to talk during the public hearing, the advocates made a case to the commission for the county to support a public water system to combat West Virginia American Water's monopoly on water in the area.
Despite receiving a rate increase earlier in the year, West Virginia American Water is asking the West Virginia Public Service Commission for another increase (they used their last one to pay off their shareholders) and the advocates are fed up.
They've met with mayors Danny Jones, Frank Mullens and Terry Greenlee, of Charleston, South Charleston and Dunbar respectively, and want to have elected officials in the county get together with utilities experts to discuss what can be done about West Virginia American Water's monopoly.
Carper shut down the advocates' request that he examine a public water system, since creating one would be a long process that required money and resources, but he and Commissioner Dave Hardy agreed with them that the water prices are hurting the people of Kanawha County.
"There's something really, really wrong with the process at the Public Service Commission," Hardy said. "The Public Service Commission needs a reboot."
Carper and Hardy agreed that the meeting to discuss the water company would be a good idea and promised to intervene on the most recent rate increase.
Earlier in the day, Kanawha County Clerk Vera McCormick invited the commissioners to see the ballots that had been printed for the May 10th primary. She had the ballots separated by precinct on a table in the back room of the voter registration office and was joined only by Commissioner Hoppy Shores and staffers to talk about how the three pages of Republican ballots and one page of Democratic ballots would be counted.
That presentation comes after a weeks-long dispute between McCormick and Secretary of State Natalie Tennant because McCormick is not accepting online voter registration from voters in Kanawha County.
The secretary of state sent a letter to the commissioners Monday asking them to step in, and while no one from the county clerk's office was at the meeting, the commissioners did make some demands.
"This back-and-forth between the secretary of state and the county clerk has to end," Carper said.
He ordered his staff to find out how many people haven't been able to register to vote due to McCormick's policy and demanded that they be found.
Carper also directed his staff to ask that the sample ballot be uploaded to the Internet so that people didn't have to go Charleston to get a copy.
In other news, the commission:
n Agreed to try to get the bike path along the Paint Creek watershed recognized by the state.
n Heard a song from the state champion show choir, the Nitro High School Showcats.
n Listened to a presentation about an app that Kanawha Metro 911 is unveiling in the coming weeks that will give people more access to information about emergencies in the area.
n Recognized the Kanawha Metro 911 Telecommunicator of the Year Megan Elmore.
n Agreed to use $100,000 from the table games fund to contribute to the Clay Center's program of providing free transportation and admission to schools for field trips.
Reach Daniel Desrochers
at dan.desrochers@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4886 or follow
@drdesrochers on Twitter.