Possible Action Considered Against Utility Companies Over Broadband Poles

At the December 16^th Pocahontas County Commission meeting, Ruthana Beezley, Amanda Smarr and Mike Holstine informed the commissioners that the construction on the Pocahontas County ARC Broadband Project has been halted in its tracks because both Mon Power and Frontier Communications have not made their poles ready to receive the installation of fiber by the project’s construction firm, Quanta. This is despite their having been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the project to do so.

Mike Holstine of the West Virginia Broadband Enhancement Council, said that this has been a state-wide issue even with other broadband projects. Ruthanna Beezley of the Greenbrier Valley Economic Development Corporation, suggested that some sort of legal response might be the only remedy. Holstine added that the WV Public Service Commission (PSC) has a rapid response task-force to handle these types of issues, and he said they may have to ask the commission to either attempt to solve it through that task force, or to take legal action against Mon Power and Frontier Communications to force them to perform the needed, and already paid for, improvements to their poles to make them ready to receive the project’s fiber lines.

It was announced that there will be a zoom consultation between lawyers of the parties on Friday, December 19^th to attempt to settle this issue, but if that is unsuccessful, the commission should already have scheduled a special meeting to authorize legal action or using the Public Service Commission’s Task force to solve it. The commissioners have scheduled a special meeting for Tuesday, December 23^rd to consider authorizing such actions, however that meeting will be cancelled if an informal settlement is reached Friday.

Region 4’s Amanda Smarr also asked the commissioners to approve draw request #23 from the ARC Broadband Project. She explained this is to pay a $4000.00 invoice from the project’s engineering firm, Thompson and Litton and a legal bill from their attorney in the amount of $3,150.00. the commissioners approved this.

The commissioners received only one bid for their purchase of gasoline for the county offices in 2026, and that was received one day late. Since it was the only bid, the commissioners are allowed to open it and consider it, which they did. They approved that bid from Woodford Oil in the amount of rack price plus 15 cents per gallon, which at today s rate would be $1.824 per gallon.

David Bland of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades made a presentation on all the services and training they provide state-wide.

They revisited their decision made last month to approve new contract with Network Solutions Group of WV to provide IT services and support for the courthouse offices as well as to terminate their old IT contract with Global Science Technologies. At this meeting, they suspended both of those approvals until a current lawsuit between those companies is settled.

Pocahontas County Solid Waste Authority (SWA) Member David McLaughlin came before the commission to once again ask for them to fund the future operations of the SWA in the amount of $300,000 per year. The commission was presented with a letter laying out sections of the WV Code which obligate county commissions to support their SWAs if needed. Problems with people not paying their green box fees, the legally cumbersome requirements which make it almost impossible to force payments, unauthorized people disposing of residential and even commercial trash in those boxes, and the upcoming added expense of disposing of waste via a future transfer station were cited as reasons this will be necessary once the landfill closes this fall. Commission President Rebinski remarked that the law does not specify the type or amount of financial support the commission is required to pay, and suggested that his previous proposal for the commission to assist elderly and needy people to pay the higher green box fees will satisfy the law and the SWA’s funding problems.  No action was taken on the SWA’s request.

They went into an executive session with David Skinner, their attorney in the Opioid litigation, to discuss his request to alter their claims in that ongoing lawsuit. Upon returning to open session, they granted him permission to do so.