City of Weston 
102 W. Second Street
Weston, WV 26452
(304) 269-6141 – Fax: (304) 269-7842
Jon
J. Tucci, Mayor
Vicki
McCall, Interim City Manager City
Council
Rebecca
Pickens, City Clerk
Roger D. Clem, Jr., Chief
of Police Richard
(Dick) John, Ward I
Michael S. Young, Fire
Chief Lou
Ella Clem, Ward II
Robert A. (Bob) Atchison,
Street Commissioner Betty
Jo Brooks, Ward III
Tracey Weber III, Special
Counsel Charles
Hathaway, Ward IV
June 1, 2005
The Honorable Senator Robert C. Byrd
311 Hart Building
Washington, D. C. 20510
Dear Senator Byrd:
It is with great
pleasure and pride that I can communicate with you by this letter on this fine
sunny afternoon. I am sitting at my desk here at City Hall and looking out the
window at the “Grand Ole Dame”; (Old Weston State Hospital) and reflect on my
youth some fifty years ago when the community had a circle of strength around
the grounds of the Hospital. When some eight hundred employees and over two
thousand patients, nee’ clients, walked and hustled about the majestic and well
groomed gardens and flowers that graced the properties surrounding her. There
were large trucks delivering supplies and people stopping to look at the
largest hand cut stone building in North America.
The French novelist Anatole France, who died in 1924,
said “All changes, even the most longed
for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves;
we must die to one life before we can enter another”. When I read this I became perplexed over the
condition our City has fallen into my dear Senator. I want to reach up and grab
the clouds and wash away the years of neglect and abuse of our streets and
bridges. I pray for answers as our town deteriorates right in front of my own
eyes. Our primary roadway (U.S. Rt. 19), is being bludgeoned by the mighty West
Fork of the Monongahela river and shall soon fall into the waters in an area we
call the narrows; ¼ mile south of main street.
PAGE TWO
Our school buses carrying our beloved school children
must travel this primary route everyday, and I know in my heart that there will
be a disastrous accident there some day. You can view the substrata from across
the river and see where the river is cutting out a large hole underneath the
roadway. The West Second street bridge and the Fourth street bridge are losing
there concrete abutments to the waters
of the West Fork also. I pray for relief everyday that we don’t lose people in
passenger cars crossing these bridges.
The Almighty gave me a second chance in my re-election to
solve these problems, but, I find no relief in prayer. Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, the English Poet once wrote, “God’s
gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.” I read this passage over and over
again and find that I must solve these problems and perform my duty as the
people have elected me to do. But, I need help, and I know no other person on
this earth that can help other than you, Senator. I am not ashamed to grovel or
plea for your guidance and strength and will continue to admire you and your
wealth of knowledge. I will fight that battle everyday to assure our people
that we can have better schools, roads and bridges, better sanitary conditions
and better jobs. In fact, we must demand it, and not take it for granted. As in
the Preamble of the Constitution we must “promote
the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our
Posterity…”
Please come and visit our City in need Senator and I will
show you what I have tried to portray to you. With God’s grace and blessings I
beseech you.
Sincerely,
Mayor Jon J. Tucci
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