WVMR Grills the Commission Candidates

Hi folks,

This morning (11/1) at 9am, I and the other candidates for Pocahontas County Commissioner were on Allegheny Mountain Radio (WVMR 1370 AM). We were asked questions by Heather Niday and Bill McNeel.

I brought a portable voice recorder and recorded the session also. It is now available online. Note that something was causing intermittent static bursts throughout the recording from time to time, but you can hear us pretty well overall.

Audio MP3: WVMR Grills Commission Candidates

The above is a 37 minute broadcast, and is a 7MB download.

Below, I have reproduced the questions and my responses. This was a laborious task, so admittedly I have selfishly only reproduced my responses. Please listen to the above audio file for Mr. Wilfong's and Mr. Carpenter's responses to gain more context.

PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS

Niday: Please outline your reasons for seeking the office of County Commissioner for Pocahontas County.

Fleming: Sure, thank you for this Heather and thank you for everybody out there listening today, good to be here. My name is David Fleming, and essentially the reason I'm running for county commissioner is because of a lack of transparency and openness that I have perceived from our county commission for the last few years. As many of you know, my start in county affairs goes back to the controversial issue that Mr. Carpenter has already mentioned about eminent domain on the Sharp Farm. That problem is solved now, but it certainly isn't a moot point [as Mr. Carpenter just claimed]. One thing that's not moot is the manner in which our county commission chose to deal with big, important, and controversial projects by simply trying to sneak them in under the radar without seeking to engage the community and discuss what we want to do with our future and our infrastructure. So I'm running to bring a degree of transparency to our county commission that hasn't been seen before, I'm running to bring a sense of openness and honesty to the discussions and to engage the community on important issues.

McNeel: What do you see as the greatest challenge for a county commissioner in the next six years?

Fleming: Thank you Bill, very good question. I think the greatest challenge facing us as a commission is the challenge to engage the community and to have a sincere desire to stay on the same page as the community and its wishes going forward. One thing about that challenge is that we need to plan for our future. And I say plan, and I do not mean zoning. Planning is something we do for retirement, we plan for our children's education, and I think Pocahontas County needs to take the time and open up the discussions to planning what we want our future to be.

When people mention zoning, most often they talk about county-wide zoning, and I think that's a bad idea. Most of our residents don't live within townships. I don't think it's a good idea to tell a farmer or a large land owner that they need to go through a permit process to build a barn, or a sheep shed, or something like that. That's going to hurt more people than it's going to help.

We have 3 incorporated towns right now. We have Hillsboro, Durbin, and Marlinton, and they have mechanisms in place for things such as you have to get a permit to build a set of steps or a porch. These issues are related to zoning, but it's a different process.

McNeel: While technically a part-time job, being a county commissioner also means representing the commission and also the county on other county boards, and attending training sessions. If elected, how much time do you plan to devote to the job of being county commissioner?

Fleming: Very good question. I don't view it as a part-time job. First of all, let's be clear that the county commission pays a salary of around, I think, it's $34,900. It has a full benefits package including retirement and health insurance. The average income of a Pocahontas County family is substantially less than what the taxpayers will be giving me to do my job. It's not something that's fair for me to say, 'Well, I'm just going to spend part-time on doing this job.'

Sure, I think it's going to take a lot of time, and to his credit Mr. Carpenter can probably tell you how much time that's going to take. I intend to devote my full time to this job. That's what it's going to take. It's going to take as much time as it will eat up from me, and I plan to give it that time.

McNeel: David, you started this round on this question, would like to make further comments?

Fleming: I'll make one comment about Farmland Protection. I think Mr. Wilfong and I are kind of on the same page with this issue. It is a voluntary program, it's paid for through real estate transfer taxes, and not everybody who seeks protection through the Farmland Protection Board gets it. It's a very deliberate process in which only, I think roughly half the applications this go-around were approved. Some of those are just donations, where it's just a landowner seeking to give their property to a conservation easement. Now there are tax incentives there, of course, but it's not always profit-motivated, and sometimes there are federal matching funds to help with that.

McNeel: What particular plans or actions or initiatives would you hope to accomplish if you're elected to this office?

Fleming: Excellent question, thank you Bill. Mostly I hope to make it possible for our children to stay here and carve out a living here if that's what they choose to do. We have an 8-year-old daughter, and I fight to make that possible for her as well.

If you take a cross section of the jobs we have in Pocahontas County, of what people do to make a living here, it's a very diverse market. We have people who specialize in farming, in timber, in travel, in tourism, etc. But we also have people who specialize in technology-related jobs. For myself, for example, I've found a way to carve out a living here doing website design. So I hope what we can do is bring in a technology related infrastructure, and part of that plan will be bringing in educational opportunities, perhaps by working with New River Community College, bringing an extension campus in. Make it possible to educate our children, and provide a new job market for their future.

McNeel: The county commission is responsible for creating and managing the county budget each year. What is your experience in managing a budget of the size of our county commission's? It is a seven-figure budget, of course.

Fleming: Yes it is, another great question. It is very comforting to hear Mr. Carpenter [just previously] speak that he also had to learn about dealing with such a big budget as he started the job. Because, quite frankly, I have no experience with such a large budget either. I have experience with my own business, and my self employment. It hasn't gone for 30 years, but yes it's tough to make a budget work and to understand where the money is coming and going.

The hotel/motel tax; I've spoken about this before during the Primary. That's one of the great things Mr. Carpenter worked on; I'm glad to see that and it does help pay for a lot of things. So, we're talking about a $6M budget, and I'm looking forward to learning the ropes on how to manage that money and help the community with it.

McNeel: Do you think Pocahontas County needs some kind of planning?

Fleming: I think that's one of the most important questions you could ask, Bill. Absolutely. I think it's time we as a commission and a community understand that planning is not zoning. I've just listened to the other 2 candidates [just previously] talk about a lot of zoning. I've already made my point of view clear on that. What we need to do is plan for our future. We need to plan how we're going to create job opportunities for the county, how we're going to make it possible for our children to live here, how we're going to promote their education, their higher education.

Regarding Commissioner Saffer; that is the commissioner to whom Mr. Carpenter [just previously] referred. Mr. Saffer is of course pro-planning as well, but I've heard no talk on the commission about zoning. I will not support an agenda that targets county-wide zoning for its own sake, because that is going to hurt more people than it's going to help. But I want to talk about our future, and that is what planning is all about. I will open up that conversation.

Niday: At this time, we will give you each one minute to kind of sum up your reasons for running, and this is the time to toot your own horn.

Fleming: Thank you, I'm glad to be here today and to get to talk to the listeners out there. Basically the premise with me is that we cannot afford to make decisions as a county commission that are in isolation. That day has come to an end.

Some other things I want to look at. I want to talk about coordinating our efforts for our humane society, I think we need to take a closer look at that and try to improve our efforts there.

Also, our historical structures; I think that's an important part of who we are. It's certainly an important part of what brought us here, that allure. We need to find ways to make more money to preserve our historical structures.

Farms are the most precious resource Pocahontas County has. I grew up on a small farm in Mercer County, and I know that. Gas drilling is an important issue, and the environment is affected by both those activities. We just need to continue to work to make sure these activities are done safely, particularly drilling and the strain it's going to put on our water supply.