Senate Bill No. 208
(By Senators Helmick, Ross, Minear, Sharpe, Deem, Boley, Craigo,
Bowman, Yoder, Kimble, Manchin, Dittmar and Schoonover)
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[Introduced January 30, 1995; referred to the Committee
on the Judiciary.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact sections four and five, article
twelve, chapter seven of the code of West Virginia, one
thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, all relating
to excepting certain board members of local development
authorities from being in violation of the state ethics law
by serving on an authority board.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That sections four and five, article twelve, chapter seven
of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-
one, as amended, be amended and reenacted, all to read as
follows:
ARTICLE 12. COUNTY AND MUNICIPAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITIES.
§7-12-4. Qualifications of members.
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 of this
code, may serve as a board member and shall not be disqualified
from serving as a board member because of a 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 in section 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. 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.
Whenever a person associated with a public utility or bank as
provided 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.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to allow persons
associated with a utility or bank to serve on a local development
authority without creating an ethics violation per section
fifteen, article two, chapter sixty-one of the code, 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. Section four has been completely rewritten;
therefore, strike-throughs and underscoring have been omitted.
This bill was recommended for passage at the 1995
legislative session by the Joint Standing Committee on the
Judiciary.