By Stephen Smoot
“We thank You very much for the opportunity to be here,” prayed Roger Dahmer, Pendleton County commissioner, in the opening invocation. He added “Father, we pray that You be in these proceedings.”
Carl Hevener, Pendleton County Commission president, opened with “I’d like to thank the division of highways, Rick Gillespie and the office of emergency management, and everybody who volunteered to help over the last week to 10 days.” County business and commerce had ground to a complete halt after the snow and sleet storm two weekends ago.
Karen Pitsenbarger, Pendleton County administrator, discussed in her maintenance report several needs for the Clinton Hedrick Community Center in Riverton. First, with bitterly cold temperatures still in force, snow still blocked the parking lot of the building. Pitsenbarger reported that the fuel truck driver who came to service the building could not get close enough to make the delivery.
Jimmie Bennett, commissioner, stated that he “will find somebody to make sure it’s plowed” and mentioned that he could perform the job himself. He said, “It’s mainly to get the fuel in there. I know they’re getting pretty low.”
The building also has issues with plumbing and drainage, but Pitsenbarger informed the commission that crews had carefully examined the building and its pipes and could not ascertain the sources of the problems. Discussion over an issue with insufficient hot water led to a determination that if turning up the hot water heater did not help, Pitsenbarger conceded, “We might have to get a new hot water heater over there. They’re having dinners over there.”
She added that she had a number of questions asked about the community building with offices moving to the new General Services Center. A number of organizations have events scheduled in the community building. Pitsenbarger stated that “we will give notice if previously scheduled events have been changed.”
Diana Mitchell, Director of Pendleton 911, shared that her dispatchers “relayed to me what a good job they did with snow removal.” Gillespie, Pendleton County Emergency Services coordinator, added, “I’d really like to compliment the DoH. You can only do removal of that stuff so fast.” He also noted that the “tired” heavy graders brought forth to clear tons of compacted sleet ran into issues. One from the Franklin garage broke down. “Hopefully Charleston will realize that they at last need a new grader,” he said.
Additionally, he noted, “We were very fortunate to not have any power outages. That was a blessing.” By the time of the meeting, some had endured without power between eight and 10 days in Southern West Virginia counties.
Commissioner Bennett asked about contract drivers temporarily employed by the DoH for plowing. Surrounding states have done this for years, but West Virginia started a pilot project recently in and around Morgantown. Hevener suggested that “they need to test that in rural areas, not in town,” due to the broadened spectrum of challenges in caring for roads in outlying areas.
Gillespie provided an update on renovations to the General Services Center. “They’re doing a really good job up there,” he stated. He described progress on work done to create spaces for the Pendleton County Office of Emergency Management, West Virginia University Extension, and other offices making to move this winter.
Commissioners also approved appointing Kristin Dingess as the Town of Franklin representative on the new planning commission. Dingess, a town council member, is also a board member for the Pendleton County Chamber of Commerce.
