KINGWOOD — Preston County commissioners commented Monday on Gov. Jim Justice’s termination Sunday of State Transportation Secretary Tom Smith.
The action comes just weeks after Justice ordered Smith to tour Preston County roads and find a way to fix them.
Last year Preston Commissioners declared a state of emergency because of roads. It also spearheaded the formation of the North Central Roads Caucus.
Commission President Dave Price said District 4 put a spotlight on what is wrong with the State Division of Highways (DOH). Commissioner Don Smith agreed, noting most of the highway bills introduced this legislative session originated with delegates from District 4.
“The people in this district, whether it’s commissioners or the legislative people, have been on this wagon for a year and a half, and I’m assuming the governor just decided, ‘OK, this has got to change,’” Price said.
“I believe that Gov. Justice gets this,” Price said. “I just don’t know whether maybe Tom [Smith] did.”
Commissioner Smith said Justice doesn’t want to deal with day-to-day operations of a department. “That’s why he hired people, to deal with that,” Smith said. So when the complaints started coming to the governor, he acted, Smith said.
“Even if [Tom Smith] wasn’t doing it intentionally, he gave the impression he was trying to avoid things, cause he wasn’t getting back with the press, he wasn’t getting back with the commission and things like that. That is not what the governor wants. He does not want it to escalate to his level,” Don Smith said.
Price said he can’t judge whether Tom Smith did his job. “The governor knows best what is going on with that, and apparently was dissatisfied,” Price said.
Commissioner Samantha Stone, who has made fixing the roads one of her priorities on the commission, said she was, “completely shocked,” by Smith’s firing.
Based on what she has read of the governor’s comments about Smith, “I don’t know that he was doing anything incorrect, he just wasn’t doing what needed to be done for our roads in District 4,” Stone said. “Sometimes we have to go through change in order to get better, and [Justice] is looking at a new direction, I think, for our roads.”
Until the governor’s scheduled announcement Wednesday, we don’t know what that direction is, she said. For now, we know that ditching is the first step.
District 4 Engineer Darby Clayton and some of his staff were at Monday’s meeting. They addressed the permitting process people should follow when installing driveways that connect with a state road.
Clayton noted that during the ditch cleaning that began Monday throughout District 4, some driveways may be impacted. And any mailboxes within the ditches will be “gently removed” and laid aside, he said.
Price asked Clayton to elaborate on the work being done.
“We’re going back to the basics,” Clayton said. “We’re going to start getting the drainage system working, get the ditches clean, the pipes clean, the pipes replaced that need replaced, and then work up to where we have a basis to work off of.”
Commissioners made the road report a standard part of their weekly agendas.
