Tag: House of Delegate

Streaming Issues, Lawsuit Threat Sends Bills To House Tech Committee For Second Time

A number of bills were sent back to a West Virginia House of Delegates committee meeting for a second debate Thursday after technology issues prompted a state group to threaten legal action

In a letter, the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia (ACLU-WV) threatened to sue the House for a “blatant violation” of the open meetings act after the audio stream was unavailable or inaudible for a Wednesday morning meeting of the House Technology and Infrastructure Bill.

“When in-person access to the Capitol is restricted, it is more important than ever to ensure that the public may remain informed through the limited channels available,” wrote ACLU-WV legal director Loree Stark.

According to the ACLU-WV letter, committee members and staff were notified but the meeting continued in violation of the Open Meetings Act. The act requires government meetings remain open to the public.

During the meeting, the committee debated measures on water authorities, social media censorship, and Department of Motor Vehicle protocols.

After the lawsuit threat, the House recommitted the bills to the tech committee for a Thursday afternoon meeting and they were swiftly passed without debate.

“Staff members had been attempting to correct technology issues that were affecting sound quality this week, but when we became aware audio from a meeting was unusable, we made the decision to recommit the affected legislation and allow them to be debated again in committee for the benefit of the public,” said House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay.

The ACLU-WV is still reviewing the committee’s move to advance the bills a second time and has not made a decision on potential litigation, said communications director Billy Wolfe in an email Thursday.

The organization’s initial letter gave 30 days notice of litigation that would seek to nullify any decisions made during Wednesday’s meeting that was beset with audio issues.

The midweek saga shows the hurdles between the public’s input and legislators during a session with restricted access due to the pandemic.

Before the session, 40 different advocacy groups across the state signed a letter with six recommendations for ensuring public access to legislators.

Among their demands were access to legislators in a safe manner, such as virtual office hours, public hearings, and the posting of agendas before meetings.

Several public hearings have been held on bills before the legislature, such as water standards, the income tax repeal plan, and others.

House Bill Creates Broadband 'Co-Opts' in W.Va. Communities

In the House Friday, the House Judiciary Committee took its first look at a bill to expand broadband internet access in the state. The bill’s goal is for all West Virginians to have access by 2020.

According to the Federal Communications Commission, 30 percent of West Virginians do not have access to basic broadband services as defined by federal law. When you look at just the rural parts of the state that percentage increases to 48.

House Bill 3093, which was taken up in the chamber’s Judiciary Committee Friday morning, seeks to expand access to underserved areas in the state.

The bill itself is 33 pages long. It allows communities to form “internet co-opts,” which lead sponsor of the bill Delegate Roger Hanshaw explains are groups of citizens who live in certain geographic areas. The groups can work together to become their own internet service provider.

“If a provider isn’t coming into their area with service that’s of high enough quality to suit their needs,” Hanshaw said, “they can get together to work with the provider and become their own provider there in that small community.”

Hanshaw, who is from rural Clay County, says this was one of the biggest barriers he and his colleagues found as they began working on this bill a year ago. He says the bill also addresses some smaller barriers, too, like dealing with micro-trenching, which is the official term for a simple process—the laying of pipes with internet fibers inside them alongside any new highway construction in the state.

Hanshaw says the bill is comprehensive but with a straightforward approach.

“It’s just simply meant to remove barriers to service,” he explained, “So our objective in adopting this bill, if we ultimately get it passed both houses is just to remove several barriers all at once to expansion of service, and in doing so, hopefully remove that great big barrier.”

Hanshaw says the bill wouldn’t use any state dollars, and it gives communities the authority to get it started.

“There’s nothing compulsory about this bill,” he noted, “This is all a permissive bill; it lets people do things; that’s the objective. So this is a revenue neutral bill. This bill doesn’t require any expenditure of state funds. So how quickly the bill causes service to expand is largely going to be driven by how quickly people want it to happen.”

The bill also creates a Broadband Enhancement Council, which is made up of thirteen voting members including the Secretary of Commerce and the State Superintendent of Schools. The council is housed in  the Department of Commerce and is tasked with providing administrative, personnel, and technical support services to the communities that seek broadband expansion on their own.

The bill also establishes a Broadband Enhancement Fund, which will hold  any donations or appropriations the Council receives for their projects.

Hanshaw says this bill is an important frontier for West Virginia.

“The interstate highway system, when it was built, after President Eisenhower’s term opened up the country to an entirely new form of commerce. The broadband – access to adequate broadband service, is this generation’s equivalent to the interstate highway system.”

After an hour of questions and discussion in committee, House Judiciary passed House Bill 3093 without debate. It now heads to the full chamber and will likely see a vote next week.

Sen. Joe Manchin Speaks at Public Hearing on Prevailing Wage Bill

Senate Bill 361 made its way into the House Thursday. What had been a full repeal of the prevailing wage all together is now just a scale back. And this compromise received an endorsement from U. S. Senator Joe Manchin.

The House Chamber was packed with union workers, contractors, business owners and others who were interested in seeing what the House would do with Senate Bill 361.

After emotional debates over the bill on the senate floor, and a rally organized by Senator Jeff Kessler that saw over 1000 protestors who were heavily against the bill, a compromise was found in the senate that made what was originally a full repeal of the prevailing wage, to only a partial repeal.

In the House Government Organization Committee’s public hearing, twenty-five people spoke to explain their feelings toward the controversial bill.

However, many of the speakers were not fully against the bill, but for the compromise passed by the Senate.

Robert Gribben is the president and owner of Grae-Con Construction in Weirton. He says the lowering of the prevailing wage would cost his business highly-skilled workers.

“The lowering of the prevailing wage most likely we’re going to lose a lot of these workers,” Gribben said, “because they’re going to go to the states surrounding us that do have a prevailing wage rate. Some of them will stay here and they’ll work in private industry, but there’s not going to be enough work to keep all of our West Virginian’s busy.”

Donald Gatewood, the president of American Energy Contractors in Huntington says he was originally for a full repeal, but now is interested in the compromise offered by the Senate.

“What the Senate has done with 361 and the amended version is, it’s a good compromise, because what it does is it takes prevailing wage, and it should make it prevailing wage, it should turn it into the market wage, which has a lot of benefit to this state, and most importantly, not to either of my companies, but most importantly to the tax payers of this state,” Gatewood said, “and I think we all have a fiduciary responsibility in this room to make sure that the tax payers in this state are paying fair costs for their construction work. This is not about cutting wages, I’m not at all for cutting wages, it’s about letting the marketplace work.”

In a surprise visit, Senator Joe Manchin also spoke at the public hearing.

00000174-a7b1-ddc3-a1fc-bffb33ea0000“I think we all know that West Virginia has some of the best workers, and the best workforce, and the best reputation for workers in the country. We have some of the best contractors, and if you look at the history of wages and you look at the Davis-Bacon Wage Act. This is not a partisan issue, it’s not Democrat, Republican. Davis and Bacon were both Republicans. The president that put it into force, as far as nationwide, as far as the highway system was President Eisenhower building the interstate system, so when you look at it, we’re looking at how do we protect good wages, get jobs done and done correctly, and basically with the best quality of workers you can. How do you have contractors? These were all put in place to make sure that was protected, and basically you have a situation in West Virginia right now, which I would hope you would see. You have an opportunity, we’ve heard labor and business talking and working together, wanting to find adjustments to be made to make this a better piece of legislation. They’re willing to do that. Labor’s gone so far as to put a threshold of $500,000. There’s only three states in the nation that have a threshold that high. They’ve given you, basically every opportunity to work within the highest levels to make sure that we can get jobs done and don’t put a burden on your municipalities or your state jobs as far as contracts we might have. The thing I’m trying to tell you is, seize the opportunity to put something together here that’s good. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. You’ve got everybody wanting to sit down and work together and make something happen that’s going to be good for West Virginia, it’s going to be good for the working people of West Virginia, the contractors and business people of West Virginia most importantly, the tax payers getting the job done with local workers. I think that’s what you have in front of you right now. I would hope you would seize that opportunity. God bless all of you. Don’t let the toxic atmosphere of Washington permeate in West Virginia. We’re better than this.” – U.S. Senator Joe Manchin

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