While many counties in West Virginia will benefit from the stimulus money, Gov. Joe Manchin has decided against putting any of that $215 million onto construction of State Route 10 or any others highways in Logan County.

And Art Kirkendoll is upset over the snub.

“I am hugely disappointed that Route 10 and additional paving money wasn’t allocated for southern West Virginia with the fact that we have helped stabilize the state’s budget with our coal production and energy taxes,” Kirkendoll, the Logan County Commission president, said this morning. “I’ve had conversations with Congressman Rahall’s office in the last few days about trying to make sure we get something in District 3 and southern West Virginia and I’m not going to stop making phone calls to our leaders about it. It’s the right thing to do. I’m not against West Virginia spending money that has in any area of the state, but I do believe we deserve our fair share.”

About $97 million, or 45 percent, would help expand West Virginia’s highway corridor system. Another $63 million would resurface 37 stretches of road.

Nearly $40 million is dedicated to cleaning, painting, replacing or pouring new concrete on 57 bridges. The remaining projects would address rock slides and other safety issues, including the building of truck climbing lanes. There’s also a $2 million grant program for each congressional district.

The closest the stimulus money will come to Logan County is in the Peytona-Racine areas of Boone County, which will receive $668,000 in paving on Route 3.

Logan’s not the only southern counties to get snubbed. Neither Lincoln nor Mingo County will receive any of the road funds. The closest the money comes to Mingo County will be a Wayne County road and the money for that ends at the Mingo County line.

“As president of the county commission, I’ll continue to talk to the agencies that can make some change orders to see if we can’t get something that’s much-needed,” Kirkendoll said. “Any additional money for Route 10 can speed it up. It is a shovel-ready project. I don’t know how they cannot classify it as a shovel-ready project, when, as far as the construction of it, it’s over 50 percent complete.

“With southern West Virginia assisting the state through making them a very solid state economically and the coal trucks going up and down our roads — which I’m for — I think they most certainly should look at putting additional paving down here in areas that produce the revenue for the state.”

Kirkendoll said he isn’t going to stop working to get funding for Route 10 and other road projects in Logan County. And, he said, he hopes other southern West Virginia officials do the same.

“It’s time for all the leaders to, in a professional fashion, explain their discontent with the proportionary distribution and we all need to speak in one voice that this is not going to fly,” Kirkendoll said.

“I’m very, very disappointed and I’m not going to sit and take it lightly, you can rest assured. I’m going to continue keeping the lines of communications open in regards to Route 10 and the numerous other shovel-ready projects we have.”

Kirkendoll said he hopes changes can be made to include Logan County in the distribution of the stimulus road money.

“They can make some changes, because they do it all the time,” Kirkendoll said. “I expect them to make some changes. We cannot be totally ignored. Southern West Virginia has kept West Virginia’s unemployment at half of what the rest of the nations is and their ability to maintain governmental programs based on revenue is superbly strengthened by our natural resources tax. It’s only fair to help those who have made the biggest difference in the state and are the most deserving at this time.

“We can make an argument anytime there’s an allocation of money that our roads are in worse shape than most areas because of the nature of the travel and the percentage of money spent down here on an annual basis. I will not sit down and take this.”