Pocahontas County Commission Learns that Rules need to be Set at East Cass Community Park Because of Unruly Behavior.
David Cain appeared before the County Commissioners at their meeting on Tuesday, 6/16/15 to let them know about a major quality of life issue occurring in the East Cass Community Park.
“There’s been a lot of vandalism up there” Cain says. “They burned picnic tables, there’s been shots fired over there at midnight, people come over there and camp, they have drunken parties. There’s beer cans and trash lying all around.”
CAIN says that while the other two parks in the county have posted rules, he found out that there are no rules for East Cass Community Park after a Sheriff’s Deputy told him that was the case.
“The Sheriff’s been called on a few occasions, one of which, I think was some people over there with a gun firing shots” said Cain. “I think that was last year. But he (the Sheriff Deputy) says that people can drink over there because there are no rules.”
The Commissioners decided that they needed to set the Pocahontas County Parks and Recreation rules not just for East Cass Park, but for all parks which are owned or controlled by the County Commission. The Motion was made.
“Motion to adopt Pocahontas County Parks and Recreation rules for any parks owned or operated by the County Commission” Commission Administrative Assistant Sue Helton said after being asked to read the motion into the Record.
“The motion has been made” said Commission President Bill Beard. “Is there any discussion on the motion?…no other discussion, any objections to the motion that’s been presented? The motion passes unanimously.”
The Commissioners also heard an hour long presentation/question and answer session with Snowshoe Mountain Inc. Representative Frank DeBerry about the current status of the Resort Area District , known as the RAD for Snowshoe Mountain. A lot of facts were put forth and the Commissioners fired some very blunt questions at Mt. DeBerry. This session will be presented in detail in an upcoming story.
Pocahontas County Assessor Tom Lang appeared before the County Commission to request that the Commission create a new position of Full Time Deputy Assessor/Mapper at a salary of $12.00 per hour. He also requested that the position be filled by moving his current part time employee James Boggs into this full time position. Lang explained that the position is needed because of the amount of work. The position will be paid for out of the Property Evaluation Fund. The Commissioners passed a motion to do this.
The Commissioners reappointed Amon Tracy to the Public Service District for a new six year term to expire on 6/30/2021.
The issue of the Commission owned boat was brought up again. At the last meeting, Commission Attorney, Bob Martin, was assigned to find out where the boat was, which fire Department was operating it and if the operators were licensed and if the boat was properly insured. Mr. Martin reported to the Commission that he spoke to Chief Herb Barlow of the Marlinton Fire Department who told him that the boat is stored in the building at Edray and they use it on occasion. The Chief says that the Fire Department has three trained boat operators and would like to either acquire ownership of the boat or lease it. The Commissioners decided that they need to research whether either of those options would be acceptable in terms of the Homeland Security Grant which acquired the boat for the County. This will be researched and brought up again at a future meeting.
The Commissioners again took up the issue of removing the 6 trees on the front lawn of the Courthouse. After an expert looked at the trees and decided that only two of them needed to come down and proper trimming may save the other four, the Commissioners voted to take down the two damaged trees and replace them with 8-10 foot sugar maple trees.
Tammie Alderman made her monthly update on the Pocahontas County Day Report Center.
Finally, the Commission approved the first reading of a proposed new County Ordinance which will set up an emergency towing policy for the 911 Center to follow when vehicles have to be towed. This was drafted by the Commission’s Attorney and is similar to the informal policy used currently in the 911 Center. It still employs a rotational policy among towing companies, but disallows so called “scanner jumping” where a tow truck hears another company being dispatched to a tow and they rush there to do the tow before the dispatched company arrives.