Commissioners agree on minutes, may leave association
Following a flare-up over the wording of meeting minutes from June 25, the Morgan County Commissioners put the matter to rest last Thursday by approving modified minutes on a motion by Commissioner Tommy Swaim.
Commission President Brenda Hutchinson said she listened to the tape recording of the June 25 meeting before including wording suggested by Swaim regarding the county's membership in the West Virginia Association of Counties.
At the July 2 commission meeting, both Swaim and Hutchinson refused to accept the minutes because they felt each other's clarifications were inaccurate.
At issue was a $5 deduction from each elected official's paycheck that was supposed to be pooled to supplement the $5,000 dues for the WV Association of Counties.
The deduction dated back to 2000, when the commission voted to set that money aside to cover time spent by the trade organization to lobby for officials' pay raises.
Hutchinson said she didn't know that's what the $5 was being taken for, and she didn't support lobbying for pay raises either.
The meeting minutes now include a sentence explaining how the
pay deduction came about.
Following their vote accepting the June 25 minutes, Hutchinson said Patty Hamilton of the West Virginia Association of Counties told her Morgan County doesn't have to be a member in order to get prescription discount cards for local residents.
Swaim said he thinks the $5,000 dues are excessive, given that each elected official already pays dues to their respective associations, like the West Virginia Prosecuting Attorney's Institute and West Virginia Association of Circuit Clerks.
"I think it's a duplication," he said.
Hutchinson recommended polling Morgan County's elected officials to see how they feel about dropping membership in the Association of Counties.
Commissioner Stacy Dugan confirmed that the county has not yet paid its $5,000 annual dues. Dugan volunteered to talk to local officials about letting the membership lapse.
Bids high for 911 generators
In other business, the commissioners opened two bids for generators and electrical systems to run 911 facilities in Morgan County in the event of a major power outage or disaster event.
911 Director Dave Michael said each company was bidding on four separate items — generators and switches for the Office of Emergency Services at the Rescue Squad, the county's main 911 tower, Paw Paw's 911 tower and an Emergency Operations Center at the Paw Paw Senior Center.
Barnhart Electrical Service of Hagerstown bid $166,250 for all four sites. Power Connection, Inc. of Dayton, Va. bid $151,019 for the same sites.
The commissioners asked Michael to compare the bids and make a recommendation for their July 16 meeting. Michael said his office only has a $95,000 Homeland Security grant for the project, so it's likely that not all of the sites can be done this year.
