Decisions Announced and Made at Special SWA Meeting
The June 10th Pocahontas County Special Solid Waste Authority (SWA) meeting was again held in the Circuit Courtroom because there were over 50 citizens attending. Compared to other recent SWA meetings, the audience was noticeably less disruptive.
The first substantial action the members took at this meeting was to withdraw their Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Greenbrier Valley Economic Development Corporation (GVEDC.) They had signed that when they were planning to adopt Jacob Meck’s proposal to have his company, JacMal Properties LLC, build and equip a transfer station on some land at the County Landfill. The SWA, under that proposal, would operate that transfer station built by JacMal LLC when that landfill closes. Under that MOU, a small portion of county landfill property where the transfer station was to be built, would be temporarily transferred to the GVEDC. This was being done to remove the property tax charges which Meck would pay but pass on to the SWA as a project cost. Doing this would help reduce the cost of the project to county residents at least a little. The GVEDC, being the county’s official Economic Development Agency, routinely does this to help companies start up, or expand in the county. Even without the property taxes being added, the Meck Proposal would have cost 4.1 million dollars over 15 years. When withdrawing that MOU, the SWA explained that since they are planning to bid out the project, the MOU no longer serves any purpose. They then passed a motion to put the Transfer Station Project out to open bid.
David Sims, the SWA’s Attorney also went over a stack of folders which he said were complaints to the WV Public Service Commission (PSC) by citizens of the county who opposed the SWA’s acceptance of JacMal LLC proposal. Because of poor acoustics in the courthouse, it was very difficult to hear the details of each of these complaints, but they all alleged that the SWA had acted improperly in voting to accept that proposal. Some of these were dismissed, and others are pending further action or litigation by the PSC. Sims agreed to send us a summary of these cases, but they have not yet been received.
Sims also provided information about the disposition of the three cases filed with the WV ethics Commission against individual SWA Board members. Sims did provide us with a summary of these.
- Case #VCRB 2026-40 was filed by June Taylor against SWA member David McLaughlin.
- Case #VCRB 2026-41 was filed by June Taylor against SWA member Phillip Cobb
- Case #VCRB 2026-42 filed against SWA Chairman David Henderson.
The allegations were basically the same in each of these cases: that the member voted to approve the JacMal Transfer Station Proposal, they had a financial conflict of interest, they were not impartial in their decisions, they had conflicts of interests, and they used their offices for private gain.
The WV Ethics Commission dismissed each of these cases since no violation of law within the jurisdiction of the Ethics Commission was presented, so no further action will be taken on these. It should be noted that SWA Board Members are unpaid volunteers.
Also at the meeting, there were discussions about possibly adding a new Green Box site near Snowshoe, and they announced that they will be considering the applicants for the SWA’s Office Administrator position, and will make a decision on who they will hire at their next meeting.
Now that the Transfer Station will be put out for bid, a number of uncertainties and questions still remain:
- How many bids will the SWA receive for their future Transfer Station?
- What will these bids cost and look like?
- Will the life of the current landfill be extended, and for how long?
- Will there be enough time for the lengthy bidding process to occur and for the required permits and construction to be completed to prevent a disastrous period where the landfill has been closed and there is no public trash disposal process in the county?
- Will the community be satisfied with the results of the bidding process even if it were to be won by JacMal Properties or by another bidder at an equal or higher cost than the JacMal LLC Proposal?
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