08 February 2014, Vol.1, No.3 > OP
ED by County Commission
Candidate Pattti Heinemann, Democrat / Northern District / Pocahontas County
The POCAHONTAS CRIER
(Part
of The Crier Coalition of Internet News Services comprised of
The
Pocahontas Commentator, The Pocahontas Crier,
Signal
Fires of WV & Echoes from the Holl’r)
Candidate’s Statement - Patti Heinemann
I would like to
introduce myself to you, the voters, and citizens of Pocahontas
County as a candidate running for the
office of County Commissioner
First let us
speak about the so-called ‘waste-storage’
project that’s been proposed for the Green Bank District. My own back yard! Waste management obviously has merit and
deserves to be considered – but it must be DONE CORRECTLY
by Law – and with several stipulations.
Obviously no project like this can be inspected
and approved by the owner/operator even if he holds a construction position
with the state that allows him to self-inspect building projects. For
the purposes of ethical behavior, he needs to recuse himself and have other
state inspectors perform this necessary duty.
Also, after speaking with a company already performing cleansing and
recycling of human waste located in Elkins, I found there
are strict EPA regulations for such a project that include processing and
filtering that are NOT included in the current proposal. In fact the
current proposal is to allow the sun to dry human waste stored in six large
50,000 gallon ‘open-pits’ &
100,000 gallon tanks and spread this human-sewage-waste on farm land as ‘fertilizer’ without compliance to any
EPA regulations, without any oversight, and with ‘self-inspections’! And we
all know NOW how ‘self-inspections’
has become a horrible-disaster for nine counties in southwest West Virginia
Laws are supposed
to be made for the protection of each & every Citizen. The EPA regulations
are there for our protection and I feel strongly these regulations and
procedures need to be followed by everyone. We cannot ignore our common environmental
protections, under the pretext of ‘jobs’,
so that seven or eight persons can be employed at our expense, health &
safety! Especially in light of the fact
over 300 persons who reside in the Green Bank area signed a petition against
any such proposal! Since Snowshoe &
Silver Creek Resorts, owned by Intrawest & Fortress corporations, will be
the primary beneficiaries of the septic-sewage-storage-service as currently
proposed, and since Intrawest & Fortress already own approximately 12,000
to 15,000 acres, why is a septic-sewage-storage-project such as this being
proposed for the middle of the Green Bank community, a mile or so south of the
NRAO tourist attraction, in a commercial & residential area – instead of
located within the thousands-of-acres already owned by Intrawest &
Fortress? Why
doesn’t Donald Trump, head of Fortress, put this human-toxic-waste in HIS
BACKYARD? Does it not make sense
that the location for this proposal be located out of site from our main source
of income, our tourists and from the residents of the community homes, Senior Center
Instead, our
current county commissioners have abdicated & neglected their specific
responsibilities and allowed a private-corporation calling itself ‘a quasi-government organization’, known
as the ‘Greenbrier Valley Economic
Development CORPORATION’ (GVEDC) to
make all the decisions concerning all phases of so-called ‘economic-development’ for this county – including turning Green
Bank into a human-sewage-storage site for Snowshoe & Silver Creek! The SCHEME of the
GVEDC is to take control of all county land held in common by each of us
Citizens, to then obtain government grant-money to build buildings, as they did
in Edray, and then RENT the buildings to businesses – AND TAKE ALL THE RENTAL
FEES BACK TO GREENBRIER COUNTY for their pockets & next scheming – just as
they have done at the former Howes Leather property! Isn’t that exactly how the GVEDC wants to
rebuild Marlinton? Put all the property
in the name of the GVEDC, let the GVEDC get grant-money from TAXPAYERS-FUNDS,
then RENT all new stores back to the current property-owners so the GVEDC can
control all funds! The GVEDC even wants
the $150,000.00 ‘development-grant’
money to study rebuilding Marlinton! To add insult to injury, the GVEDC even charges our current
county commission a ‘membership-fee’
in order to steal our land & county funds! Why do we not have a county-run development
authority for economic development with county interests in the agenda, instead
of continually being ‘ripped-off’ by
a so-called ‘quasi-government’
private corporation?
Another issue
concerning Snowshoe & Silver Creek is the
state legislative plans to ALLOW COUNTY COMMISSIONS TO CREATE a ‘Resort Area District’ (RAD) for
Intrawest & Fortress whereby they can charge additional property ‘fees’ upon homeowners besides the
property taxes already paid to the state & county! In this manner,
Intrawest & Fortress can dump its current $1.5 BILLION DEBT upon RAD
property-owners! They will also police
the RAD themselves with ‘Rangers’
including their own jails, fines & rules, much like the old idea of a ‘WORK CAMP’ company store! All property & businesses within the RAD
would be under the control of Intrawest & Fortress – just imagine Donald Trump telling you what to do with your
property! BUT let me ask, what
happened to all these company-run operations in the past? Were the loggers in
Cass not similar in fact to ‘slaves’
owned by the logging company; or the coal miners struggling to exist at the
turn of the century working for the owners of the coal mines until the United
Mine Workers Union set them free!
Our Forefathers fought and died in the ‘Coal Field Wars’ at places like Blair Mountain to rid us all of
corrupt-places like this, yet Intrawest & Fortress wants the ‘company-store’ back again! Perhaps they’ve taken lessons from the GVEDC
in order to keep all Mountaineers in the ‘Poverty
Preservation Society’ (PPS) for everyone but themselves!
The
fact is, according to our own state legislature, the Intrawest & Fortress
DEBT now exceeds $1.5 BILLION as a direct & proximate result of the losses
suffered from the 2010 Winter Olympics! And that DEBT includes unpaid taxes to the
state & county! Now if you or I owed
taxes to the state & county, we’d either have to pay, or after a prescribed
amount of time the property would be sold at a tax-sale! Legally, after a certain amount of months,
generally 12 months, one can redeem their property by paying back the buyer at
the tax-sale the back-taxes plus interest, and the owner must continue to keep
their property taxes current. Should
this not also apply to a corporate business?
Even one as big as Intrawest & Fortress? Who really cares if Donald Trump has to
declare bankruptcy again, he’s done it before!
Yes, it’s true Snowshoe & Silver Creek employs many people from
Pocahontas, Randolph , and Greenbrier Counties
This
idea would also help protect the county property-owners from any ‘tax equalization scheme’! What is ‘tax
equalization’? This means since
property-owners in and around Snowshoe & Silver Creek pay a higher purchase
cost per/acre, they also pay a higher property tax! But if they asked for ‘tax equalization’, they could ask the county to lower their
per/acre tax-rate while forcing a rise in property taxes for everyone else,
whether in Durbin, Green Bank, Marlinton, and Hillsboro or everywhere
throughout the county! Yet the whole idea
of the state having a ‘severance-tax’
for all natural resources exploited, is for the very purpose of keeping
property-taxes low, while allowing public schools to be funded! With the current
low-wages paid in this county, it would be an extreme hardship if
property-taxes were to be raised for any reason in any manner! That’s why I believe that since the county commission has the authority by State
Law to create a ‘Resort Area District’
(RAD) to permit the RAD to undertake capital projects, such as a new
sewage-treatment-facility – that the county commission
INSURE a ‘checks & balances’
within any Charter establishing a RAD, so that no one is unfairly taken
advantage of, while the RAD is permitted to regulate & govern itself,
including zoning, WITHOUT affecting the rest of the county by drawing a
line-in-the-sand between the RAD and the rest of the county! Otherwise, draw a line in the sand & let
Snowshoe & Silver Creek ‘incorporate’
as a municipality like Durbin & Marlinton.
Or, better yet, let the State of West
Virginia
Finally I want to
discuss legal responsibilities of city, county, and state offices. Federal law prescribes regulations concerning
public office to create ‘checks &
balances’ and to prevent corruption and unethical behavior for all those in
public office. One
of these is that all government agencies not only submit a yearly budget but
also to have audits of public funds.
Our county has not been audited for about 20 years and the Pocahontas County
Also the PCSWA
has obtained ‘grants’ for the
specific purpose of ‘recycling’, yet
these funds and equipment has gone to a PRIVATELY OWNED recycling company for
them to make money instead of those funds going to offset the cost of operating
the open-dump-landfill – again working against existing state law!
Another issue,
state law permits only a certain number of sheriff’s deputies based on the
number of citizens in the county. Although our actual population is now is a
little over 8,300, the sheriff wants to include all the tourists who rent homes
and visit Snowshoe & Silver Creek
and elsewhere as part of the ‘population of the county’, and rightly
so, to provide enough sheriff officers to patrol this county. YET the Pocahontas County
These are just a few of the issues of
concern that I am sure effects all citizens. I am also aware many people are uninformed as
to these facts. This is why I am writing
to you now. I am Patti Heinemann and I am running for County Commissioner
Sincerely,
Patricia
A. (Patti) Heinemann, Green Bank
Email:
pocahontascrier@gmail.com
Website: www.crier88.blogspot.com
P.S.
> Now that the county has new 9/11 addresses assigned, the LAW requires that
we change our voter registration cards to reflect our new legal addresses
before the next election cycle in 2016.
Please make sure you either appear in person or mail in a new voter
registration form to change your address on your voter registration card. If you need a new voter registration
form…kindly contact me! Thanking you,
again…Patti
The Pocahontas Crier
is an independent Internet News Service that has so far endorsed two candidates
for County Commission ,
one a Republican & the other a Democrat – in addition to providing in depth
news reporting on important issues directly effecting the Citizens of Pocahontas County
IF YOU are registered to
vote as a Republican, you can vote for Norman Lee Alderman in the Primary Election on 13 May
2014 – or IF YOU are
registered to vote as a Democrat, you can vote
for Patti Heinemann in the primary election on
13 May 2014 – but if
you are not registered to vote, then you must register to vote on or before
22 April 2014 – and if you are registered to vote, but with no party
affiliation, then you MUST REQUEST LOUD & CLEAR either a Republican or
Democrat ballot on Primary Day & since Norman is unopposed, he recommends that you
requests a Democrat ballot to vote for Patti so that this county can again have
an Honest & Just commission!
Send comments & suggestions to: The Pocahontas Crier at pocahontascrier@gmail.com & if you wish to financially assist, kindly
send
all campaign
contributions to: The United Campaign for County
Commission (UCCC), c/o Citizens for Common Sense Alternatives (CCSA), a
registered Political Action Committee, 7837 Wesley Chapel Road, Green Bank,
West Virginia 24944-9063 ▼ Phone: 1.304.456.4565 or 3282 (also fax)
No comments:
Post a Comment