KINGWOOD — The City of Kingwood has a new chief of police.
Former Chief Charley Haney said Lawson Stewart took over the job of chief on Monday.
Kingwood Mayor Jean Guillot said Stewart, who is moving to Kingwood from Claudville, Va., has 24-plus years of law enforcement experience.
Haney said he will be staying with the department during the transition.
Haney has served as chief of police for the City of Kingwood twice. He was with the Preston County Sheriff’s Department for 32 years, starting as a jailer/dispatcher, and retiring as chief deputy. After retiring, he worked for about two years with the WVU Police.
In other business from Kingwood City Council’s most recent meeting, council learned the elevator at the Kingwood Public Library is once again in operation, said council member Karen Kurilko. The elevator was closed from July 24-28 while a secondary pump was being dug out from under it. Once the old pump was removed, a new pump was ordered.
Kurilko said now that the elevator is working, shelving is going to be put up in the basement room and the old carpeting removed.
Aaron Johnson, head librarian, said now that the elevator is up and running he wants to make part of the basement into the reference room. He said that would entail moving reference books, genealogy material, West Virginia non-fiction and fiction to the basement once the shelving is up. Johnson said the public computers will moved to the basement later. He said the project should be complete by the end of October.
During an interview prior to the meeting, Guillot said city officers will be watching for illegal ATV’s and UTV’s that residents are complaining about.
“We need to curb the illegal four-wheelers and side-by-sides,” he said. “They need to be licensed and insured; they need headlights, tail lights, brake lights and mirrors. They need to be insured.”
He said according to the complaints he receives the ATV’s and UTV’s are loud, and always speeding.
“Citizens are tired of them speeding up and down their streets,” he said. “We are going to start ticketing them.”
He said city workers recently voiced a complaint about another problem. This one about the city’s recycling center.
Guillot said city workers recently found a dead dog in one of the recycling bins. He said the dog had been in the bin for several days during very warm weather. He said city workers removed the dog and cleaned the bin.
“The recycling bins are meant for recycling. They are not for garbage, or for dead animals to be dumped off in,” Guillot said. “We’ll have to close our recycling center down if the rules are not going to be adhered to.”
Guillot said the city is proud of it’s recycling center, but there are rules that have to be followed by those who use it.
“We have the top recycling center, the cleanest, most organized in the state. We get paid the most by the state,” he said. “But cans need to be washed before recycling, We can’t recycle an unwashed tomato paste can, and the recycling center is not the place to drop off dead animals.”
The next meeting of the Kingwood City Council will be 6:30 p.m. Oct. 10.
