CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (WV News) — Harrison County commissioners on Wednesday approved preliminary designs for two bridges that will connect segments of the county’s rail trail system.
Chad Biller, rail trail project manager from The Thrasher Group, said it’s his goal to have the project out for bid before year’s end.
The preliminary designs laid out the specifications for the bridges, including their length and materials to be used in order to accommodate vehicles for maintenance of the trail.
Although the bridges will be able to accommodate maintenance vehicles, Commissioner David Hinkle made a point to remind the designers that four-wheelers and other personal vehicles are not permitted on the trail.
“There will have to be bollards installed on the ends because people will ride their four-wheelers across,” Biller said.
Also at Wednesday’s meeting, Commissioner Patsy Trecost proposed using other post-employment benefits, or OPEB, funds, which are a safety net of savings used to pay county employee pensions, to pay for two projects.
One project would tear down the upper floors of the courthouse jail annex and renovate the courthouse basement to reestablish a jail in Harrison County. The second project would purchase and install new courthouse elevators, which have been malfunctioning for more than two years.
Hinkle questioned how the county would recoup the OPEB funds.
Trecost argued that having a local jail would save the county approximately $2 million per year by no longer relying on the North Central Regional Jail for housing prisoners.
Hinkle was not convinced and asked to see a cost analysis for the renovations and a plan for housing prisoners, but there was none.
Hinkle also brought up the fact that the cells in the courthouse annex are on the top floor, not in the basement.
“We can do anything we want,” Trecost said. “We have the money to do it.”
Replacing the elevators and reopening a local jail were included in a joint motion that died as Commission President Susan Thomas sided with Hinkle voting against it.
Trecost’s proposal to annex property known as Retino Farm into the city of Bridgeport for the purposes of utility expansion and economic development was also voted against by the two other commissioners.
This proposal was first brought up to Trecost by a member of Bridgeport City Council, although he did not say which one.
Thomas took issue with the fact that Trecost’s proposal required no commitment by Bridgeport to install utilities.
“If they want to do it, they can. If they don’t, they don’t,” Trecost said.
County Administrator Laura Pysz-Laulis gave an update to commissioners on the status of the county’s correspondence with Brian Crumbaker, who represents the bondholders of funds being used to develop Charles Pointe.
Mon Health System plans to build a small-format hospital in the Charles Pointe Crossing section of the development, near Menards. The bondholders currently hold a deed of trust on the property where the Mon Health Harrison Neighborhood Hospital is to be built, which hinders Mon Health’s ability to move forward with the project.
Crumbaker reached out to Genesis Partners, Charles Pointe’s developer, for information about the company’s construction loan, but there has been no answer to a letter that commission sent in July, which read, “Without your client’s immediate approval ... the transaction (with Mon Health) will be terminated for no other reason.”
No resolution has yet been reached between the developer and the bondholders, Pysz-Laulis said.
Hinkle requested that Mon Health Systems CEO David Goldberg be invited to the next county commission meeting to discuss if Mon Health has plans to build the new hospital elsewhere in light of these setbacks.
Mon Health submitted a Certificate of Need for the new hospital in July 2022, which was approved by the West Virginia Health Care Authority in September of that year. Goldberg said earlier this year the health system planned to break ground sometime this year and have the hospital open by the beginning of 2026.