He is a Marshall County man who worked on West Virginia roadways for more than 30 years before he retired in 2017, and now he sees a broken state he wants to fix.
Charles Sheedy is a Republican from Cameron who has been traveling to all areas of the state with his wife, Debbie, and pup, Susie, to address several groups concerning his candidacy, and he said he plans to file the necessary paperwork this week.
“I believe a lot of people appreciate the fact that I am not going around the state and asking for their money, and that’s because I have been speaking to a lot of people who are just like me. I’m a retired working man, and I am dealing working people,” Sheedy said. “I don’t want their money. I just want their support and help to spread the word to help me get into office. Plus, I don’t want anyone in my back pocket like the rest of them do.
“So, I’ll just keep traveling to talk to people, and I’ll continue using social media, too. It’s all coming out of my own pockets, and that’s how I want it,” he continued. “My wife is my campaign manager, and our (Golden Retriever) Susie, well, that’s my whole campaign staff. All I feel I need to do is stick with my principles and my beliefs that this country was founded by people who did not buy their positions. That’s why I won’t buy this race, but instead I’ll go out and work for it.”
Fixing Roads
Sheedy began his career with the Division of Highways in the early 1980s and worked on everything from pothole patching to piling to fixing slips. But then, one day, something very odd happened.
“It was the day when the order came down for all of our equipment, and the crew I was working with was in the middle of fixing a slip. Someone showed up and told us to stop because the machinery we were using was going up for sale,” he recalled. “That crane was taken off of us by (former governor) Joe Manchin, so that means that roadway didn’t get fixed that day.
“The Division of Highways is so broken, and it really started when Gaston Caperton made the changes he did (in the early 1990s), and then Joe Manchin put the final nails in the coffin (in 2005),” Sheedy said. “To fix it, we would have to go back to the way it was before those two state leaders made the changes that they did. We need more workforce and we need our equipment back because DOH is very capable of doing the work that we’re hiring contractors to do. I know this because I lived it.”
As bad as the secondary roadways are from Tyler County north to Hancock, Sheedy believes West Virginia has more important issues to address first.
“The roads are easily recognizable because everyone travels on them, and it’s the most heard complaint, but our biggest problem concerns the Division of Health and Human Resources, and not everyone sees the foster care problem,” he said. “And although most of us have been touched by the opioid problem, not everybody sees that situation firsthand. If they do see it, most of them stay quiet about it, and that’s not helping the next victim, in my opinion.
“Those problems aren’t going to be easy to fix, and it’s not going to be cheap. But just throwing money at it isn’t going to fix them, either,” Sheedy continued. “As far as the opioid issue, somehow, we need our communities to come together to do even more than what they are already doing.”
What’s a Republican?
Every West Virginian who pays attention to state politics knows Gov. Jim Justice ran for the position as a Democratic candidate, but then flip-flopped to the GOP during a rally for Pres. Donald Trump in August 2017.
At the time, the governor said he could better serve the state by aligning with the majority party.
“But he’s not a real Republican, and everyone knows it. A real Republican is not going to raise taxes and fees on the people, and just throw the money away,” Sheedy insisted. “If he does consider himself a Republican, then he is a very liberal Republican. If you are going to raise the taxes and fees for the extra money to fix roads in our state, know what you’re doing. It’s obvious to me that he doesn’t.
“And I hope people realize that there are no federal dollars going into the work that is taking place along Interstate 70. Not a dime,” Sheedy reported. “And why is that? Because the bonds that were sold were levied against future federal allocations for our roads, and that’s like betting on a blind horse. Who knows what happens to those dollars in the future?”
Tackle boxes and axes. White boards and lightning bolts. Oh, and remember that one time when … .
“One thing I did not appreciate at all was when he took cow manure into the chamber for the State of the State Address his first year,” Sheedy said. “In my opinion, that set the public opinion of West Virginia back to the 1800s. At a time when we are trying to improve our image, and he does something like that?
“Back when I was still working and asking some questions, I was told that I didn’t know how Charleston works, but I do know how Charleston works, and I am concerned by the majority’s apathy toward the Northern Panhandle, the Eastern Panhandle, and the south counties of our state,” he said. “When you travel the state like we have, you see what’s going on, but then you get in the area of Charleston, and everything is beautiful. There are good reasons why that’s true.”
