Senate Bill No. 145
(By Senators Wagner, Miller and Yoder)
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[Introduced January 23, 1995; referred to the
Committee on the Judiciary.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact section four, article
twelve, chapter seven of the code of West Virginia,
one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended;
and to amend and reenact section five of said
article, all relating to excepting certain board
members of local development authorities from being
in violation of the state ethics law solely by
serving on an authority board.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section four, article twelve, chapter seven of
the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred
thirty-one, as amended, be amended and reenacted; and
that section five of said article be amended and
reenacted, all to read as follows:
ARTICLE 12. COUNTY AND MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITIES
§7-12-4. Qualifications of members.
All members of the board of the authority shall be citizens of the county or municipality in which the
authority is intended to operate, and bona fide residents
of the municipality or county by which they are
appointed. Any person employed by, owning an interest
in, or otherwise associated with a public utility company
as defined in chapter twenty-four, article one, section
two of this code, or bank as defined in chapter thirty-
one-a, article one, section two to this code may serve as
a board member and shall not be disqualified from serving
as a board member because of conflict of interest as
defined in chapter sixty-one, article ten, section
fifteen of this code, and shall not be subject to
prosecution under the provisions of chapter sixty-one,
article ten, section fifteen of this code, when the
violation is created solely as a result of his or her
relationship with the bank or public utility. This
member must recuse himself or herself from board
participation regarding the conflicting issue as provided
for in secion five of this article.
§7-12-5. Compensation of members; expenses; recusal of
member from voting where conflict of
interest
involved.
(A) No member of the authority shall
receive any compensation, whether in formal salary, per
diem allowance or otherwise, in connection with his or her services as such member. Each member shall, however,
be entitled to reimbursement by the authority for any
necessary expenditures in connection with the performance
of his or her general duties as such member.
(B) Each member present during any meeting of the
authority when any question is put, shall vote unless he
or she is immediately and particularly interested
therein. Whenever a person associated with a public
utility or bank as set out in section four of this
article has a conflict of interest between the board and
that public utility or bank, then he or she must recuse
himself or herself from any vote, discussion or other
activity associated with the board or its members that
creates the conflict of interest. Before such a question
is put, any member having direct personal or pecuniary
interest therein shall announce this fact and request to
be excused from voting. The presiding officer of the
meeting or a majority of the members present may then
excuse the member from voting upon the question. The
disqualifying interest must be such as affects the
members directly, and not as one of a class.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to allow persons
associated with an utility or bank to serve on a local
development authority without creating an ethics
violation per WVC §61-10-15, when the authority has
dealings or does business with the utility or bank and
the associated person recuses him or herself from the
conflicting activity.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be
stricken from the present law, and underscoring indicates
new language that would be added.