Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Man petitions to remove Nicholas County commissioners
by Dave Boucher, Capitol Bureau Chief
A Nicholas County man is formally requesting the removal of all three members of the Nicholas County Commission, his latest filing in an ongoing case surrounding a potentially illegal hire.
Tim Clifford of Canvas filed a petition for removal in Nicholas Circuit Court Tuesday. The document calls for Commission President John Miller, Commissioner Kenneth Altizer and Commissioner Yancy Short be removed from office for “incompetence and neglect of duty,” among other allegations.
“We’re tore up about this up here,” Clifford said Wednesday. “People are mad.”
The filing stems from a case Clifford previously filed involving the hiring of a county administrator at a cost of $60,000 annually. The commission hired Roger Beverage as county administrator in August of 2013, but never posted the job or the fact Beverage would be considered for the job before he was hired, according to Gazette-Mail archives.
The committee rescinded the offer after public outcry, but officially hired Beverage again after putting the job description and Beverage on the agenda for another August meeting. Beverage also later said he was allowed to set his own salary and create the description for the job.
“They offered me a job, I took the job, I worked hard at it, that’s about where we are now,” Beverage told the Gazette-Mail in February.
Clifford continued to fight the hiring on several grounds, eventually leading to a court proceeding. In late January Webster Circuit Judge Jack Alsop — assigned to the case by the state Supreme Court — ruled Beverage must stop working, the commission should dissolve the position and it must pay Clifford’s court costs.
“Such behavior is precisely the kind of conduct the West Virginia Ethics Act was designed to prevent,” Alsop wrote in the opinion, according to the Gazette-Mail archives.
The commission filed its appeal with the state Supreme Court Feb. 28, Supreme Court spokeswoman Jennifer Bundy said. The court hasn’t scheduled any events yet in the case, she said.
In its appeal, the commission states Clifford and Alsop “misconstrued” the intentions of the commission in hiring Beverage, the State Journal reported.
“It bears repeating that the Circuit Court was wrong to issue a final order based upon the limited evidence presented during the preliminary injunction hearing,” the appeal states, according to West Virginia Illustrated.
Clifford’s petition states they learned of the appeal in early April and started requesting more information about the hiring and the August commission meetings. Echoing Alsop’s statements, the petition says it’s clear the commission violated state law in hiring Beverage while allowing him to create the position.
“Commissioners Miller, Altizer and Short are guilty of incompetence and neglect of duty mandated to protect the residence of Nicholas County, West Virginia, by hiring Rodger Beverage to preform duties the Commissioners were elected to and swore they had time to complete,” the petition states.
“Then by creating a position in an illegal government, which required an outrageous amount of taxpayer funds in an illogical belief that this newly created position would somehow save the county money.”
There are five named petitioners on the document, but Clifford said more than 190 people signed the petition.
West Virginia law states such a petition is necessary for the removal of a county elected official. After the petition is filed, a summons is supposed to be sent to the people named in the petition and the circuit court is supposed to send a copy of the petition to the Supreme Court.
Bundy couldn’t immediately confirm if the court had received the petition.
The Daily Mail couldn’t reach any of the commissioners for comment.
No comments:
Post a Comment
We are making comments available again! You are free to express your First Amendment Rights Here!