The Kanawha County Commission will join the city of Charleston, the state of West Virginia and three other cities in the state in suing West Virginia Paving over an alleged monopoly.
Commissioners voted unanimously Wednesday morning to join the lawsuit filed in Kanawha County Circuit Court.
A complaint filed last week by Charleston alleges that West Virginia Paving Inc. and several of its sister companies have violated the state's Antitrust Act.
The lawsuit alleges a "brazen statewide monopolization scheme" led by West Virginia Paving that illegally inflated the cost of asphalt, forcing cities to pay up to 40 percent more for it than they should have. WV Paving, in a news release, said "there is no factual or legal basis for the lawsuit."
Since 2007, Kanawha County has spent more than $822,000 on paving projects from WV Paving, Andrew Gunnoe, the deputy county manager and fiduciary supervisor, said in an email to the Gazette-Mail. More than $600,000 of that amount was part of a project to build a new bridge in Cookskin Park, Gunnoe said. Yeager Airport paid more than $550,000 to WV Paving in the same time period, Gunnoe said.
"I understand a lot of our paving is subsidized by state and federal funds; that's not the point," commission President Kent Carper said. "It's public funds. My observation is this: If their allegations are true - they had two companies competing with one another after they signed an agreement or a representation that they were independent - there's a word for that."
Complaints also were filed in other circuit courts on behalf of the cities of Parkersburg, Beckley and Bluefield. The West Virginia Department of Transportation and Division of Highways, on Friday, also filed an antitrust lawsuit against West Virginia Paving and other asphalt companies.
Carper said he's also requesting that other county agencies - such as Yeager Airport, Parks and Recreation, Kanawha County Ambulance Authority, the Kanawha Valley Regional Transportation Authority, the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department, Metro 911 and various public-service districts - decide whether to join the lawsuit.
"They need to look at it and put this on their agenda and vote on it," Carper said. "I know [Yeager] Airport is going to do just that."
County officials plan to meet with Yeager officials and attorney Mike Hissam to discuss joining the lawsuit, Carper said.
A call to Yeager Airport director Terry Sayre went unreturned Wednesday.
"West Virginia Paving is actually a very good company," Carper said. "We've done business with them for years. They're a good trades organization. They have good employees. This is not about that. This is about the status of the roads in this country and county."
Also Wednesday, Carper said he'd met earlier this week with Bill Abruzzino, owner of Atlanta-based Plaza Management, which owns the Crossings Mall in Elkview. The mall's culvert bridge washed away in the June 23 flooding.
The county has issued a building permit for the construction of a new bridge, but work has not started. County officials have done everything they can to pressure the property owner to move forward with the bridge, Carper said.
The mall is on private property, Carper said. The state and federal government are not in a position to tell the owner to rebuild the bridge, he said.
"I will just say this: Assuming they move forward and show some progress soon - I would define soon as very soon - if that doesn't happen, then we'll have to see whether or not we're in a position to put any additional pressure [on]," Carper said.
Carper said all options - including a lawsuit - are on the table. He said it would have been easy to "beat up" on the owner, whom much of the public is angry with, but he thinks his job is to meet with the developer, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies and help move the project along.
In other business Wednesday, the commission:
n Delayed choosing a CPA firm to do the county's annual audit. Three agencies have bid for the project: Gibbons & Kawash; Suttle & Stalnaker; and Perry & Associates.
Gibbons & Kawash, which had the highest score from a committee rating the firms, had a bid of $89,000, which is about $30,000 more than the $60,000 the county budgeted for an audit. Carper called the bid excessive and said it's "radically" more than what the county wants to pay.
The commissioners agreed to seek permission from the state Auditor's Office to negotiate the CPA firm's price down. Carper said the audit would be put on the commission's next meeting, slated for Nov. 1.
n Approved a $30,000 annual contribution from coal severance to the Kanawha Valley Senior Services. The funds will support the agency's transportation, Alzheimer's and health and wellness programs, Executive Director Paulette Justice said.
n Voted to set its board of review meetings for 8:30 a.m. each Tuesday in 2017.
Reach Lori Kersey at Lori.Kersey@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1240 or follow @LoriKerseyWV on Twitter.