Tim Walker
AMR Reporter
At the August 15 Pocahontas County Commission meeting, Commission President Walt Helmick spoke about the proposal to build a courthouse annex on the site of the old county jail.
He said he has been consulting with Historical Architect Bryson VanNostrand about the possibility of renovating the existing jail building and converting it into an annex, however the jail building is just too small for what is needed.
Helmick said he is considering the possibility of demolishing the existing jail and building a modern and larger courthouse annex on that site behind the courthouse. He likes the idea of designing the exterior of the annex to keep the same historical look as the existing jail building. Doing this, Helmick believes, might make tearing down the old jail more palatable to the people who run the National Registry of Historic Places. The entire courthouse complex, including the old jail, are currently listed on that registry.
Commissioner John Rebinski said he believes it was never the intention of the previous commission, when they placed the courthouse on the registry years ago, to include the jail building on the National Registry of Historic Places.
Both Helmick and Rebinski agree they can come up with the necessary money to demolish the jail and replace it with a new annex building on the same site, since they have not spent much of the American Rescue Plan mon-ey on wasteful projects, and Helmick believes they can also tap into the Hotel/Motel Tax revenues to help finance the project. Helmick said he would like to invite VanNostrand as well as Susan Pierce, the Director of the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office, to the commission meeting in September to hear their thoughts on all of this. He said the commission “needs to make a decision one way or the other” about the annex Helmick insists is badly needed because of over-crowding in the main courthouse.
The commission also agreed to send letters to Frontier Communications and Citynet, who were awarded areas in the county to develop broadband service by the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF.) These letters would request that both of these Internet service provider companies update the county on how they are meeting their deadlines for providing Internet service in the awarded areas. Ruthana Beasley told the commissioners that companies that received RDOF awards must complete 80% of their builds in their areas by 2026, and 100% by 2027, or face penalties. She said those percentages are based on the entire state, so it is very possible that a company like Frontier could build their entire 80% in other counties by 2026, yet not any in their Pocahontas County areas. These letters will ask the companies to provide specific updates about their RDOF progress in this county.
Tim Wade, of the Huntersville Historical Traditions, and Historic Architect Michael Giolus briefed the commission on the status of the reconstruction of the original Pocahontas County Clerk’s Office in Hunters-ville. He said that, unlike the bids they sent out last year, the new bids yielded a very reasonable bid of $54,170 to do a partial restoration on the exterior walls of the building. Because the bid was so reasonable, Wade asked the commission to authorize him to obtain an estimate from the construction company who won the bid on how much extra would be needed to finish the restoration on the interior of the building, which would include hanging dry wall which would resemble the original plaster, wood flooring and trim. Wade said he is thinking that could be done for about an additional $17,000, and between the $50,000 the commission has pledged, and the money Huntersville Historical Traditions has raised, that would be doable. The commission authorized Wade to ask for the estimate.
In other matters, the commission:
• approved the $24,979.00 Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG.)
• approved an $11,673.00 Budget Revision and Resolution for the Sheriff’s Department.
