Sunday, July 03, 2011
EKB Capsule News...West Virginia...7-4-'11
Charleston Police say Larry Patterson Jr., 28, was arrested Sunday after he allegedly held a woman at gunpoint on Lee Street East. Police say Patterson ran from them but was found about two hours later, two blocks away in an alley. That's when police say he dropped his gun, and a six year old boy picked it up and handed it to police. Patterson is charged with wanton endangerment, child endangerment, fleeing, possessing a firearm and domestic battery.
- During a preliminary hearing Friday, a trooper testified that Boone County Career and Technical Center teacher Jack Turley confessed to buying Sudafed to trade for finished meth that was smoked in the office of school principal Keith Phipps, who faces misdemeanor charges related to the investigation. Police say Turley bought in several counties, but is only charged with four buys in Boone County. Phipps is accused of buying too much psuedoephrine in Kanawha County. Turley's lawyer argued that even though he admitted buying Sudafed for meth making, the state police can't prove the Boone buys were used to do it. The magistrate said he felt probable cause had been shown but decided to withhold ruling and continued the hearing, but no date was set for the next part of the hearing.
- William Chapman 'Chap' Cook was a soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War. Saturday, state, county and local officials gathered with the Cook family along Route 26 in the Van area of Boone County to dedicate a stretch of the highway to Cook and other Civil War heros. Signs now bear a new name on the stretch of highway from Van to Twilight in Cook's honor. The Cooks, who lived in Virginia, which was controlled by the confederacy at the time of the war, were a family of union sympathizers.
West Virginia officials are examining how to bolster the finances of the state's 911 call centers which are facing declining revenues and increasing technology demands. Deputy revenue secretary Mark Muchow says the state needs to move in the same direction as Virginia and North Carolina by adopting an equitable tax structure. If such a change occurs, landline, mobile and voice-over-internet customers could see their 911 tax based on a percentage of their total bills, rather than the current flat fee.
- Senate President Jeff Kessler announced Friday that a joint state Senate and House of Delegates committee, composed of five delegates and five senators, will hold its first meeting July 12th to look at Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling regulations, including the issue of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." Fracking, a process by which drillers use high-pressured water to crack and get through rock, has become a controversial method to reach natural gas. Last month, Morgantown City Council banned the process within one mile of city limits. Critics of fracking claim it can pollute city water supplies.
IVS Hydro, Inc., an Institute company with 250 employees, filed a lawsuit Friday against the proposed annexation of Dunbar, claiming Dunbar Mayor Jack Yeager met with the Regional Intergovernmental Council in South Charleston with a map proposing certain land to be annexed into Dunbar. It also claims the proposition and planning of the annexation has cost several thousands of dollars of public funds, the proposed areas are not “contiguous to the municipal boundaries” of Dunbar, several residents of the community are against the plan, it does not favor jobs or economic development, and it goes against West Virginia statute. The lawsuit requests the court immediately suspend the proposed annexation and declare it invalid or unconstitutional.
# posted by Homer Owens @ 10:16 PM 
