PARSONS – Senator Randy Smith, R-Tucker, is beginning his first year in the Senate, but he is no stranger to the West Virginia Legislature.
Smith spent four years in the West Virginia House of Delegates representing District 53 which includes Tucker and Preston counties. He said one of the reasons he decided to run for Senate is because the term of office of four years allows more time to follow through on issues and said it is easier to work in the Senate because there are only 34 Senators.
“You are elected to the Senate for four years and that allows you to not only start something, but follow it through to the end,” Smith said. “In the House, it seems like you are changing gears every two years.”
Smith said one of the items he is working on is the broadband issue. He said other big items before the 2017 Legislature include the budget and deficit.
“It sounds like there may be tax reform coming from the Governor and the Legislature,” he said. “Infrastructure is supposed to be a top priority this time. It sounds like rural broadband development is going to be another top priority. I think there will be a lot of education reform during this session. It sounds like we will be working to give the local boards of education more authority and flexibility.”
Smith said he hopes some of the decision making is transferred back to the county education board members.
“You can’t do the same things in Tucker County that you do in Monongalia or Kanawha counties,” he said. “The needs are so much different. Some of the rural counties do not have the same revenues. It’s a big difference how the counties have to be run.”
During a Town Meeting held Wednesday night in Parsons, Smith told residents of Billings Avenue he received a heads up from Tucker County Commission President Lowell Moore about a parking situation they were facing. Smith began asking questions about the issue and was pleased to let the residents know during Wednesday’s meeting that the issue had been resolved and that they had nothing to worry about. Smith said helping fix issues like that is one of the good parts of his job.
“That is the best part of my job – when people can come to me with a problem and I can get it taken care of,” Smith said. “Lowell Moore called me and then I picked up a little bit about it from Roxanne Tuesing on Facebook. I could tell the residents were trying to get things together for that meeting and I thought it would be best to go ahead and see if we could get the issue solved. It doesn’t always work out that good, but it did this time.”
Smith said he was glad to help the Billings Avenue residents and said he was glad they planned to go to him for help. He said he feels lots of times residents don’t use their Legislators enough. He said that is why he goes to town meetings, organizational dinners and other places where he can meet with people and talk to them one-on-one.
“If you get out to things where people can actually meet you and talk to you, you find out what is really going on,” he said. “You can help people – people don’t seem to want to call you. People should be talking to us. I don’t want people to think I am any better than they are. I am a citizen of West Virginia. I get up every morning at 4:30 a.m. and go to work. I am nobody special – I just want to make a difference.”
Smith serves as the chairperson on the energy, industry and mining committee. He is a member of the agriculture and rural development committee as well as economic development, government organization, judiciary, natural resources and work force.
His Charleston office is located in Building 1, Room 214 West. His office phone number is 304-357-7995 and his cell number is 301-616-0575. Smith can be contacted by email at randy.smith@wvsenate.gov. He also has a Facebook page where he posts updates of things going on in Charleston.
