RONCEVERTE W.Va. (WVDN) – The Ronceverte city council held their monthly meeting on Monday, September 8 in a relatively quiet session with a few issues and ideas being floated around.
After the approval of the minutes from August, mayor Deena Pack touched on stormwater related business. The property owner at 198 Frankford Road has not completed necessary paperwork due to limited time to do so. A table review was agreed upon and the council will look at again in October meeting when owner can have opportunity to fill the paperwork out.
A Ronceverte Baptist Church member spoke about a Family Fall Festival planned for October 12 at the island Park. There will be church service at the amphitheater then at noon, meals will be provided. Everybody is welcome to attend from parents and children to grandparents. At 1, the activities begin and will include face painting, hayrides, S’mores over open fire. Also, chili will be served. As of right now, the fire department will likey have a firefighter on scene, but if not, there will be hoses and extinguishers available. The council wants to ensure safety at the event.
Ordinance 2025-05 was discussed about receiving on-site citations. As the rule is currently, the city is required to create individual ordinances, allowing on the spot citations due to unsafe conditions in a building, etc. But there’s a long process required until a citation. This ordinance would be an on-the-spot citation but would still go through a court process. Police would still have to be contacted. There would be no loss of rights for the citizen(s), just a sped-up process. City administrator Pam Mentz later clarified that the building inspector can now go to the police to have them inspect any unsafe conditions.
There will be a fundraiser for the Ronceverte Public Library on September 27 from 5 to 9 PM at the Sportsman in Ronceverte. They are a wanting request to close the road for about four hours because there will be a band on the new deck and tables in the street. The council will speak with chief Hopkins. 100 percent of the proceeds go directly to the library.
Bill Montgomery from the Americorps Vista gave a presentation explaining getting the Ronceverte Armory re-built and making it a part of the community again. Montgomery said there are three phases to the process: One- make the building safe, two- planning and having a large-scale vision, and three- fundraising. He has created a website where interested people can donate and sign up to volunteer and offer ideas as well. He is on the job for one year.
According to council member Matt Bergman, there are seven newly renovated apartments in the upstairs of the Rexall building. The downstairs is still a work in progress, but the plan is to still make great use for that part of the building as well.
The city has created a new email for citizens to express concerns, ideas, and issues. Residents can send their emails to Questions@cityofronceverte.com. It will be monitored frequently, and they will answer when they are available to do so.
Mentz mentioned the splash pad on the island had about a 20 percent decrease in participation this summer and she thought it was due to several cool and rainy days.
The city hall office is hoping to be moved into the Peoples Bank building by October 1 barring any hold ups. When that happens, the council meetings will have the capability to live stream the monthly meetings, which as of now, is the plan forward.
The next meeting will be held October 6.
