Jefferson County, West Virginia’s population (54,000) is about three times that of Morgan County (17,000).
And yet, three times more people have voted early in the first couple of days of early voting in Morgan County (665) than in Jefferson County (220).
The reason?
Morgan County has a school levy on the ballot. And it’s the hottest political potato of the year.
Almost everyone has an opinion.
As the does the Mayor of the Town of Bath, Susan Webster.
But Webster refused yesterday to go public with her position.
She is concerned about the vituperative nature of the debate.
She sees people who have come out against the levy — like Commissioner Bob Ford — being raked over the coals for it.
And she doesn’t like it.
She is concerned about the poverty of the people in the town (population about 700).
Mayor Webster estimates that perhaps as many as a quarter of them are poor and that most of them have no vehicle and have to walk to work or to get social services.
She is concerned about the 13 percent or so of properties in town that are vacant.
She is concerned about the rising numbers of people losing their property because they can’t afford to pay their property taxes.
And then there is this.
Mayor Webster owns more than a dozen properties in Morgan County on which she pays more than $10,000 a year in excess levy property taxes.
She is conflicted.
Mayor Webster says she’ll be happy when the levy election is over.
She agrees with activists on both sides of the debate that we need to find another mechanism for funding the schools.
Putting it on the backs of property owners leads to too much conflict.