By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
Controversy continues to rage over a project to reopen an alleyway to allow access to a hillside housing construction project in the City of Parsons. At the December 2nd meeting, Council Members and Mayor Bruce Kolsun did not see eye to eye on the City’s role in the project.
Mayor Kolsun said he sees the project as a waste of City funds and a conflict of interest due to the property developers being the sons of City Councilman Sam Humphrey. Kolsun said he felt the Council was engaging in unethical activity by
catering to the assist one Council Member and not thinking of the better good of the City.
“Before we vote on this, I have a problem with this,” Kolsun said. “First of all with the money we are putting into this project is City money and its being used to, relationships with the contractor with Council Member and benefits. This whole deal we’re doing may be unethical.”
Mayor Kolsun admitted several times over the past few months in open session to contacting the West Virginia State Ethics Commission over the Council and the project. The Mayor supplied an email previously that seemed to support his claim to a point.
However, Councilman Seth Rosenau said during the meeting that he had been personally contacted by the State Ethics Commission because a complaint had been lodged against him and as a result, he was sent an email that stated that their investigation cleared him and the Council of any wrong doing.
“We did get a letter from the Ethics Committee,” Rosenau said. “I read it and just to let everybody know, the ethics committee came back and said that there’s been some complaints from citizens and from this building and they did a deep dive review. They sent me the paperwork because I was listed in it and we are 1,000% ethical in everything we’ve did as a City since I’ve been here.”
The Parsons Advocate reached out the West Virginia Ethics Committee for comment, but was informed that they were unable to comment.
However, Councilman Humphrey has always recused himself from any action on the matter related to the project and excused himself far before the matter ever came up for discussion and vote during the meeting December 2nd. Humphrey has also never been present during any discussion or vote the Council has taken on the matter.
Councilman Humphrey also denies any impropriety that he is in any way tied to the construction project. Humphrey said he has not co-signed for the land his sons are developing in Parsons, as was previously reported and is upset by prior allegations the Mayor has made about his part in the project.
Mayor Kolsun said that he was for development of the area. He said that the City needed development and that the area, specifically, needed development, but he felt the City should not be the one to foot the bill. He said the Council needed to find another way, but that no other way had been explored or investigated to support the project for the developers, whether it be via right of way or abandonment of the alley.
Discussion became heated when Councilman Josh Michael asked Mayor Kolsun if he would feel the same about the project if it was anyone else who had proposed it. Mayor Kolsun he said that he would if it had been anyone else on Council. To which, Councilman Michael clarified he question to mean any member of the public. Mayor Kolsun then gave the analogy of someone asking the City to dig a hole in their backyard to put in a pool to equate the matter ethically.
Councilman Tim Turner then called for Question, a move that should have immediately ended the debate on a pending motion and proceeded immediately to vote, according to parliamentary procedure. However, Mayor Kolsun claimed the right to overrule the measure. To which, Council Member Kathy DiBacco called a Point of Order on the Mayor and called for a vote. A move that the Mayor also claimed to be able to overrule.
“I can. I’m the chair of this committee and I can overrule a Call to Question if I feel the discussion has not been adequate,” Kolsun said.
Several members of the Council then began to talk at once about how the discussion had been dominated by the Mayor and very little had been allowed to be said by the other members of the Council.
Councilman Tim Turner made the motion to open the alley and solicit bids for the project. The measure passed unanimously. Following the vote, Mayor Kolsun said he would be filing an ethics complaint.
The project will encompass the building of a wing wall and culvert system to divert and redirect the flow of water from the hillside away from housing downhill from the housing project site.
“They want to extend a long section of two-foot culvert pipe out of the existing culvert and then adapt it up to three-foot, another full section of pipe with a wing wall at the end,” Simmons said.
It is a project that City Engineering Firm, Thrasher, has advised has needed done for some time, some members of the Council argued during the meeting.
“At the end of the day, we need something up there anyway, Thrasher recommended, so we’re killing two birds with one stone,” Councilman Seth Rosenau said. “I just want to make sure the whatever pipe we put in handles the volume of water that comes off of there.”
City Manager Michael Simmons said that he had solicited preliminary figures from a two local contractors who came back with figures over the $25,000 threshold required to place out for the bidding process. He said that both contractors did indicate a strong desire to submit sealed bids during the bidding process, however, for the project.
“Because of the amount, its going to have to be advertised for bid,” City Manager Michael Simmons said.
The preliminary figures came in between $34,000 and $35,000. The figures came in well below the initial estimates of $50,000 to $60,000 for the project.
