Funding plan raises toll issue

CHARLESTON — An amended bill proposed by lawmakers Wednesday would fund two tourism projects in southern West Virginia, but ignited a debate over the potential for another toll increase on the West Virginia Turnpike.

The amended legislation would require the state Parkways Authority to provide up to $100,000 in annual revenue for Mercer County’s proposed multi-purpose equestrian park. House Bill 4482 also would extend the annual $250,000 payments made by the Parkways Authority to the Hatfield-McCoy Recreation Authority. The funding to the Hatfield-McCoy Trails was set to expire.

However, the Parkways Auth-ority was ordered last year by Gov. Joe Manchin to eliminate its economic development and tourism business and to refocus on the maintenance and upgrade of the 88-mile turnpike between Princeton and Charleston, Turnpike General Manager Greg Barr said.

Barr said the Parkways Authority was counting on the expiration of the annual payments to the Hatfield-McCoy Trail. If the authority is now mandated by the Legislature to not only continue the annual $250,000 payments, but to also make annual payments of $100,000 to the equestrian center project in Mercer County, Barr said the likelihood of a toll hike increases when combined with the problem of aging infrastructure along the turnpike, increasing costs of asphalt and construction and declining revenue as a result of less traffic on the turnpike due to gas prices.

“When does the final piece of the straw get added that breaks the camels’ back?” Barr asked. “Any money that goes toward the horse park and Hatfield-McCoy takes away from the money we have to maintain the road.”

Lawmakers disputed the argument Wednesday that requiring the Parkways Authority to fund the equestrian park would lead to a toll hike on the turnpike.

“I don’t agree with that,” Senate Majority Leader H. Truman Chafin, D-Mingo, said. “They have several million dollars in discretionary spending.”

With “prudent management,” Chafin said he does not believe the authority will be “financially strapped” by paying $100,000 to fund the equestrian center.

Chafin said funding for the Hatfield-McCoy Trail has been paid out for years, and the trail “has turned out to be one of the best investments the state has ever made.”

If the amendment was seeking $5 or $10 million in funding, Chafin said he could understand Barr’s concern.

“I believe they can handle this without a toll increase,” Chafin said. “I call on them to do better management.”

Senate Minority Leader Don Caruth, R-Mercer, offered the original amendment to add the $100,000 for the equestrian park in Mercer County.

Caruth said the idea that $100,000 for the equestrian park would lead to a toll increase is absurd. “That’s a very, very tiny portion of what they take in on revenue on the Parkways Authority,” he said. “It’s disingenuous to say that.”

Asked about the possible increase in tolls to fund the Hatfield-McCoy Trail and equestrian park, Sen. John Pat Fanning, D-McDowell, responded with a resounding “no.”

“With the price of gasoline so high, how are they going to justify that?” he asked.

Fanning believes funds generated by the state’s gas tax would offset the money for the trail and equestrian park.

“I do not think this would justify a toll increase,” Fanning said. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re not going to approve any tolls or increases. They’re already high enough.”

Because of the change made to the bill in the Senate, the legislation will now go back to the House where the amendment will have to be approved. If the House does not approve the amendment, then the bill would go into a conference committee, Caruth said.

Manchin moved last year to strip the Parkways Authority of all of its economic development and tourism components following editorial pressure by the Daily Telegraph. That included selling the Authority’s 68 percent share of a large building on Kanawha Boulevard in Charleston occupied by Capital Area Services Co. Inc., also known as CASCO. Manchin also ordered the Parkways Authority to begin the transfer of Tamarack to the state Department of Commerce.

“Since that time we’ve sold the CASCO (building), and the transfer of Tamarack is continuing with Kelly Goes and the Department of Commerce working on it,” Barr said. “Right now we are still trying to figure out a way to pay those bonds on Tamarack.”

However, Barr said if the Parkways Authority is ordered to get back into the tourism business by the Legislature, it will have no choice but to comply — and to begin annual payments of $100,000 to Mercer County for the equestrian park, and to continue annual payments of $250,000 to Hatfield-McCoy.

“So it is a constant battle, and any dollar going out for something other than the mission of trying to maintain and upkeep the turnpike is going to make it tougher on us to maintain the turnpike and get the job done,” Barr said.

Barr said aging infrastructure along the 88-mile turnpike is in dire need of maintenance.

“There is just a (limited) amount of money available for things like this,” Barr said. “So we are just really concerned with no toll increase. Costs are going up. We are trying to get out of economic development and refocus on the highway.”

Fanning said the nine-year limitation on the $250,000 funding allocation to Hatfield-McCoy Trails was set to expire.

“The nine-year limitation was getting ready to sunset,” Fanning said. “So we extended the years. And in doing this we also put the equestrian center in there. We just found an opportunity. I know it’s been a major item for (Mercer) County to get the equestrian center.”

Fanning said the legislation also will allow for a continuation of the state’s support of the Hatfield-McCoy Trail system. The new Indian Ridge segment of the Hatfield-McCoy Trail opened in McDowell last year.

Chafin said the multi-purpose equestrian center project being developed by the cities of Bluefield and Princeton and the Mercer County Commission has the potential to be as big as the Hatfield-McCoy Trail.

“First of all, the Hatfield-McCoy Trail is one of the most successful programs we ever started,” Chafin said. “McDowell County just got into the Hatfield-McCoy system last year, and they just sold over $100,000 worth of tickets. They have one of the biggest KOA campgrounds in the United States. It (the five-county trail system) generated almost $8 million in revenue last year.”

The trail system was created by the West Virginia Legislature in 1996 as a project to spur economic development in and around the nine southern West Virginia counties of Boone, Kanawha, Lincoln, Logan, McDowell, Mercer, Mingo, Wayne and Wyoming. In the future it will be extended into Mercer County.

The equestrian park is proposed along several hundred acres owned by Princeton and Bluefield in Green Valley.

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