22 February 2014, Vol.1, No.6 > PPS
& its 25 years of Deceit!
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)
ENDING THE ‘POVERTY
PRESERVATION SOCIETY’ –
A Summary Review of 25
years of deceit!
Part
II – Special Report by Robyn Ewe Blyne, Investigative Journalist
The
information contained herein can be found in the public records of the Office
of the Circuit Clerk, the Office of the County Clerk
& old-newspapers at The Pocahontas Times.
As the fiasco with West Virginia Shoe was
unraveling in front of our eyes, another was taking place with the abandonment
of Howes Leather in Frank. For an untold number of years, Howes Leather was using some
of the most toxic-chemicals known to mankind that caused all sorts of ‘Cancers’ & ‘Tumors’ – yet these concerns were ignored pursuant to
the ‘ profits’ being made as a war-contractor! Howes Leather had a Vietnam
War-contract to waterproof-leather using toxic-chemicals so deadly that they
are now banned by all countries in the world, except the Israelis!
But as a direct & proximate
result of the closing of Hanover Shoe in
Marlinton, Howes Leather was not far behind, and unlike Hanover,
Howes was leaving behind the most toxic-waste-dump in
the State of West Virginia
at the time! The site at Frank
was so poisoned & polluted that the DEP estimated the cost to ‘clean-up’ the site would exceed $15
Million! But since Howes Leather contributed
to former State Senator Walt Helmick’s political campaigns – even though most
of the time Walt had no opposition, he took care of his ‘good-buddies’ – Howes Leather simply ‘donated’ their toxic-waste-dump in
Frank to Pocahontas County as a ‘new industrial
park’ – and took a quarter-of-a-million-dollar tax-deduction to boot! So instead of having to pay $15+ Million to
clean up their toxic-mess – Howes simply transferred their property to the
county commission! And the county
commission at the time, chaired by Dana Moyers, thought nothing about the
health or safety of the people of Frank or Durbin – and accepted title to the
toxic-dump – and that then made the people of Pocahontas County financially
responsible for the ‘clean-up’!
With ‘friends’ like that in public
office – who needs any enemies?
So what happened next? You guessed it! The county
commission made Walt Helmick the ‘Economic
Coordinator’ for the county in charge of the ‘clean up’! Walt set
out first to shave the ‘berms’ around
the toxic-sludge-pits from 10+ feet-wide down to less than 4 feet so that a
good rain would breach the berms and allow the toxic-waste to run into the
Greenbrier River. [Ed Note: For those who actually know the
individual that did the ‘shaving-of-the-berms’, that person is now dying a
slow-horrible-death from all the toxic-poisons he was around!]
But that wasn’t fast
enough, so Walt had a ‘large-siphon-hose’
inserted in the south end to drain the toxic-waste through the grass & into
the Greenbrier River!
And true to form, the berms finally gave way and 13 MILLION GALLONS of
toxic-waste & poison ran into the Greenbrier River – shutting down the water intake valves for over a week in Lewisburg
all the way to Hinton! But where were the screams from the self-styled ‘environmentalists’ here in the county
at the time? The silence was
deafening from the likes of Susan Burks who recently complained about the
chemical-spill in southwest West Virginia – yet at the
time, didn’t even give a ‘small-hoot’
about a poison spill here in Pocahontas County that was LARGER than the 11
Million gallon Exxon Valdez disaster
in Alaska!
The next order of business was the
‘accidental-fire’ that was started
allegedly by cutting torches at the time being used by Walt’s dad while Walt himself
was away in Charleston! And again, true to form, the local fire
department responded by pointing one-fire-hose towards the fire – only to have the
water arched to hit the foundation, not the roof from whence smoke was coming! Yep, in less than 20 minutes the whole place
was ablaze which of course contributed to the ‘clean-up’! Hey, come to
think of it, isn’t that similar to the recent Marlinton fire when the
fire-hoses missed the actual flames?
All together, well over three-quarters-of-a-million-dollars was
spent at Howes doing a ‘cosmetic-clean-up’
as far as doing a drive-by is concerned.
But only Our Creator knows for sure how many people & animals were
injured & affected when 13 Million-gallons of toxic-waste ran-down the Greenbrier River!
And less we forget, there are still toxic transformers with ‘PCB’ leaking, buried illegally on the
property which only a handful of folks know about – but those folks have been
the highest paid persons so far in receiving their ‘pensions’ as well as ‘hush-money’
from Howes Leather! So when you may
wonder why there has been such a high-rate of ‘cancer’ & ‘tumors’ found in this county – it is
not hard to figure when all ‘the dots’
are connected!
Well the next fiasco to take place
at Howes Leather was when the ‘Helmick-Manchin-cartel’
located in Clarksburg announced plans to turn Frank into a ‘tire-burning / medical-waste’ disposal operation using the
wood-fired boilers, etc. – and employ ‘6
workers’! But the land-transfer took
place without any public knowledge or approval as required by law! So a Citizen-Taxpayer lawsuit was filed and
the court ordered a referendum – which turned out to be so close – that Joe
Manchin’s-Group backed out of the deal! [Ed Note: At the time Joe Manchin III was running for governor as
often as he could and it took him over 16 years of effort – but all the
while Joe was being paid by Massey Coal for all his efforts and the public
records show that Joe Manchin III received well in excess of $50 MILLION from
Massey Coal Co. alone in campaign contributions!]
So not wanting to
disclose any of their finances – the ‘Manchin-Group’
just faded away! Ironically enough, you
would think that ‘clean-water &
clean-air’ would mean just that – ‘clean
& pure’’ – but that’s not the case when it comes to the DEP! Nope, since the air
here in Pocahontas County is considerably ‘cleaner’
than the air in South Charleston, the DEP allows so many ‘parts-per-million’ of dirt in both air & water – therefore
an old-tire & medical-waste-burning facility here in Pocahontas County
could have made our air as dirty as that of South Charleston! So once again, the Citizen-Taxpayer court
action saved Pocahontas
County from a fate worse
than death itself!
Additional Citizen-Taxpayer
lawsuits brought attention to the $50,000.00 provided by the Greenbrier Soil
Conservation District specifically designated for preventing bank-erosion along
the North Fork – that went instead to illegal expenditures made by both the ‘Economic Coordinator’ & the County
Commission – and that resulted in the county commission having to replace those
funds by taking $50K from the fund established to refurbish the Courthouse!
Another source of
contention was the ‘liens’ placed by both the First National Bank &
the Bank of Marlinton, at the time, against publicly-owned property without any
voter approval – not to forget those CDs
purchased with misdirected funds! As a direct & proximate result, both local banks were
ordered closed & sold to other banks by the U.S. Banking Commission since
the First National Bank had well in excess of $10 Million in unsecured ‘good-ole-boy’ loans outstanding within
the State of West Virginia! It’s not
hard to figure when a bank president can issue a ‘certified-check’ or ‘letter-of-credit’
for upwards to $50,000.00 to anyone of their choosing – without having to
obtain the approval from any loan committee!
Ever wonder why at any public-auction a handful of folks are able to buy
whatever they want? Chances are each has
a ‘certified-check’ for upwards to
$50K and they can pool those checks together to out-bid anyone else when they
make their ‘straw-purchases’!
Following the Flood of 1996 the ‘Poverty Preservation Society’ really
showed its dirty hands in keeping folks IN POVERTY rather than see them rise
with a fresh-start! Take for instance
those folks living on ‘Tannery-Row’
along the Greenbrier River behind the Hanover building across the river from Burns
Trucking. FEMA
gave each of those folks a check from approximately $10,000.00 to $25,000.00 or
so for their damaged homes so those folks could move to higher-ground and use
those funds as a down payment for a better and/or modular home. But instead of the First National Bank simply
‘writing-off’ the mortgages on those
same homes as a ‘tax-write-off’ – which is normally done by banks following
disasters – NOPE! Good-ole Phil Cain
visited each home and promised those folks that IF THEY WOULD GIVE HIM those
checks to pay-off their existing mortgages, then the First National Bank would
help finance them to leave the flood-plain for higher-ground!
Yeah, you guessed it! Once the FEMA checks
were in the hands of the bank, the folks on ‘Tannery-Row’
were told that a new home was not affordable for them – since they needed a down-payment first! It doesn’t get more rotten than this
to ‘preserve-poverty’ within
Pocahontas County – and the same folks are at it again trying to gain control
of the land in downtown Marlinton following the recent fire – just so the rental-income of downtown
Marlinton can go to Greenbrier County (Economic Development Corporation), of
course! And the current county
commission just continues to sit on its hands and rock-back & forth humming
to itself!
Before leaving off with the
dirty-tricks played by private-banks, just ask around and you will hear dozens
& dozens of ‘stories’ about how
folks in this county have been cheated out of large sums of money stored in
their ‘bank-lock-boxes’, aka, ‘safety deposit boxes’, when those boxes
are anything but ‘safe’! It seems that
since ‘poverty is a way of life’ here
in Pocahontas County, that far too many folks have placed very valuable items,
heirlooms, and cash in their ‘bank-lock-boxes’
only to find the cash & valuables missing upon their return! Since the Sheriff is tasked with the care of
senior citizens that either have no families to care for them, or families that
do not want to care for them, then the task falls upon the Sheriff and the
nursing home where old-folks are stored since Denmar Hospital closed. And some may remember that this county was
awash with ‘rumors’ of lost valuables
when Jerry Dale was Sheriff. At any
rate, since so many folks are elderly, disabled, or incapacitated to one degree
of another, trying to get-by every day, whenever they came into some money or
valuable item via an inheritance or such, they would put the cash- funds into a
‘bank-lock-box’ rather than open a
bank-account since opening a bank-account would mess-up their disability or SS
check, etc. But in far too many cases
folks have found those cash-funds missing from their ‘bank-lock-box’ – but who can they report it to? So their ‘poverty
is preserved’ yet again!
And last, but not least,
not too many folks know that whenever anyone opens a ‘trust-fund’ within a private-bank, no matter how large or small
that ‘trust-fund’ may become – the bank president receives upwards to 10% of its value! So a ‘trust-fund’
of $300.00 = $30.00 to the bank, a ‘trust-fund’
of $3000.00 = $300.00 to the bank, a ‘trust-fund’
of $30,000.00 = $3000.00 to the bank, & a ‘trust-fund’ of $300,000.00 = $30,000.00 to the bank, etc.! Now is it any wonder why the ‘rich get richer’ while ‘poverty is preserved’ for the rest of
us!
And is it any wonder why President
Thomas Jefferson favored only a central U.S. Treasury Bank and hated ‘private-banks’, when he said the
following:
"If the American
people ever allow private banks to control the issue
of their currency, first
by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up
around them will deprive the people
of all property until
their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered...I
believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than
standing armies...The issuing power should be taken from the banks and
restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."
[Ed Note: This quotation is often cited as being in
an 1802 letter to Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, and/or "later published in The
Debate Over the Recharter of the Bank Bill (1809)."]
One last thought regarding ‘private banking’ instead of having a
central United States Treasury Bank as Our Founding Fathers intended, is that
private money-lenders, profiteers, banks & financiers, etc., supply no
necessity (such as food, clothing & shelter), but instead draw huge profits
from the prevailing economic system that thrives on interest/usury! What most folks do
not realize is that interest/usury & taxes TAKES MONEY OUT OF CIRCULATION –
and since money is to society what blood is to people and animals – it’s not
hard to see what happens when money is restricted and taken out of circulation! Jobs are lost & Society dies!
The tragedy is that
money-lenders MAKE MONEY, but they do so at the expense of everyone else! They do not grow crops, nor
raise livestock, nor manufacture products, nor build buildings, nor paint
buildings, nor participate in any of the thousands of different businesses that
others do that are necessary for society to function – no, they simply strive
to stuff their big safes with mortgage deeds, promissory notes, and endless
stacks of ‘instruments-of-debt’ that
they hold over everyone’s head as a sword!
IF America returned to its Biblical Roots and
again implemented The Divine Economic
Standards – then the cost of a home would only be the ‘Cost-of-Materials’ and the ‘Cost-of-Labor’
– there would be no interest/usury or
money-lenders! Just ask anyone who
grew up during the ‘Eisenhower Era’
about how easy it was to obtain affordable housing without paying
interest/usury to private-banks!
IF we all
had an honest government once again – then the Greater Good, the General
Welfare of everyone – would be the highest law of all!
[Ed Note: For the record, every
Citizen-Taxpayer civil action ever brought to the Courts in this county have
been brought forward at the expense of the person(s) bringing the civil actions
– and those folks have never received a
single penny in return for their efforts – yet every civil action has
brought forth ‘Positive Results’ for the Citizens of this county!]’
♦ End of
Part II – End of Summary Review!
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 affecting 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;
♦ IF YOU are registered to
vote as a Democrat, you can vote
for Patti Heinemann in the primary election on 13 May
2014;
♦ If you
are not registered to vote, then you must register to
vote on or before 22 April
2014;
♦ 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 when you
go to
the polls; &
♦ Since Norman is unopposed, he
recommends that you
request a Democrat
ballot to vote for Patti so that this
county can again have
an Honest & Just county
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)
