County Commission Rejects Sims Proposal to Include Green Box Fees with Tax Tickets

At the May 19^th County Commission meeting, David Sims, the Attorney for the Pocahontas County Solid Waste Authority (SWA,) asked the commissioners to pass an ordinance to direct the Sheriff to add a separate line item to his tax tickets for the annual green box fees. He said this line item would not be a tax nor enforceable as tax liens like property taxes are, but people would be more likely to pay their green box fees if they received them along with their annual tax tickets. Sims cited WV Code 11A-1-8B as allowing this inclusion by county commissions, and WV Code 22C-410 says anybody who occupies a residence or a business must pay a trash disposal fee or be fined $150.00. Sims said it would state on the tax ticket that the fee is not part of their property taxes.

Sims went on to explain the need for this. He said the SWA is currently owed about $264,000 in unpaid judgements for green box fees people did not pay over the years. That, he said, is more money than the SWA has as available funds. He added that 529 people owe green box fee money to the SWA, including 168 people just last year who have not paid it.

There were a large number of people signed up to speak against the SWA and this proposal, however, Commission President John Rebinski said legal research on this proposal by an attorney discovered that the section of law allowing the commission to place fees on tax tickets through ordinance, only applies to fees owed to the county government, not to a semi-state agency like the SWA, so the commission cannot pass the ordinance Sims proposed.

Among the many people who spoke as hear callers at the meeting, Nancy Harris said she and some people were spending their own money to file a lawsuit that, if successful, would prevent the SWA from implementing the proposed transfer station.

Some people proposed solving the green box fee issues by using vehicle stickers for authorized paying residents only to dispose trash in the green boxes, and use cameras to enforce it. Landfill Manager Chris McComb said cameras have been tried before but people steal or shoot them, and unauthorized users just pile trash, including commercial, demolition and appliances waste outside the gates when they can’t get inside.

Someone suggested placing green boxes in public places so people can report abusers of them. Other suggestions included breaking down the green box fees into 12 monthly payments.

Many spoke out against Sims proposal to include the fee on their tax bills.

Also at the meeting, Charles Evans of the Snowshoe Area Recreation Collaborative (SHARC) asked the commissioners to appoint Zen Clements to the Mountaineer Trail Network Recreation Authority and to allow them increased parking at the former ARC Building in Marlinton, and the commissioners approved those requests.

The commissioners also took the following actions at the meeting:

• Approved posting the zoom recording of their meetings onto Facebook in addition to the live Zoom Feed during the meeting.
• They approved payment Resolution #21 in the amount of $29,661.66 for the EPA Tannery Clean-up project.
• At the request of Mountain Heart/North Central Community Action, they declared May to the “Community Action Month.”
• They approved the settlement of the county boundary discrepancies between the County Boundary Attestation and the U.S. Census Boundary and Annexation Survey. These were minor and involved mostly differences in corner locations in Durbin and Marlinton.
• They certified the list of Delinquent Real Estate and Personal Property for Tax Year 2025.
• Amanda Smarr of Region 4 provided the commissioners with an update regarding the Broadband Project’s disputes with First Energy over that company failing to make their poles ready for the ARC Broadband Project’s contractor to string project fiber on them, which First Energy had been paid to do. Smarr said First Energy is fixing the poles now, and will reimburse the project any additional costs this has caused.