COMMENTARY

ON THE MARK... Bad City Councils, Mayors
Commentary
By Mark Hallburn
Publisher
PutnamLIVE.com

They are the epitome of bad city councils. Incompetent, arrogant,                               with no sense of right                                  or wrong as they                                     waste money, abuse                                     their constituents, and                                   pretty much do                                    whatever they damned                               well please, daring                               anyone to do anything                            about it.

Hurricane and Nitro's                                 councils, mayors and managers are an embarrassment to their citizens and a detriment to their cities. Both towns are getting sued over their bad management, and both towns deserve to see their councils, mayors, and managers thrown out on their backsides.

In Hurricane you have an arrogant Mayor, Scott Edwards, who got in on a questionable election just days after he dropped "F-Bombs" in front of a group of children. Overcome with greed, Edwards was part of the PCDA Board of Directors that shoved a Wal-Mart into a neighborhood while hiring a lawyer to try to hide the deal from the news media and public.

Then there are all of the stories about Edwards and women. Every week I get stopped by someone wanting to tell me another story about Edwards' alleged girlfriends.

Not satisfied with three wives in less than 15 years, homewrecker Edwards is allowing construction crews to wreck a neighborhood while disrupting neighbors of the Wal-Mart construction site forcing innocent people to endure excessive noise while Edwards lies and says there is a "necessary" noise exemption in the town's ordinance. No exemption exists, but Edwards won't let facts get in the way of his thirst for a place to buy cheap Chinese shoes for all of the women in his life.

But wait, there's more!

Edwards refuses to fire incompetent City Manager Ben Newhouse despite his $60,000-plus benefits drain on the troubled town's budget, despite mismanaging the town's water supply to crisis levels forcing Hurricane to buy water from elsewhere-the only Putnam County town in such a mess.

Hurricane's City Council should have stood up to Edwards and Newhouse and vetoed the new water surcharge. Instead, the puppet council got suckered into voting for the surcharge.

Edwards even had the audacity to vote himself a raise last year when he was an appointed (not elected) city councilman.

Hopefully the courts will kick Edwards out and Sam Cole will can Newhouse. As for Hurricane's incompetent city council, there are plans for a lawsuit filing to kick W. Reggie Billups, Lana Call, Donald Chaney, Brian Ellis, and Patty Hager to the curb. All but Call voted for an unnecessary water surcharge caused by Newhouse's screw-ups, and all refuse to enforce Hurricane's noise ordinance, favoring an Ohio construction company over their longtime residents.

They should all be ashamed of themselves, however, these council people have no shame!

In Nitro, you have a mayor, Rusty Casto, smart enough to hire his enemy, Tifney Terry, then stupid enough to allow her to write more than $21,000 in overtime checks and rent his house to her. How can Casto possibly objectively manage Treasurer and Office Manager Terry while she pays him rent?

Casto allows his bumbling Police Chief to abuse the media. Both towns selectively enforce laws at their whim. The hardworking officers of both police departments deserve better mayors.

While Edwards is selfishly wily, Casto is Good Ole Boy stupid! First Casto admitting signing one of Terry's overtime checks. Then, after the firestorm over the issue, Casto said she signed his name to the check. All the while, he had Terry renting his house. Or is she living there rent-free? This leaves people questioning Casto's words, motives, and judgment.

Both towns are wasting untold dollars fighting lawsuits filed by resident activists properly calling out their government's incompetency and lack of ethics.

Both towns play games while trying to avoid legitimate Freedom of Information Act Requests. Hurricane caved under media pressure. Nitro got ripped by Kanawha Circuit Judge Charlie King.

But wait, there's more!

The Nitro City Council still has Tim Harrison, who allegedly emailed nude pictures of himself. And it failed to fire Terry after it learned about her $21,000 in overtime checks issued and cashed without the council's approval.

Both Hurricane and Nitro want to annex land to grab businesses' B & O tax revenues. Both are rightfully opposed by businesses who don't want to contribute money to badly managed cities.

Nitro has a Wal-Mart retail district. Hurricane's mayor, council, and city manager have sold out their constituents to get a Wal-Mart retail district. When you depend on Wal-Mart for money, you are an economic development failure.

Both Hurricane and Nitro have so many relatives on the town payroll that "Family tree" cartoons make the rounds poking fun at the obvious nepotism. Neither council has shown enough integrity to pass a real anti-nepotism policy.

Nitro is more than $700,000 in debt, and asking the Kanawha County Commission to bail Nitro out, Nitro Financial Follies.

Ultimately you must blame the voters. It is they that elect these mayors and councils. When the voters don't demand excellence and accountability, they deserve mediocrity.

I could go on about the endless failures of Hurricane and Nitro's government. Let's just say that Casto, Edwards, and their city councils are poster children for recall elections. Unfortunately, even the bad politicians are smart enough to make sure there isn't a recall process in West Virginia. So, unless the activists take the bad councils and mayors to court, we are stuck with these clowns.

This leaves options: They could all resign. But they won't. We already have seen that the so-called leaders of Hurricane and Nitro don't have enough integrity to know when to walk away! Instead, they are having too much fun screwing up Hurricane and Nitro.

Since Casto, Edwards, and their councils refuse to resign, it's time for the Kanawha and Putnam County Commissions to dissolve both cities which will remove Casto, Edwards, and their councils from power and stop the abuse of the citizens of both towns!

 

Nitro Mayor 

Rusty Casto