Demolition Discussion
McCuskey looks at Elkins properties
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State Auditor JB McCuskey, right, talks with State Senator Ryan Weld Tuesday in front of a home on Center Street in Elkins that is scheduled to be demolished.
ELKINS -- State Auditor JB McCuskey, a candidate in the 2024 race for governor of West Virginia, visited Elkins Tuesday to see one of the dilapidated properties scheduled to be demolished by the city using funds allocated through legislation shepherded by McCuskey.
"Getting rid of these properties, like this one we are looking at today, cleans up our neighborhoods," McCuskey said, standing in front of a boarded-up house on Center Street Tuesday morning. "You have all of these hardworking taxpayers on both sides of the street who are taking time to make sure their houses are clean, their lawns are mowed, and that their kids have a safe place to play. We owe it to them to make sure our cities are clean."
The City of Elkins has been awarded $300,000 for razing dilapidated properties through Senate Bill 552, which passed into law last year.
The bill revamped the state's tax sale statute, cutting the time by up to six months for dilapidated properties to be transferred by tax deeds. The Legislature allocated $10 million in a separate bill to help with costs.
"We need the towns in West Virginia to look the way we tell people from the outside they look," McCusky, a Republican running for the governor's office, said Tuesday.
"We tell everyone that Elkins is paradise, that Buckhannon is paradise, that Jefferson County, Charleston, you name it, is the best place for a young family to move."
State Senator Ryan Weld, R-Brooke County, the majority whip of the West Virginia Senate, also visited Elkins Tuesday morning, taking part in McCuskey's ceremony on Center Street. Weld sponsored Senate Bill 552.
McCuskey and Weld, along with Elkins Mayor Jerry Marco, were joined by a host of other guests Tuesday that included Elkins Police Chief Travis Bennett, Elkins Fire Department Chief Steve Himes and Randolph County Development Authority Director Robbie Morris.
"JB (McCuskey) was the driving force behind all of this," Marco said Tuesday. "He worked very closely with Senator Weld to make this happen and he knows this is a problem all across the state.
"He's been here probably seven or eight times since I've been in office and I can't thank him enough for taking time out of his busy schedule to come and make an appearance here to celebrate the fact that we are making progress," Marco said. "We are probably going to be able to take 12 properties down with this funding."
Marco said the City of Elkins has compiled a list of 12 properties that need attention. The mayor said he could not go into details publicly about where the properties were located, but said the city is making progress and taking the right steps toward removing such structures.
"These buildings are issues because they bring people's property values down and they are a tremendous public safety issue," Marco said. "If you get kids that happen to wander into one or a first responder has to respond to one of these structures, it's a dangerous situation for them. So being able to clean some of these properties up is a tremendous opportunity for us to make our community much better."
Marco said none of the projected demolitions would be possible if not for the hard work of McCuskey and Weld.
"The passage of that bill has enabled us to address some problem buildings in our area," Marco said. "We applied for money based on this and we were allocated $300,000. The fact that we have that much money means that we were able to package some of these buildings together to kind of get more bang for our buck."
Marco also said the fact that the Elkins area is now part of Ascend, one of the nation's leading talent attraction and retention programs, means it is very important that the community looks the best it possibly can.
"Now that we are part of the Ascend West Virginia Program, people are looking to move here and they are looking for property," Marco said. "This gives us more lots to work with going forward so they can build their dream home in beautiful downtown Elkins."