Tim Walker
AMR Reporter
Despite questions being raised about the legality of holding such a vote at this time, three members of the Pocahontas County Solid Waste Authority – Darrell Roach, Gail Siers and Nancy Harris – voted for Siers to be the new Chairman of the SWA, and Nancy Harris to be the new Vice-Chairman. The vote on each was three to two, with only David Henderson and Phillip Cobb voting against Siers and Harris. In a strange twist, Henderson continued to conduct the remainder of the meeting as if the vote had not occurred.
Siers addressed the meeting during member comments, saying his first choice for the future of the SWA is to have the SWA haul the trash itself directly from the green boxes to neighboring county landfills after this county’s landfill closes.
Harris said her first preference is to expand the current landfill, but if that doesn’t work out, she would also support the SWA hauling the trash itself. Harris also called for a committee to be put together to come up with a plan for the future. She passed around a sign-up sheet for members of the audience who were interested in serving on such a committee.
She said she and Darrell Roach will be members of that committee. When the sheet was passed to this reporter, Harris jumped down and grabbed it, fearing it would be photographed. Under the West Virginia Open Meetings Act, any such list becomes public record when it is passed around in an open public meeting. There was also no announcement made that membership of that committee will be advertised publicly giving members of the general public an opportunity to join in the decision-making process. As it appears to stand now, only those who were present at this meeting will be invited to be on the committee and make recommendations for the future of waste disposal in the county. There may be West Virginia Open Meeting Law issues with that and with committee meetings, depending on how those are conducted.
During the public comment portion of the meeting –which happened before the vote – a number of the forty or so members of the public in attendance spoke. Several, including Marcy Crabtree, condemned Hender- son’s performance as Chairman and wanted him to resign from the board. Others proudly said the board is now under the control of the three newest members, and that the “old board members” are corrupt. Many said they absolutely don’t want a transfer station. Several speakers said they, and the three newest board members, represent the vast majority of the residents of Pocahontas County because if they didn’t, lots of other people would show up at the meetings to oppose their positions. One speaker asked for a show of hands of the audience of the people who support Nancy Harris’ positions. Just about everyone in the audience raised their hands and cheered. No one raised their hands when asked if they supported the decisions of the prior board.
It is very rare that any new people of any persuasion show up at these meetings.
Mike Murphy complained that the green box bills have still not been mailed out, and member Phillip Cobb blamed the audience, saying that two Administrative Secretaries have quit because of nasty phone calls they were getting, which Cobb implied came from some of the people who attend these meetings. He said these secre- taries had been working to get the bills out. SWA Attorney David Sims said part of the billing problem is the billing system is 20 years old and they need to manually get the current list of property owners and their current mailing addresses from the Assessor’s Office in order to send out bills, which is time-consuming. One member of the audience identified herself as an employee of the Assessor’s Office and disputed that, saying the names and addresses are computerized and could easily be made available. The date for the early payment discount has been extended from September to November 15 by the board because of the billing delay.
John Burks presented the 2024-2025 Fiscal year SWA Financial Report, saying it shows that landfill expenses were about $1,100,000 that year with about 7,000 tons of construction or demolition debris being taken to the landfill at a cost of about $153 dollars a ton, but the tipping fee for that was only $95 per ton, causing about a $58 loss per ton. He said that loss was passed on to the people paying the Green Box fees.
The members also met in Executive Session with Jacob Meck and his attorney but did not take any action when they returned to open session.
Meck has a letter of intent signed by the SWA board at its February 25, 2026, meeting. It guarantees that if the project is canceled by the SWA, the SWA will reimburse JacMal Industries for up to $200,000 for expenses incurred for things such as architect drawings and down payments on equipment purchases.
The members also voted to scrap the 3-minute limit for public speakers at meetings, and will now require public input be included on all meeting agendas.
