r/MorgantownWV

Thank you to all who came out last Wednesday but it seems that the commission and the sheriff do not want to listen to their constituents. Citizens were met with disdain, slander and lies.

Tom Bloom singled out a woman and told her to watch her tone and everyone speaking was doing so as mob mentality.

NO TRANSPARENCY. NO TAKING RESPONSIBILITY. NO FOIA REQUESTS RESPECTED.

Do NOT allow Tom Bloom or Todd Forbes bully and lie to you about flock cameras. They will not respect the community's or your rights until they are pressured to do so.

The Sheriff's department requested up to $180,000 of opioid settlement money to use for these flock cameras. Commission approved and signed over $60,000 of this opioid settlement money for a three year contract with Flock around November 2025.

Opioid settlement money won from companies that pumped this state full of drugs and left the most vulnerable addicted and torn apart. Why is this money being used on surveillance and not rehab? Or to help communities destroyed by opioids?

The cameras are up. We demand transparency.

We demand FOIA on the contract signed and how and when the data is used or accessed.

Commission meets every Wednesday at 10am.

EDIT UPDATE with info requested:

What is flock?

Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs or LPRs) are AI-powered cameras that capture and analyze images of all passing vehicles, storing details like your car's location, date, and time. They also capture your car's make, model, color, and identifying features such as dents, roof racks, and bumper stickers, often turning these into searchable data points.

These cameras collect data on millions of vehicles regardless of whether the driver is suspected of a crime. These systems are marketed as indispensable tools to fight crime, but they ignore the powerful tools police already have to track criminals, such as cell phone location data, creating a loophole that doesn't require a warrant.

ALPRs are a serious risk to your privacy and civil liberties. These systems continuously record your movements without a warrant, probable cause, or even reasonable suspicion. Your driving history is rarely confined to the town or city where the cameras are installed. It's typically shared with thousands of other agencies nationwide (secretly). Once the data is out of your community, you have no control over how it's used or what rules apply, leading to instances of misuse.

You can learn more about flock and view the interactive map to find cameras in your area at deflock.org

I volunteer for M4M and they are desperately in need of some more cleaning volunteers for the cats available for adoption at Petsmart. Fridays and Saturdays, either 9am or 10am.

It takes about an hour depending on how many cats are there. Duties include cleaning litter boxes, wiping down cages, filling water/food bowls and sweeping the floor. You will be rewarded with lots of purrs and happy tails.

If you’re available and interested, reach out to MountaineersForMutts https://www.m4mutts.org 304-376-7913. Must be 18+.

TIA!

I was thinking about Yesterday's DoE awarding $75 million as part of a multi-tiered, $1 billion federal funding architecture managed by their Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation.

There is an additional 175M for the Mines & Metals Capacity Expansion program, for Topic Area 2 expanding funding to midstream processing, separation, and recycling across all industrial sectors.

Selections for this tranche are scheduled for Q4 2026.

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The REE Demonstration Facility Program 135M

It funds the design, construction, and operation of a demonstration-scale facility to extract, separate, and refine rare earths from acid mine drainage and mine waste.

This program strictly mandates an academic partner, aligning perfectly with the WVU pipeline, which ALOY is firmly entrenched as the midstream and metallization partner.

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Critical Minerals and Materials Accelerator 50M

A concurrent rolling program designed to fast-track late-stage, market-ready commercialization technologies within a compressed 3-to-7-year window.

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Federal cash flows directly to the coal operators - Ramaco - or WVU partners to build and operate raw extraction pilot plants.

The grant covers 50% to 80% of the upstream Opex and Capex needed to process toxic acid mine drainage or coal refuse into Mixed Rare Earth Carbonates.

The capital flows to ALOY as an economic subsidy embedded in the feedstock.

Since federal grants fully subsidize the upstream extraction infrastructure, MCM and Ramaco supply ALOY with highly enriched feedstock at a drastically suppressed, stable cost-basis under long-term offtake agreements.

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The EPA provides no direct funding to ALOY.

However, its strict enforcement of perpetual pH neutralization mandates for acid mine drainage forces coal operators to continuously process mine runoff.

This environmental mandate legally guarantees ALOY’s upstream partners a constant, highly subsidized supply of pre-concentrated raw waste material.

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Sources

https://www.energy.gov/cmei/mining/funding-notice-mines-metals-capacity-expansion-piloting-product-critical-minerals-and#:~:text=American%20Resources%20Corporation%20(Headquarters%3A%20Fishers%2C%20Indiana)%20%2D,Expected%20Date%20for%20Selection%20Notifications%3A%20Summer%202026.

https://www.northernminer.com/news/us-awards-75m-to-recover-critical-metals-from-coal/1003892680/#:~:text=American%20Resources%20(Nasdaq%3A%20AREC)%20in%20Indiana%20and,will%20be%20announced%20at%20a%20later%20date.

https://missioncriticalmaterials.com/another-mans-treasure/#:\~:text=Acid%20mine%20drainage%20must%20be%20cleaned%2C%20whether,infrastructure%20at%20sites%20that%20are%20already%20permitted.

I have recently lost my cat Rosemary. She ran out the door of my apartment at mountain valley apartments near west run road without anyone noticing. She disappeared on the night of July 1st around 9:00 pm. We last saw her on the hill in front of the scenic view apartment building number 5000 that goes down to the mountain valley apartments by the rec center. She is very skittish and scared and will run when people come near her. She came up to our door on the morning of July 2nd but got scared and ran off before we could get her. She doesn’t have a collar or a microchip yet unfortunately either. If anyone would keep a lookout for her I would be so grateful. I’m really worried and miss her dearly. I attached pictures to this email of her. We live at building 2000 right across from the leasing office so I’m hoping she’s in this area. We are thinking about setting a trap for her and hoping we catch her. My number is 3042246207 and I’m willing to give a money reward.