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W.Va. Supreme Court won’t hear Wilcox appeal

Motion to extend filing period denied

PARKERSBURG — The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals declined to extend the period when a Parkersburg city councilwoman can appeal a lower court’s decision of a complaint she filed against four other council members.

Last year, Councilwoman Nancy Wilcox filed a complaint in Wood County Circuit Court alleging Council members Roger Brown, J.R. Carpenter, Mike Reynolds and Kim Coram gathered to determine the scope of a financial review and agreed to engage the services of a local accounting firm outside of a properly noticed public meeting.

Wood County Circuit Judge J.D. Beane dismissed the complaint in December, saying the alleged violation had been remedied under the open meetings laws when the issues in question were voted on at a public meeting.

According to an order from the Supreme Court issued recently, Wilcox’s attorney, William Summers, filed a notice of appeal on Aug. 23 along with a motion asking the justices to allow the appeal to be filed “out of time.”

The Guide to Supreme Court Procedure, available online at courtswv.gov, says the appealing party must file a notice of appeal within 30 days of the judgment being entered in circuit court. Although Beane made his ruling in December, the order refusing Summers’ motion says the circuit court order was entered in March.

While the guide says the court may extend the time period “for good cause,” the court refused the motion to enlarge the time for the appeal.

Wilcox said Friday she had not been notified of the order. Carpenter declined comment.

Summers did not immediately return a call seeking comment Friday afternoon.

Walt Auvil, who represented Carpenter, Coram and Reynolds, said the court didn’t rule on the merits of the case, rather it was on whether the time to appeal would be extended.

Brown was represented by Roger Hanshaw, who made a motion that he be dismissed from the complaint since Brown was not a member of the Finance Committee and the other three were. Three members constitute a quorum of the five-member Finance Committee.

The defendants in the complaint acknowledged they met with a representative of Perry and Associates in June 2015 about a proposed review of city finances but said they did not make any decisions during that meeting.

Carpenter signed a letter of engagement on June 25, 2015, and said changes in the scope of what had been discussed in a March 2015 Finance Committee meeting were made after separate conversations among the five council members who voted for it.

The scope of the review and decision to use Perry and Associates were voted on at a June 30 special meeting called by Carpenter, then serving as council president, after City Attorney Joe Santer said the issues needed to be voted on by the full council.

Auvil and Hanshaw argued at the December hearing that even if their clients had violated open-meeting law, the proper remedy was to vote on the matters at a public meeting, which was done.

Among other things, the review looked at the use of the city’s coal severance funds, particularly in relation to the Point Park Marketplace. It found that no money was missing and the funds had been used for allowable expenses, but they had been taken from the wrong line items.

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