Marlinton Town Council To Set Fees For Work Done By Town Employees On Private Property

Marlinton, WV – Marlinton Mayor Joe Smith says that the town’s ordinances and state code allow the town to collect fees from citizens for work done on their property by the town’s employees, but there are no standard fees set. Smith describes the situation.

“Periodically, we do work on private property” he says. “It is not necessarily intentional; it just has to be done. And the town is “a business” and we do not get paid for that type of work.”

Asked for an example, Smith gives two.

“The blue house over here on the other side of the bridge; we spent two days over there with a back hoe and 4 men; it was all on private property” says Smith.

“What were they doing?” asked Robin Mutscheller.

“Sewage” says Smith. “We were doing it trying to figure out what the problem was, and it ended up being her problem on her land. I’m a strong supporter of Pioneer Days, anybody who knows me knows that. But you know, this past Pioneer Days, the town employees spent three days working for Pioneer Days.”

He says the town is not being reimbursed for any of these types of services. He says by law they can and should be. Council asked the Mayor to develop a table of standardized fees for them to consider at the next meeting.

In other business, Jacob Meck asked the Council about several garbage disposal accounts for customers in the area around Pocahontas Memorial Hospital. Garbage collection for these customers was formerly done by the county disposal service, despite the fact that they are considered town accounts, subject to town garbage collection fees. In 2007, Meck purchased the county disposal service, including all of its customer accounts with the approval of the West Virginia Public Service Commission.

Meck says he has no problem with turning the accounts back over to the town, but he wants to be compensated for his purchase of those accounts.

“I’m certainly not necessarily fighting the Town as far as taking these over, I did pay for these accounts and I would certainly be interested in passing these accounts to the Town,” He says “However, I am making a mortgage on those; I did purchase these and I would like to be compensated for them.”

After more discussion, the Council asked the Mayor to get with the town’s attorney to clarify the situation so that the Council can take appropriate legal action.

In other action the Council

Approved paying Kanawha Stone for its work on the Storm Water Project

Adopted a Hazard Mitigation Plan recommended by Region IV Planning and Development

Set the date for the September meeting to be Tuesday, September 6th