The Greenbrier County legislative candidates gathered to answer questions from the public at Greenbrier Valley Theatre on Tuesday, April 19.
The forum featured candidates in the District 10 Senatorial race, the District 46 House race, and the District 47 House race. The hopeful senators included incumbent Democrat Stephen Baldwin, Republican Vince Deeds, Republican Thomas Perkins, and Republican Mike Steadham.
There are two House of Delegates seats up for election, districts 46 and 47. For District 46, the debate included Democrat Paul S. Detch, incumbent Republican Mike Honaker, Republican Karen G. McCoy, and Republican Mark Alan Robinson.
For District 47, Democrat Heather Hill was present.
Incumbent Republican Todd Longanacre and District 46 Democrat candidate Joe Holt of Lewisburg were not present.
The debate included (left to right) moderator Ashley Vickers, Baldwin, Detch, Hill, Robinson, McCoy, Honaker, Perkins, Deeds, and Steadman. |
The debate was hosted by the Greater Greenbrier Chamber of Commerce and moderated by its executive director, Ashley Vickers. Each candidate gave an opening statement introducing themselves. Five topics were considered; what happens after the recent broadband bill was vetoed, the need for reform of the foster care and CPS system, the nearly universal support for state tourism investment, how each candidate would protect transgender youth, and an open ended question on sexual assault.
Each of the candidates agreed on the need for reforms to the foster care system.
Recently, House Bill 4344, making significant changes to the foster care system, passed through both houses of the state legislature, one nay and one absent unanimous vote in both houses. However, adjustments to the bill were not reconciled before the session ended, meaning it was not ultimately passed or presented to Governor Jim Justice.
“With all due respect to all the other questions that are asked tonight, this is the most important one,” said Baldwin. “There are 8,000 children in foster care in the state of West Virginia right now. … We have a very complicated problem before us right now. It’s landed us in hot water with feds in the last couple of years. … [The bill passed but] unfortunately, there were a couple of people that didn’t want to pay for it, right when it came down to it. We need data. … We need child abuse hotline reform so that if you call with suspected abuse, that call is not filtered out, especially if you’re a medical professional or law enforcement official.”
Honaker said he also voted in favor of the bill.
“We need to split West Virginia DHHR into two,” said Honaker. “It’s a behemoth agency with $7.5 billion dollars that lacks agility, responsiveness. Because of that 30 percent of our CPS positions are vacant. First, we need to hire the people to facilitate these austere issues and facilitate these adoptions. But the problem is we pay people $31,000 a year to have a master’s degree.”
Perkins spoke to his childhood, saying, “I was removed from my home by CPS as a child. They said that my mother was abusing me. It really was school officials that were abusing me, more or less beating me and stuff, at the public school systems here in Greenbrier County, and I was removed by CPS. When you’re in the state’s custody, I mean, you have no rights, and that’s the biggest problem.”
Hill explained her personal experience working in the field, saying “there isn’t a whole lot of therapeutic foster care with your special needs children. There’s a lack of psychoeducation, which has to happen. There needs to be sex education starting in middle school throughout all the schools, which happens in other states as well as other countries. [We need] birth control, as well as family planning, and more money needs to be filtered into DHHR.”
Detch noted that “it seemed like the Republican legislature met and and said, ‘gee, we’ve got a billion dollars in our rainy day fund, but we don’t care enough about our children to fund our educators to fill the teaching positions and make sure that our foster care was, in fact, adequately funded.’ We’re going to have to inconvenience some of the millionaires in this state that are sucking the money away.”
There was also a universal call among the candidates for more internet access in Greenbrier and neighboring counties. The lack of internet prevented many students from accessing their work at home during the COVID-19 pandemic and is a ongoing problem for businesses trying to relocate into the state.
Recently, Justice vetoed House Bill 4001, known as the broadband bill. The bill passed 87 yeas to two nays (11 absent) in the House of Delegates and unanimously in the Senate, with all Greenbrier County representatives voting in favor.
Baldwin, also chair of the Greenbrier County Broadband Council, said he spoke with Senate President Craig Blair on this issue.
“The governor’s office had concerns about conflicts with federal law,” Baldwin explained. “That bill provides consumer protections. … It also provides open access, which … basically means that there’s a fiber line [that] belongs to, let’s say, Greenbrier County. Frontier can tie into it and … Countryman can tie into it. You might imagine who doesn’t like that – the people who then don’t control the entire line. … I’m hopeful that it passes as it is with the consumer protections and with the open access. We also need to work locally with our local broadband council or local commission, because ultimately, our solutions are going to be local.”
Baldwin |
“I have talked with the governor about the broadband bill,” Honaker said. “His legal counsel basically told him that if the way the bill was written, it would violate the Federal Communications Act under the FCC. The Feds would file an injunction because we can’t, as a state, control the rights or the regulations on it. [Justice] tasked us with going back and fixing it, which we’ll want to do during the interim sessions.”
Detch had a simple answer, stating, “get a Democratic governor.”
Support for state funding for the tourism industry was nearly universally approved of, with Baldwin noting an eight to one dollar return on investment in this industry.
“Tourism brings so many people into our area, and it’s so important in all these communities continuing to develop,” Deeds said. “… We have to develop tourism and then continue it, each and every day. Agrotourism is something that’s new. … We have a lot of farms in our area … that are doing agrotourism. In that way, people get exposed to farming life and then they also get to have the fun and the wealth of West Virginia.”
Perkins, Deeds, and Steadman |
“I’m just saying business people don’t [cut advertising],” said Steadman. “You get it going, you keep your momentum. The last thing you cut is advertising for a business, unless you’re advertising a going out of business sale.”
McCoy highlighted Snowshoe Mountain, saying, “if you go out and look, you will see people going into our grocery stores, buying supplies, getting gas. The county benefits from that. … We get a great deal of hotel motel tax that goes to our county commission, which is used in this county that also helps the schools. So yes, I definitely am for advertising tourism more because I know how it really benefits Pocahontas County.”
Robinson, however, wanted to downsize the government spending, asking if the businesses could continue to do the same if funding were cut.
How would each candidate would protect transgender youth? Each candidate, except McCoy and Robinson, voiced opposition to discrimination against the trans community.
Deeds noted that there were already some laws in place to protect this community. He continued on with something more personal.
“Let me tell you about a personal experience,” Deeds continued. “I’ve dealt with this my whole life. [A close relative of mine] knew that it felt like she was different. She struggled with it. … She grew up in the school system, she was openly homosexual. She felt that bullying and abuse that comes from being transgender [and] homosexual. …. It’s affected my point of view, and I love her dearly. … We need to talk about this and get to know each other, because if we get to know each other, we can understand each other, and we can eliminate some of these issues.”
Honaker noted, “this is a free country, you can either you want to be and do what you want to do without us all compromising our personal values,” but also expressed some doubt that gender issues should be taught in schools.
McCoy advocated for some form of conversion therapy, a highly discredited practice known to massively increase risk of suicidality with no record of gender or sexuality change.
“What I learned … was that half of all trans youth will at least tried to commit suicide. Half,” Baldwin said. “That stunned me, and stopped me in my tracks. … Half will try to kill themselves, take their own life, because they feel so ostracized from their communities. … We must be quick to extend grace rather than going to extend judgment. …. We are in loving place, y’all means all in West Virginia. … We’re always willing to give you the shirt off our back, and we need some sensitivity on these difficult issues.”
Finally, one candidate continuously called for big changes to the Family Courts in West Virginia, referring back to multiple times during the debate.
“I made it pretty clear that I’m running because I got tangled up in a family court, my [ex] wife divorced me and took my seven children,” Robinson said in his opening statement. “Part of the reason it’s been so difficult is because I have kicked against the judge … and against the initial verdict. … That’s my personal thing. I have been involved in politics and I want to go and change some things about the family courts. I think everybody knows that they’re a mess.”
During the 2018 election, Robinson ran against Greenbrier County Sheriff Bruce Sloan for position of sheriff. During this race, an out-of-state warrant was received by the Greenbrier County Magistrate Court from Augusta County, Va., for two charges; a violation of provisions of a protective order and an attempt to commit a misdemeanor.
Robinson |
The Greater Greenbrier Chamber of Commerce is continuing the Meet the Candidates next with candidates for the Greenbrier County Commission, county clerk, and circuit clerk on April 26 at 5:30 p.m. at the Underwood Building at the Fairgrounds.
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