KINGWOOD — If Kingwood can’t find its ordinances, perhaps it should just repeal them, council discussed this week.
“It baffles me that we don’t know what ordinances we have after a year,” Councilman Josh Fields said.
He referred to an ongoing project led by the former city attorney to find copies of all ordinances and update them with amendments passed over the years.
City Clerk Mary Howell said about 20 ordinances are completely updated. But no one is sure what other ordinances exist. For example, a look through the old minutes turned up ordinances that were passed on first reading but never finalized.
Fields suggested looking at what ordinances other towns have and searching the minutes and records for something similar.
Repeal all ordinances that may exist but can’t be found, he suggested. Since the city doesn’t know what those ordinances are anyway, it shouldn’t be a loss, because they aren’t being enforced, Fields said.
“We have to be careful that we keep our sewer rate, our water rate, trash rate, some of those, that we don’t dare rescind those, because those are our money ordinances,” Howell cautioned.
“But everything that we charge money for we already know we have,” Councilman Mike Lipscomb said, so there shouldn’t be a danger of repealing those.
The new city attorney was asked to look over the ordinances.
Main Street
Council approved Main Street Kingwood’s (MSK) first quarter donation of $2,500, despite the resignation of the organization’s director.
Karen Kurilko and her daughter, Kari Moreno, were sharing the $10,000 per year salary for the director’s position, MSK Board Chairman Bill Shockey told council. They resigned recently. Shockey said four people have applied for the job.
Council gives Main Street $10,000 a year, in quarterly distributions. But Recorder Bill Robertson told Shockey that if a larger draw down is needed, for a grant match, for example, it could be available.
The money has been used for the director’s salary in the past, Shockey said. MSK Board Member Jim Lobb said that it could be needed to pay the Preston County Economic Development Authority for help with some grants, until a director is hired.
Councilman Joe Seese’s motion to make the quarterly payment specified that, if the money is used for anything other than the director’s salary, council be given an itemized accounting of the expenditures.
In answer to Robertson’s questions, Shockey said the board is looking for additional members and will be forming committees under the Main Street model.
“We’re not anti-Main Street. All we want is accountability,” Robertson said.
Morgantown Area News
'Monday, December 23, 2024'
