The state just awarded a $129,000 contract to Summit Electric of Hurricane to upgrade its security systems.

Specifications call for installation of a high-definition closed-circuit TV system, featuring up to 24 HD video cameras and two digital video recorders. (The central monitor will be a 42-inch high-definition LCD television).

The project also includes video intercom systems on the doors to the mansion, an intrusion detection and alarm system, and outdoor infrared motion detectors.

Meanwhile, while the administration evaluates the four bids ($478,000 to $868,161) for the wrought-iron and brick fence around the southwest corner of the Capitol Complex, the only subjective material in the bids is in the request for references for the contractors' prior projects.

Wiseman Construction, the low bidder, cited the Capitol Dome exterior renovation project, the Ayash Sports Center in St. Albans, and construction of Scott Segal's

residence at Quarry Ridge. (No reference to it also being Supreme Court Justice Robin Davis'

residence.)

Oval Construction ($489,000) had a somewhat less impressive resume, citing renovations of five Kanawha County high school auditoriums, renovations of the locker rooms at Marshall's Henderson Center and renovations to the Kanawha County Courthouse.

Danhill Construction ($641,000) listed renovation of the pool at Tomlinson Run State Park, addition/renovation of Valley Elementary School, and construction of the Red Jacket post office.

Nationwide Construction of Chesterfield, Mich., ($868,161) listed three fence projects, including a 24,700-foot security fence at Terre Haute (Ind.) International Airport (the shocker being that Terre Haute has an international airport).

Based on that, I think we can reasonably assume who will get the contract.

In talking with lawyer contacts, I'm told that Tri-State Racetrack and Gaming Center is, in effect, playing a 10,000-to-1 long shot in hoping that a Nitro city ordinance authorizing smoking at the track will supercede authority delegated by state law to the Kanawha-Charleston Board of Health.

Presumably, the racetrack will pick up the city's legal expenses when the ordinance is challenged in court.

However, imagine what a precedent it would set if the courts do determine that city and county ordinances can take precedence over state law and executive branch regulations.

For instance, Boone County is pretty dependent on coal revenue, so what's to keep the county commission from passing an ordinance barring "unelected" inspectors from the Department of Environmental Protection or the Office of Miners' Health, Safety and Training from enforcing state mining regulations in their county?

The Secretary of State's Office is expected to file amended rules for the new law authorizing satellite early voting locations by mid-week. I'm told the revised version is expected to delete the "poison-pill" provision that would require the satellite locations to be open the same days and hours as early voting at the county seat.

If you weren't aware that, under state law, there is a state "Advisory Committee on Journalistic and Editorial Integrity," you're probably not alone.

In 2005, as legislation was being passed putting Gov. Joe Manchin

or his designee in charge of a number of state boards and commissions -- including the Educational Broadcasting Authority -- the committee was created as a safeguard to assure that West Virginia Public Broadcasting wouldn't be turned into some sort of ministry of propaganda for the Manchin administration.

However, as a new legislative audit found, the five-member panel was never appointed, and the committee has never met.

The audit quoted Education and the Arts Secretary Kay Goodwin

as saying, "No information about this committee can be found in Educational Broadcasting Authority minutes ... I have no reason to believe this committee is needed."

While I don't listen to FM radio, and my public television viewing is limited to "Antiques Roadshow," I've not heard any issues with the Manchin administration attempting to influence editorial content on public TV or radio.

Finally, the hysterical grandstanding of Southern West Virginia politicians opposing the toll increase on the West Virginia Turnpike seems to have no bounds.

The best to date (at least until Delegate Clif Moore

conducts his toll-plaza blocking act of civil disobedience) comes from Delegate John Shott

, R-Mercer, who provided Bluefield readers with a detailed account of an alternative route to avoid the Turnpike toll plazas.

By Shott's account, the alternative route adds a half-hour of travel time between Princeton and Charleston, turning a 90-minute drive into a two-hour excursion.

I don't know about you, but I consider a half-hour of my time to be worth more than $6 (or $3.90 with E-ZPass), not to mention cost of the additional gas used during the extra half-hour on the road.

Shott, by the way, was the delegate who said the toll increase was an act of betrayal of the caliber of Rich Rodriguez's

defection to Michigan.

@tag:Reach Phil Kabler at ph...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1220.