The Kanawha County Commission voted Thursday to raise the county 911 service fees and delayed deciding both whether to join proposed litigation opposing relocating the West Virginia University Institute of Technology and whether to support an Obama administration plan to aid coalfield communities.
The commission's unanimous vote to raise the fees - which help pay for services from the Kanawha County Metro 911 center - came after no residents showed up to speak against it at a public hearing during Thursday's commission meeting.
Pending further approval by the state Public Service Commission, the fees will increase from $4 per month to $5.60 per month, or $19 per year, for residential phone customers and from $6.40 per month to $8.90 per month, or $30 per year, for business customers. Deputy Kanawha County Manager Andrew Gunnoe said he expects the increase would take effect in November.
"This is what it will take to continue answering the phones to protect not only the public, but also those that we send out to protect us all," Kanawha Commission President Kent Carper said.
The fees, which haven't been raised in about five years, only affect landline telephones. The state sets separate fees on cellphones. Since the last county fee increase, the number of landlines in Kanawha has dropped from 90,000 to 79,000, while calls to the 911 center have gone up by 40 percent.
"Memo the West Virginia Legislature, you wanna know how you fix roads?" Carper said. "Raise the revenue. That's why the roads are falling apart. Sometimes you just have to raise the revenue."
John Shaheen, an Elkview-based certified public accountant, said he determined that the rate increase was needed, saying "bottom line, cash will be exhausted by the end of next year."
Johnny Rutherford, who serves as both sheriff and 911 director for the county, told commissioners 90 percent of calls to Metro 911 are answered within three rings.
Commissioners also declined to decide whether to join a proposed lawsuit against West Virginia University regarding its decision to move WVU Tech from Montgomery - where the school has been for 120 years - to the former Mountain State University campus in Beckley.
On Sept. 1, WVU's Board of Governors approved the move, which still must be OK'd by the state Higher Education Policy Commission, but it's been suspected since at least the start of this year, when WVU offered to buy the MSU campus for $8 million as part of a more than $18.5 million settlement with former MSU students. Former students sued MSU after it lost its general accreditation in 2012, leaving them with credits that wouldn't transfer and degrees from the unaccredited school.
Fayette County Commissioner Matt Wender told the Gazette-Mail his commission voted unanimously last week to join any lawsuit against WVU over the issue, if one were filed. He said he's discussing the issue with a committee of about 30 people, including Upper Kanawha Valley residents, WVU Tech students, alumni and faculty and elected officials representing the area. He said he may try to turn the group into a nonprofit.
Before an audience of about 50 people - including Montgomery Mayor Jim Higgins, Kanawha Delegate Nancy Guthrie, Fayette state Sen. Bill Laird and others - Wender asked the Kanawha commission to agree to join whatever suit is filed.
"Our general practice is not to agree to a lawsuit before we can see what it looks like," Carper replied.
Though he said at a commission meeting earlier this month that the move is a "clear violation of state law," citing a current law stating "the headquarters of West Virginia University Institute of Technology remains in Montgomery."
Carper said it would only take a vote by the Legislature to change the language, and said "headquarters" isn't defined. He differentiated the situation from the Kanawha commission's successful effort to years ago to prevent the headquarters of the West Virginia Lottery Commission from moving to Putnam County, noting the lottery headquarters' location in Charleston was enshrined in the state's constitution, which takes more to change.
"The Legislature can put an end to this, just like that," Carper said with a snap of his fingers.
He said WVU board's chairman, Charleston attorney Thomas V. Flaherty, called him Wednesday and said they were "more than willing to have a serious dialogue," but Carper said he still doesn't see the university changing its mind.
Rob Alsop, WVU's vice president for legal, government and entrepreneurial engagement, assured Wender and Kanawha commissioners that WVU would have a conversation with them and other community leaders about what the future of WVU Tech's current facilities will be. Though Wender said he's wanted a conversation about WVU Tech's future for a year - beyond closed-door meetings with WVU officials that he said gave few new details - and said WVU's "promises are of little value" he said he's willing to sit down.
He said he'll have to discuss with his group what alternatives they might accept short of stopping WVU Tech's move to Beckley altogether. Carper said if he's invited to the conversation, it won't be a closed meeting.
Kanawha commissioners also decided Thursday to not vote to sign a resolution urging West Virginia's congressional delegation to support Obama's Power Plus Plan to funnel nearly $5 billion in various economic aid to struggling coalfield communities, after Commissioner Dave Hardy said he felt the resolution read like an "epitaph for the coal industry." During the meeting - which West Virginia Coal Association President Bill Raney attended, but did not speak in - Hardy introduced his own resolution opposing the plan.
As part of a tense back and forth between Carper and Ted Boettner - the executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, and the person who asked to put the original resolution on the agenda - Boettner asked what exactly made the resolution sound negative on coal. The commission almost approved Hardy's resolution opposing the plan before deciding to put off the issue.
Reach Ryan Quinn
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