Tim Walker
AMR Reporter
At its January 4 meeting, the Pocahontas County Commission voted to write a letter to the State Historical Preservation Office requesting that the county’s Jail Building be removed from the National Registry of Historic Places. At an earlier meeting in the fall, representatives from that office had advised the commission that writing that letter would be the first step in the process.
The commission wants to demolish the jail building to make way for a new courthouse annex on that site. It was explained that they can demolish it without removing it from the registry, but if they do, no federal funds can be used to demolish it or to build or equip the new annex. During the current meeting, commission president Walt Helmick said that if they are not successful in removing the jail from the registry, they will have to use all local funds to build the new annex.
The commission re-elected Helmick as commission president for 2022 and retained the same county commission board appointments as they had in 2021.
They read a notice from the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission containing the final supplemental impact statement for the Atlantic Coast Pipe-line (ACP). It concerned the restoration projects that the ACP is required to do to stabilize the lands affected by the ACP’s previous pipeline construction efforts in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. They include:
• Leaving all of the already installed pipeline in place (31.4 miles.)
• Restore all lands cleared and graded (82.7 miles.)
• Leave felled trees in place where they have not yet been cleared (25.2 miles.)
They also provided a copy of a letter to all county commissions in West Virginia suggesting they all oppose the Property Tax Modernization Amendment to the West Virginia constitution. That amendment will be on the 2022 General Election ballot for ratification. The letter states, if passed, it would would eliminate the personal property tax on equipment, inventory and motor vehicles. The letter said this would eliminate a major funding tool for county governments, municipalities and boards of education without offering any plans on how to implement this change, or any guaranteed revenue replacement source for local governments. Commissioner John Rebinski is very concerned about the impact on Pocahontas County if this amendment passes, and he wanted to let the public know the negative local ramifications if it does. It should be noted that the article from the December 21 commission meeting incorrectly referred to this tax as the “personal income tax” and it should have read “personal property tax.”
The commission heard from Dave Dragan and Mark Smith of the Public Service District (PSD) who talked about the Thornwood water project. Smith said they expect to receive $2 million from a Small Cities Community Block Grant to build a waterline from Bartow to Thornwood, to include the 4-H Camp and Hidden Meadows Camp. He said until this is built they will need a water tank truck to keep those camps supplied with potable water during the summer. Mike O’Brien said he can request a water truck from the state, but there are a lot of expensive regulations required for stored drinking water, such as frequent water changes and testing.
Smith said they may need an additional $150,000 from the county and or the Durbin American Rescue Plan funds and the $50,000 that the county was granted by the state more than 20 years ago to drill a water well at Thornwood – which was never done. The commission said it would have to see what happened with that money and if it is still available.
Smith said they have already funded the Frank –Bartow sewer project and construction will begin in April. He also said they need $201,516 in ARP funds to replace the outdated control panel, instruments and 14 valves in the Durbin water plant.
In other business, despite Johnny Dean’s suggestion that the trial period should extend until June for allowing Fire/ EMS Incident Commanders to call for tow trucks (from the rotational list at accident scenes) the commission agreed to place the first reading of the amended county towing ordinance on the January 18 meeting agenda.
The trial period has been ongoing since last spring, and even Dean said there have been no problems. He said he wanted to see how well it worked in the winter before amending the ordinance.
Cree Lahti, Director of the Pocahontas County Libraries and Visitor Information Centers, gave an update. She said the libraries are now fully operational with no COVID restrictions, and the West Virginia Library Commission has increased the speed on the library’s proprietary broadband network from 1 mg per second to 300 mg per second.
In addition, the commission:
• agreed to allow the MTA to park buses at the former Hanover Shoe building parking lot.
• agreed to have the 911 Center pick up half of the $42,345 cost of the Aerial Imagery for the county, with the County Assessor picking up the other half. Commissioner Rebinski included in this motion that, in future years, money be budgeted for this expense and the 911 Center’s share be reduced.
• scheduled the 2022 Board of Review and Equalization Hearing dates as follows:
• February 1 at 10 a.m.
• February 4 at 10 a.m.
• February 8 at 10 a.m.
• February 11 at 10 a.m.
• February 15 at 5:45 p.m. followed by adjournment.
The Pocahontas County Commission meets the first Tuesday of the month at 8:30 a.m. and the third Tuesday of the month at 5:30 p.m. in the county commission conference room.
