………Residents of Hancock County are frustrated by the actions of their local and State government. I am equally as frustrated. I was at a t-ball game with my family this week and a concerned citizen came up to me and asked “What are we going to do about our two errant Commissioners?” She was referring to Commissioners Eron Chek and Paul Cowey and their actions in giving $400,000 to Family Care Excellence out of the opioid funds despite the organization’s failure to produce required information. We all agreed that the first step had been taken with the defeat of Chek by the largest margin in Hancock County election history. We agreed that Commissioner Paul Cowey’s re-election would meet the same fate for holding Family Care Excellence to a different standard than others applying for the funds, but that’s two years in the future. What can we do now?
……….It is apparent that the third Commissioner Tommy Ogden is a minority of one. No matter what data or information he brings to the commission, Chek and Cowey disregard Ogden’s information and vote as a block. No independent thinkers here.
……..I think until Chek leaves the Commission in December, the situation is dangerous. Hopefully, the newly elected commissioner will have a greater respect for the rules. In the meantime, what can be done. The other organizations who applied for funds and produced their records could file a complaint with the Ethics Commission because they were being treated in a disparate manner being required to produce information to get the funds when Family Care Excellence got the funding without adhering to the written criteria. Actually, a citizen could file a complaint. A group of citizens could write the organization dispersing the funding to protest the Hancock Commission’s actions and ask them to look into it. I am perplexed about Cowey and Chek’s persistence, ignoring rules they themselves wrote, to get Family Care Excellence money. It would seem to be a personal agenda issue, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what the agenda is. This type of game playing is destroying the Commission’s credibility.
…….The Hancock County School Board was again the subject of discussion this week. We shared a statement from former Superintendent Dan Enich with readers this week. That statement will serve as a complaint and be sent to the State Board of Education. If the State takes no action after 30 days, it will be filed in Circuit Court. There are many questions asked and many questions unanswered in Enich’s statement. The biggest one to me is with Joe Campinelli was on the job for 20 years and all with all the infractions detailed by Enich why didn’t the State do their job? The problems didn’t take place in the past two years, Campinelli’s non-compliance started in 2000 when he didn’t get bonded then and for the following 17 years. According to the State Code the CFO and Treasurer is required to be bonded and that law was violated. Is the WV Board of Education going to file charges or simply ignore it as they have other violations? If the State Board doesn’t provide oversight and doesn’t have the integrity to enforce violations of the State Code, I would suggest Governor Morrisey replace the lot of them.
