BROADBAND UPDATE — The Brooke County Commission received news Tuesday of state funds to be invested in extending fiberoptic-based internet service to unserved areas of Hancock, Brooke, Ohio and Marshall counties. -- Warren Scott

WELLSBURG — State funding awarded for the extension of high-speed Internet service to unserved areas and response to an accident Friday involving multiple all-terrain vehicles were among matters discussed by the Brooke County Commission on Tuesday.

Adrienne Ward, the commission’s newly hired county coordinator, advised Gov. Jim Justice announced $14,726,012 has been awarded to Comcast to provide broadband to unserved areas of Hancock, Brooke, Ohio and Marshall counties.

Justice announced Monday $20.8 million in state and other funds will be allocated for six projects aimed at extending internet service to thousands of homes and businesses in West Virginia.

Ward said the Northern Panhandle project targets 1,402 addresses in the four counties and is expected to involve the extension of 304 miles of fiberoptic transmission lines within the next two years.

She said she’ll report on other details as they become available.

While working for the Brooke-Hancock-Jefferson Metropolitan Planning Commission, Ward had been involved in a joint Brooke-Hancock study in which local emergency and school officials, business leaders and others indicated areas where internet access was unavailable or could be improved.

BHJ also launched a survey gauging Internet demand from the public that received about 650 responses.

The study was funded by a $125,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Initially, officials with BHJ and in the Northern Panhandle counties, including Wetzel, considered pooling federal pandemic relief funds and state money allocated for broadband expansion.

Areas of Bethany-Washington Pike, Archer Heights-Morton Road and Harmon Creek-Downtown Weirton were identified as potential targets in Brooke County.

The plan was dropped, however, when Justice and others pledged to invest more than $1 billion in state and federal funds in establishing internet connections to at least 200,000 West Virginia homes and businesses.

In other business, the commissioners shared positive feedback they received regarding emergency crews’ response to the ATV accident, with Brooke County Sheriff Rich Beatty calling their handling of the emergency “top-notch.”

The Brooke County Ambulance Service and others were dispatched to an accident involving multiple all-terrain or utility task vehicles on Eldersville Road near Cook’s Hill.

Four victims of the accident were transported by separate medical helicopters, which Brooke County 911 Director Christina White said was a first in her 20-year career with the county.

Following the meeting, Beatty said the accident remains under investigation and he wasn’t aware of the victims’ conditions. While there’s a sharp bend in the road near Cook’s Hill, Beatty said the vehicles were on a straight stretch of the roadway when it occurred.

The sheriff said there were several such vehicles on the roadway at the time.

Beatty said he’s received many complaints of them being driven at high speed and recklessly in that area. But he said the state’s laws are not clear and are difficult to enforce because ATV riders can veer into wooded areas that can’t be reached by deputies in cars.

Beatty said he doesn’t encourage his officers to engage in high-speed pursuit of them or any vehicle because it can put at risk the suspect, particularly ATV riders entering the woods, the officer and others.

For a time, state law prohibited ATVs from being driven on lined roads unless they were crossing them to reach a destination.

But last year the legislature passed Senate Bill 690, which allows ATVs, UTVs and other special purpose vehicles to be driven on roads but for no more than 20 miles on those with center lines.

It states the driver must be licensed and the vehicle must be registered, insured and is equipped with one or more headlamps, tail lamps and brake lamps; electric turn signals, a light to illuminate their state-issued registration plate and other equipment.

It notes they may not be driven on controlled access highways, such as interstates, or highways where they have been prohibited by the state Division of Natural Resources of the governments of the counties or municipalities through which they run.

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