He told reporters the state does not need to create another state position with a high salary and staff simply to wait in case the governor resigns or dies.

In fairness, the proposal calls for the lieutenant governor to serve as a cabinet secretary while waiting.

In the state's 148-year history, a gubernatorial vacancy has occurred only twice, most recently in November 2010, when then-state Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin assumed the governorship upon the election of Joe Manchin to the U.S. Senate.

The problem was not that there was no lieutenant governor, Kessler said. The problem was determining how long the Senate president could serve as governor.

"It was always going to be the Senate president," Kessler said. "The only issue that ever occurred was the timing of the election. That was really what the court decided."

As Senate president, Kessler may have a vested interest in not wanting a lieutenant governor inserted above his office in the line of succession.

But certainly taxpayers support enough state officials without adding another.

***

PARKERSBURG City Council approved an appropriation of $3,000 to hire a paralegal to handle the various Freedom Of Information Act requests that come in.

"We need someone to go through it to see what can and can't be released," Mayor Bob Newell said at a committee meeting.

The requests come from a small group of people, Newell said. At the council meeting this week, he handed out copies of FOIA requests to members of council.

"As you can see from the requests, this takes a lot of time to find, compile, copy and then review to make sure protected information is not released," the mayor said.

"More importantly, there are penalties associated with the failure to release information, or for the release of protected information. There are also time constraints associated with FOIA requests."

There are costs associated with open government, but they're nothing compared to the costs government secrecy can produce.

***

RESEARCH by Casey Mulligan, an economist at the University of Chicago, raises the question of why people should work.

A person under the age of 65 can now receive more than $15,000 a year for not working. That's up from $10,000 just four years ago.

Mulligan points out that spending has increased not just because of the recession, but because the federal government expanded eligibility for most programs.

For example, the average monthly unemployment insurance payment was $834 at the beginning of 2006. By the end of 2010, the average monthly unemployment compensation payment was $2,667.

"Yes, unemployment is high," Kevin A. Hassett remarked in National Review, "but is it any wonder?"

A nation that adds $1.3 trillion a year to its national debt cannot afford to offer incentives that make unemployment attractive.

Benefits need to be reserved for the truly needy. Everybody else needs incentives to work.

***

ACROSS the Ohio River from Williamstown lies the Levee House Café owned by Marietta Councilman Harley Noland. The waterfront is occasionally up to its gills with gulls.

"Sometimes the riverbank will look entirely white with gulls," Noland told the Parkersburg News and Sentinel. Birders are seeing the ring-billed gull and the herring gull most often, and the Bonaparte's and black-backed gull occasionally.

Noland thinks it's a sign that the river is much healthier than it used to be.

"You didn't see migrating waterfowl here 40 years ago, due to widespread use of DDT that interfered with the hatching process," Noland said. "But since the 1980s the numbers of migrating birds seem to grow every year."

Most of the talk about America's environment is gloom and doom.

In fact, steady progress is being made.