By Beth Christian Broschart
The Parsons Advocate
PARSONS – The Tucker County Commission held a work session Wednesday following their regular meeting to gather input from county entities into possible partnerships and ideas for use of property in the Davis area.
“The Tucker County Commission owns one acre up at the end of Route 32 in Davis and we are searching for possibilities for use of that property,” Commissioner Lowell Moore said. “We made an offer on an adjoining four acres owned by Western Pocahontas, but they declined to sell it to us.”
Those in attendance included representatives from Cortland Acres, Woodlands Development Group, St. George Clinic, Tucker Community Foundation, Tucker County Building Commission, Tucker County CVB, the Town of Davis and Davis Medical Center.
Davis resident Al Tomson said the meeting was a result of ad hoc discussions for months and months.
“We found we have two areas that are separated by geography,” Tomson said. “We are looking how to bring more unity to the county. How do we take an underrepresented part of the county and better serve it in the future?”
Tomson said the county property was discussed along with possible uses for that land.
“One of them is to come up with a multi-service type of building that is both public and private,” Tomson said. “We thought who might want to occupy such an area because the location is phenomenal.”
Tomson said one possibility is to house Tucker County EMS there as well as possible satellite magistrate and sheriff offices.
“We thought about having some kind of health care, and that spiraled into having some type of health or recreation there, too, to serve people of the community as well as tourists,” Tomson said. “Is it possible to secure a mortgage? We met with USDA and they have very low cost mortgages that can be up to 40 years. They said we are a poster child for financing.”
Tomson said he met with a builder to see if this could be affordable.
“It does seem it would be affordable,” Tomson said. “The way to pay back the mortgage and retirement of the debt would be accomplished through rents of the occupants. It looks like rents would be comparable.”
Commissioner Diane Hinkle said what started the talks was the Commission looking for a home for Tucker County EMS.
Dan Bucher of Cortland Acres asked what the Commissioners had in mind to stage from the complex.
“It could be a medical service or it could be recreational,” Moore said. “Whatever it is, it will need to be a facility to house our EMS.”
Commissioner Diane Hinkle said they needed to take a look to see what health care service needs are currently not being met.
“We certainly do not want to duplicate services that are currently being divided,” Hinkle said. “So if there are gaps with weekend coverage, we could provide them there. It could be wellness or fitness. We are in the very early stages of this and we want local health care providers to be aware of this.”
No decisions were made during this work session and further discussions will take place in the future.
