Eminent Domain off the Table

Commissioners Take Sharp Farm, Eminent Domain off the Table
By CATHY GRIMES, Staff Writer
POSTED: March 17, 2008

The voices of the people were finally heard at last week’s Pocahontas County Commission meeting following a motion to draft a resolution/directive to the Pocahontas County Public Service District against the use of eminent domain of the Sharp farm for the Slaty Fork sewer project.

The motion, which was made by Commissioner Martin Saffer, was eventually approved following extensive discussion and several drafts. “This matter has come to a boiling point and I feel it’s time to relieve the Sharp family from further anxiety and burden in this matter,” Saffer told Commissioners James Carpenter and Reta Griffith.

Saffer said he had spoken with the PSD’s attorney Tom Michael and was told that, though many efforts were being made to find another location, eminent domain was still on the table.

“The issue of eminent domain has, as a by-product, many positive features,” Saffer said. “It mobilized the community, it asked many alternative questions which had never been asked about the project in it’s entirety, it had the stakeholders come forward, it had a strong wave of discussion and community participation and it energized everyone.”

But according to Saffer, the point had been reached where eminent domain needed to be taken off the table.

Carpenter said he had his reservations about the commission’s authority to demand and added he didn’t think the commission could tell the PSD: “Absolutely no use of eminent domain of the Sharp farm.”

“The people spoke unequivocally against eminent domain in the last election,” Saffer said. “I spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours to oust Joel Callison from office so I could take a seat on this commission and steer it in the direction to stop eminent domain on this project.

“I asked you on my first day of office,” Saffer said to Carpenter, “to enter into a resolution to stop eminent domain and you refused.”

“While I was running for election, the County Commission had a deaf ear to this problem,” he continued. “This commission did not understand the feelings, anxieties and trepidation felt by this family and the community over this issue.

“I’ve been out in the community listening to the people and how they felt about the project and use of eminent domain. I have participated in conversations with Sen. Walt Helmick (D-15th District) and the Snowshoe Property Owner’s Council about the issue.”

Griffith said she thought the resolution may be politically popular but didn’t think it had any teeth. “I think it’s going to resolve itself after the first drilling,” she told Saffer. “This is a local project governed by the PSD, and my position has always been to support the PSD.

“I don’t want to send the message we don’t trust them,” she said. “The PSD is moving in a direction the Sharp family will be happy with. I don’t want to steal their thunder.”

“I have no reason to believe the PSD is ever going to use the Sharp farm,” Carpenter said. “I don’t think it’s ever going to come to that because we have three sites and the Sharp farm is clearly off the table.”

“If the sewer plant moved off the Sharp farm to the piece of property Snowshoe offered and if it tests out fine, would you support the sewer system?” Carpenter asked Saffer.

“I would support a sewer system that was ecologically sound,” Saffer said, adding that is should also use the “latest technologies, benefited the entire community, wouldn’t cost a fortune to operate, that we could all feel proud of and wasn’t something rammed down somebody’s throat.”

Tom Shipley, a Sharp family member and spokesman for the family, attended the meeting and thanked Carpenter for having made an effort in seeking a solution that would not involve eminent domain.

Shipley told the commissioners that no member of his family had ever been contacted that eminent domain would be used to take the Sharp farm. He said his mother had read about it in the newspaper.

“Martin Saffer called me every single day to work with my family,” Shipley said. “He has worked on this project for hours and hours, so don’t anyone say that he has not worked on this in support of my family.”

Shipley added that he was very hopeful and grateful that community leaders were coming together to find a solution to the problem. Before taking his seat, he asked the commission to take his family out of their misery, to listen to the people who are concerned about the community and take the issue off the table.

And while the commissioners were working together, wording of the resolution also elicited much contention and discussion between the trio. While Saffer wanted stronger language, Griffith believed that a lighter touch would be more effective.

After much haggling about the wording of the resolution, Griffith read her version, which stated:

“The Pocahontas County Commission wishes to encourage and support the PCPSD in moving the Slaty Fork regional sewage system facility plant off the site known as the Sharp farm. The County Commission also applauds the current direction of PSD in only looking at facility sites that do not require the use of eminent domain.”

“I think its way too tepid,” Saffer said. His version states that “the Pocahontas County Commission resolves and directs that there shall be no use of eminent domain of the Sharp farm, for the Snowshoe Slaty Fork sewer project, further, the PCC directs the PSD, it’s created board, to take eminent domain off of the table in view of our direction and resolution.”

“My resolution has to do with the fact that we’re taking the Sharp farm off the table,” Saffer said, “We’re saying of all the engineering considerations you, the PSD have, the will of the public will not support taking the Sharp farm. So you will remove that from your engineering considerations and you can go forward as you feel is necessary but not with the use of eminent domain on the Sharp farm.”

“This is a public service project, Saffer said, “which should yield to the will of the public. We’re in control, not the PSD.”

A debate then ensued between Griffith and Saffer.

“They do not have to listen to us,” Griffith said.

“If we say you don’t do this,” Saffer said, “then we exercise power, and we have teeth, we are the voice of the community. We are the ones directing our board in what to do and if they were to refuse to follow it then I think we could sue them in circuit court and stop them from taking the Sharp farm.”

“It’s now time for the public’s will to be exercised through the voice of the County Commission,” Saffer said, “To direct the PSD to cease and desist any further consideration of the Sharp farm for eminent domain.”

“It is a political decision, not an engineering choice. It’s a decision of the community, not the PSD’s choice to say whether we are going to exercise eminent domain for this project or not, it’s a County Commission choice, a choice of the community,” Saffer said.

The motion to accept Saffer’s resolution was finally unanimously approved.