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Town council talks fire department billing, Easter egg hunt safety

By Tabitha Johnston - Chronicle Staff | Feb 23, 2024

Shepherdstown Volunteer Fire Department Chief Ross Morgan talks with the town council at its monthly meeting in Town Hall on Feb. 13.

SHEPHERDSTOWN — The Corporation of Shepherdstown’s February town council meeting kicked off last Tuesday night with an update on the Jefferson County Hazard Mitigation Plan led by Dick Myers.

Myers, who is deputy director of Jefferson County Homeland Security and Emergency Management, spoke on behalf of director Steve Allen.

“Over the last seven months, we’ve been working on the five-year Hazard Mitigation Plan,” Myers said. “One of the things that has changed since the last five years is, in previous times we could have the plan and have the meetings, but we had to have participation from every municipality before it was done. You couldn’t just ask for their adoption. You had to have participation. So that is one of the things that has changed. As far as the background, we received a grant to be able to do this plan and it’s in the amount of $60,000. It didn’t cost that much to do, thank goodness!”

Myers said the grant was from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“For the most part, the plan is not much different than in the past, but the demographics have changed,” Myers said. “Of the list of hazards in our county, the top three were the public health system, which I’m sure many of you knew was because of the COVID-19 Pandemic that has occurred; cyber terrorism, which is number two, and utility interruptions, which is number three.”

Myers said one noteworthy update to the plan was to educate homeowners on benefits available to them and encourage active involvement in processes related to their homes, including “acquisition, demolition, elevation, relocation, mitigation, reconstruction and structures in your flood plane.” The other updates he mentioned were to “design and conduct a new water plant with a generator backup power supply” and to leave open spaces for recreational activities or planting vegetation in flood-prone areas.

Shepherdstown Volunteer Fire Department Chief Ross Morgan requested permission to bill residents and business owners in the Corporation of Shepherdstown for services related to incidents such as fires, automobile accidents and hazardous material spills. “Everyone pays around $1,000, more or less, in your homeowner’s insurance that is for this purpose. The bill will go to your insurance company. If the insurance company denies payment, it is terminated and would not be billed to the individual,” Morgan said, noting this is separate from EMS billing connected with the department. “The billing and authorization is cited within West Virginia State Code 7-1-3DC.”

The town council elected not to make any decision, as it might prove unnecessary, since a similar request had already been made to the Jefferson County Commission by the seven departments in the county.

An application to hold the Shepherdstown Farmers Market behind the Market House, from March 24 through Dec. 22, was approved by the town council.

“I guess I’m here today because I want to shut down one of your roads — just a small portion of it from German Street to old Queen out here, and that’s only because we have so many kids. We had so many problems with them and the traffic last year,” said Experience Shepherdstown event coordinator Amanda Farone, who is organizing an Easter egg hunt on McMurran Hall lawn on March 30.

The town council unanimously approved Farone’s request.

The final decision made by the town council was regarding the proposal of An Ordinance To Enact Chapter 8, Title 8 Of The Code Of

Shepherdstown As The Special Events Ordinance.

“Recently, we got very little notification for so many different events that were happening in town, which requires quite a bit of work from us — not only us, but from the state of West Virginia, to give us information on. These type of events are usually not a problem, but the people who organize them are our problem, because they take a lot of research to do. Sometimes it’s a drain on resources and so forth,” said Shepherdstown Chief of Police Mike King. “What we’re looking for is to get more advance notice than a day, like we were getting before.”

The ordinance would require an application for events organized on Corporation of Shepherdstown property, with at least five days’ advance notice. Each application would cost $25. Recurring events, like the Shepherdstown Farmers Market, would require an application for each individual event.

The town council elected to wait to hear community feedback, before making a ruling on the proposal.

A proposal by Town Administrator Stephanie Grove and the Personnel Committee, recommending the appointment of an interim director for Public Works, was sent to executive session. Grove noted that longtime Public Works Director Frank Welch continues to work part-time, as he awaits being able to go into full retirement.