The following Putnam County-related news and feature items were among those published in recent editions of The Charleston Gazette, Charleston Daily Mail, Saturday Gazette-Mail and Sunday Gazette-Mail:
Commission approves pay increases
With no more meetings scheduled in the current fiscal year, Putnam County commissioners approved a 2 1/2 percent pay increase for most county employees effective July 1.
The pay hike approved on June 23 excludes employees of the assessor's and sheriff's tax offices. No additional pay hikes were approved for those staff members because they received increases in the current fiscal year, commissioner Joe Haynes said.
"It would just make the gap between offices too wide," he said. A number of years ago, the commission adopted an employee pay scale designed to avoid dramatically different wages for employees in similar positions of different county offices.
Staff at the animal shelter and the county administrator, who becomes county manager July 1, also were excluded from the pay increase motion.
The director of the animal shelter has been laid off effective July 1, and her salary used in part to increase the hourly rates for the remaining four employees.
Reflecting additional responsibilities, two employees received raises to $11.47 and $13.63 from just under $9 and $11 per hour respectively or 28 and 25 percent hikes. The other two workers' wages will go to $12 and $11.47, up 7.7 percent and 15.5 percent.
Brian Donat, whose responsibilities as county manager have been expanded and will include oversight of the animal shelter, will receive $67,352 annually, up about $10,000.
Also last week, commissioners Haynes and Gary Tillis, with Steve Andes absent, authorized the sale of tax increment revenue bonds of $660,000 for completing road improvements to the Devonshire housing development in Scott Depot.
Closing on the loans was scheduled for June 26, bond counsel John Stump said. The bonds are the final funds to be provided as part of a $3.5 million in tax increment funding previously approved by the state Development Office.
Revenues collected from increased property tax assessments in the previously established district will be used to pay off the bonds, but the Devonshire developer, Cathcart Properties of Virginia, and not the county, is ultimately responsible to repay the loans.
The roadwork, revised since first proposed, will provide better traffic and water control and improved access to a sizable parcel suitable for commercial development next to Devonshire and now on the market, Todd Dofflemyer of Cathcart told commissioners.
The improvements likely will be a bonus even during the current economic downturn, Tillis said.
In other business, commissioners:
- Unanimously supported an application for a state grant of up to $400,000 for roadwork at the business park in Fraziers Bottom. A similar grant for the park has been used to complete access road improvements and a turn lane at the recently opened four-lane U.S. 35.
A portion of a new grant would be used for road repair requested by a company that is expanding, county development director Gary Walton said. He declined to name the company.
- Declared July as Parks and Recreation Month, during which the county parks department is hosting the July 4 evening celebration at Valley Park and special events on succeeding Saturday mornings at Poca, Buffalo and again at Valley Park.
- Scheduled a public hearing at 9:30 a.m. July 28 on a petition to close an alleyway between Clayton Avenue and an unopened road abutting Elm Street just outside Hurricane.
Haynes, a member of the committee planning the second annual Putnam County Veterans' Appreciation Day, announced the event is set for 2 pm. Nov. 8 at courthouse.
Commissioners adjourned until July 14.
(Charleston Daily Mail)
Orlando flight brings Hurricane pilots home
For nine years, AirTran pilot Richard Stalnaker of Hurricane has had to commute to work aboard a competing carrier, because his airline had no presence at Charleston's Yeager Airport. It's always rubbed him the wrong way.
"I always knew it would be a great opportunity for both the airline and for Charleston," Stalnaker said. "Every time I saw [Yeager Airport Director] Rick Atkinson or [Yeager Marketing Director] Brian Belcher, I'd talk to them about trying to get AirTran service here."
The same held true when Stalnaker encountered AirTran executives at the low-cost carrier's Atlanta hub.
"I'd ask them, 'When can we go into Charleston?' and they'd say they were looking at the population base and the other airlines serving the area," he said. "But everything's finally come to fruition, and I'm really excited about it."
On June 25, Stalnaker piloted an AirTran Boeing 717 from Orlando, Fla., to Charleston, initiating his airline's service to Yeager Airport.
Among those greeting the arriving flight were Stalnaker's wife, Monica, daughter Madison, 8, son Logan, 6, and a passel of other friends and relatives.
Another AirTran pilot, Ron Anderson, also lives in Hurricane.
(The Charleston Gazette)
Buffalo launches campaign for new library
The Buffalo Library is falling down.
Light fixtures are breaking, and the floor is starting to rot.
"It's getting to be kind of an eyesore," said Buffalo Mayor Kenny Tucker.
It's time the community got a new library, Tucker said.
Library officials and members of Kanawha Gateway, a tourism development organization, will kick off a fundraising campaign July 1 at the gazebo in Buffalo to raise up to $100,000 for a new building for the Putnam County community.
The current library is in a 750-square-foot trailer purchased and brought to Buffalo by the federal government in the mid-1980s to replace bookmobiles, said Jackie Cheney, Putnam County libraries director.
The traveling libraries were replaced with trailers or outpost libraries in communities that agreed to supply a permanent structure eventually, Cheney said.
"Of course, it's taken a little longer than expected and outlived the life expectancy of the building," Cheney said.
The new building will resemble a one-room schoolhouse and will sit on the same lot as the current library. At about 1,200 square feet, the new structure would provide much needed extra space.
"I don't have much room to move around," said Becky Hamilton, Buffalo Library branch manager.
As new books come in, Hamilton has to weed out old volumes to make room. The library also has only two computers.
Lowell Wilks, project coordinator with Kanawha Gateway, is working with the Putnam Career Technical Center in Eleanor to have students build the walls for the library and transport them to Buffalo.
Tech Center students also helped build the new library in Eleanor, which opened last summer.
Wilks said school officials have agreed to help with the project, but still need to get approval from their board to proceed.
He estimates the foundation, roof, electrical work and other features will cost about $100,000 to put in place.
Since Buffalo owns the building, the town is responsible for any new construction, as was the case in Eleanor, Cheney said.
"[Putnam County Libraries] owns the Hurricane Branch Library and our building in Teays Valley; all three of the other buildings [in Poca, Eleanor and Buffalo] belong to the towns," Cheney said.
The county's library budget is strictly for operational costs for salaries, books and upkeep, Cheney said.
A big portion of funding for libraries in other counties comes from city and municipal business and occupation tax, Cheney said.
"Any time you have big cities, you have a lot more tax-based income," she said. "Putnam does not have a big city and our [Teays Valley] library sits outside a small town."
Cheney works with an annual budget of about $500,000 from a mix of state, county, school board and town funds, plus money from fines and donations.
Of money that comes into the county from property tax, 80 percent goes to the school board, and 20 percent goes to the County Commission, she said.
With its share, the commission must fund EMS and other essential services.
"Libraries, the health department and parks are considered for what they have left over," she said.
Putnam County's per capita tax for libraries is about $5. This is compared to about $30 in Kanawha County and about $22 in Cabell.
Space and parking is a continual problem for all of the libraries, especially with the summer reading programs, she said.
If a levy were to pass in Putnam County, "it would give us that final cushion of local support that we really need. Putnam really needs, desperately, to have a more comfortable operational budget so we could go for construction funds," she said.
But Putnam County residents are reluctant to vote themselves a tax increase, she said.
Levy requests for libraries have failed in Putnam County in recent years.
A levy for libraries needs 60 percent of the vote to pass. In 2006, a levy request received 58.7 percent of the vote, and in 2007 it received 59.4 percent.
(The Charleston Gazette)
Eleanor man charged with possession of child porn
A Putnam County man has been indicted by a federal grand jury for distribution and possession of child pornography.
Russell Eugene Lemon, 40, of Eleanor faces a possible 30 years in prison and/or a $500,000 fine.
According to the U.S. District Court, Lemon possessed and sent images of children under the age of 18 engaged in sexually explicit conduct on his computer at least twice in 2008.
(Charleston Daily Mail)
Man pleads guilty to phoning in bomb threat to John Amos Power Plant
A Kentucky man has pleaded guilty to making a false bomb threat at Appalachian Power's John Amos Power Plant in Putnam County so he could leave work early.
According to the circuit court clerk's office, Bobby Sparks of Grayson, Ky., pleaded guilty on June 12 to a felony charge of making a terrorist threat.
He is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge O.C. Spaulding on Aug. 13.
Sparks was working as a welder for a contractor at the plant last November, when State Police say he left a threatening note in a bathroom, then reported it to authorities.
The threat came after about eight other bomb threats at the plant, but police then said they didn't believe Sparks was responsible for those.
(Charleston Daily Mail)
Poca man facing sex charges
A Poca man was arrested on June 22, charged with four felony sexual abuse counts and with allegedly trying to run over police officers in his vehicle two weeks ago.
Patrick Glen Moore tried to run over Hurricane police officers during a traffic stop two weeks ago, according to a news release from the U.S. Marshals Service.
When officers caught up with Moore in North Charleston on June 22, he was arrested for fleeing, assault on police officers and several traffic offenses, along with charges of second-degree sexual abuse and sexual abuse by a parent or guardian.
In 2000, Moore pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual abuse.
He abused his 12-year-old stepdaughter while his wife, the child's mother, was shopping.
He was sentenced to one to five years in prison on that charge.
(The Charleston Gazette)
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