Senate Bill No. 527
(By Senators Tomblin, (Mr. President), Chafin,
Wagner and Jackson)
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[Introduced February 20, 1995; referred to the Committee
on Government Organization.]
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A BILL to establish the corridor G regional development
authority; provide for its functions; definitions; purposes;
management and control of authority vested in board;
appointment and terms of members; vacancies and removals;
qualifications of members; powers generally; compensation of
members; expenses; authority to be a public corporation;
findings respecting necessity for exercise of right of
eminent domain; incurring indebtedness; rights of creditors;
agreements in connection with obtaining funds; property,
bonds and obligations of authority exempt from taxation;
participation and appropriations authorized; transfers and
conveyances of property; contributions by member counties,
local entity and others; funds and accounts; reports; audit and examination of books, records and accounts; sale or
lease of property; reversion of assets upon dissolution;
liberal construction; and severability of provisions.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
CORRIDOR G REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY.
§1. Corridor G regional development authority created;
functions.
There is hereby created the Corridor G regional development
authority.
§2. Definitions.
For purposes of this article the following terms shall have
the following meanings:
(1) "Authority" shall mean the Corridor G regional
development authority;
(2) "Member counties" shall mean the counties of Boone,
Lincoln, Logan and Mingo;
(3) "Local entity" shall mean any county, municipality, board
of education, political subdivision or other governmental agency
or body;
(4) "Corridor G" shall mean that part of United States route
119 which passes through the West Virginia counties of Boone,
Lincoln, Logan and Mingo.
§3. Purposes.
The purposes for which the authority is created are to
promote, develop and advance the business prosperity and economic
welfare of the member counties, including, but not limited to,the
area adjacent to Corridor G, their citizens and their industrial
complex; to encourage and assist through loans, investments or
other business transactions in the locating of new business and
industry within the member counties and to rehabilitate and
assist existing businesses and industries therein; to stimulate
and promote the expansion of all kinds of business and industrial
activity which will tend to advance business and industrial
development and maintain the economic stability of the member
counties, provide maximum opportunities for employment, encourage
thrift and improve the standard of living of the citizens of the
member counties; to cooperate and act in conjunction with other
organizations, federal, state or local, in the promotion and
advancement of industrial, commercial, agricultural and
recreational developments within the member counties; and to
furnish money and credit, land and industrial sites, technical
assistance and such other aid as may be deemed requisite to
approved and deserving applicants for the promotion, development
and conduct of all kinds of business activity within the member counties.
§4. Management and control of county authority vested in board;
appointment and terms of members; vacancies; removal of
members.
(a) The management and control of the authority, its
property, operations, business and affairs shall be lodged in a
board of sixteen voting members and five nonvoting ex officio
members to be appointed as follows: Each of the county
commissions of the counties of Boone, Lincoln, Logan and Mingo
shall appoint four voting members to the authority, one of whom
shall be a member of the county commission; the member of the
county commission shall serve at the will and pleasure of the
county commission; the initial terms of the other voting members
appointed by a county commission are as follows: One member
shall be appointed for a term of one year; one member shall be
appointed for a term of two years; and one member shall be
appointed for a term of three years; all successive appointments
shall be for a term of three years. A member may be reappointed
for such additional term or terms as the appointing agency may
deem proper. If a member resigns, is removed or for any other
reason his or her membership terminates during his or her term of
office, a successor shall be appointed by the appointing county to fill out the remainder of the term. Members in office at the
expiration of their respective terms shall continue to serve
until their successors have been appointed and have qualified.
(b) The directors of the county development authorities of
each of the member counties and the president of Southern West
Virginia community college, or his or her designee, shall be ex
officio nonvoting members.
(c) Should a vacancy occur, the person appointed to fill the
vacancy shall serve only for the unexpired portion thereof.
(d) Any voting member appointed to the authority by a county
commission may be removed by the appointing county commission for
such causes and reasons as a member of such county commission may
be removed from office.
(e) All initial members shall be appointed on or before the
first day of July, one thousand nine hundred ninety-five.
§5. Qualifications of members.
All members of the board of the authority shall be citizens
of the county in which the authority is intended to operate, and
bona fide residents of the county by which they are appointed.
§6. Authority to be a public corporation.
The authority and the members thereof shall constitute and
be a public corporation under the name provided for in section one of this article, and as such shall have perpetual succession,
may contract and be contracted with, sue and be sued, plead and
be pleaded and have and use a common seal.
§7. Powers generally.
The authority is hereby given power and authority as
follows: (1) To make and adopt all necessary bylaws, rules for
its organization and operations not inconsistent with laws; (2)
to elect its own officers, to appoint committees and to employ
and fix compensation for personnel necessary for its operation;
(3) to enter into contracts with any person, agency, governmental
department, firm or corporation, including both public and
private corporations, and generally to do any and all things
necessary or convenient for the purpose of promoting, developing
and advancing the business prosperity and economic welfare of the
member counties, their citizens and industrial complex,
including, without limiting any of the foregoing, the
construction of any building or structure for lease to the
federal government or any of its agencies or departments, and in
connection therewith to prepare and submit bids and negotiate
with the federal government or such agencies or departments in
accordance with plans and specifications and in the manner and on the terms and conditions and subject to any requirements,
regulations, rules and laws of the United States of America for
the construction of said buildings or structures and the leasing
thereof to the federal government or such agencies or
departments; (4) to amend or supplement any contracts or leases
or to enter into new, additional or further contracts or leases
upon such terms and conditions, for such consideration and for
such term of duration, with or without option of renewal, as may
be agreed upon by the authority and such person, agency,
governmental department, firm or corporation; (5) unless
otherwise provided for in, and subject to the provisions of, such
contracts, or leases, to operate, repair, manage and maintain
such buildings and structures and provide adequate insurance of
all types, and in connection with the primary use thereof and
incidental thereto to provide such services or other
authorizations to any person or persons, upon such terms and
conditions, for such consideration and for such term of duration
as may be agreed upon by the authority and such person, agency,
governmental department, firm or corporation; (6) to delegate any
authority given to it by law to any of its officers, committees,
agents or employees; (7) to apply for, receive and use grants-in-aid, donations and contributions from any source or
sources, and to accept and use bequests, devises, gifts and
donations from any person, firm or corporation; (8) to acquire
lands and other real property by gift, purchase or construction
or in any other lawful manner, and hold title thereto in its own
name; (9) to purchase or otherwise acquire, own, hold, sell and
dispose of personal property and real estate, and to own, hold,
sell, lease or otherwise dispose of all or part of such personal
property and any real property which it may own; (10) pursuant to
a determination by the board that there exists a continuing need
for programs to alleviate and prevent unemployment within any or
all of the member counties in which the authority is intended to
operate or aid in the rehabilitation of areas in said county or
counties which are underdeveloped, decaying or otherwise
economically depressed, and that moneys or funds of the authority
are necessary therefor, to borrow money and execute and deliver
the authority's negotiable notes, mortgage bonds, other bonds,
debentures and other evidences of indebtedness therefor, on such
terms as the authority shall determine, and give such security
therefor as shall be requisite, including giving a mortgage or
deed of trust on its real or personal property and facilities in connection with the issuance of mortgage bonds; (11) to raise
funds by the issuance and sale of revenue bonds in the manner
provided by the applicable provisions of article sixteen, chapter
eight of the code, it being hereby expressly provided that a
development authority created under this bill is a "governing
body" within the definition of that term as used in article
sixteen, chapter eight of this code; and (12) to expend its funds
in the execution of the powers and authority herein given, which
expenditures, by the means authorized herein, are hereby
determined and declared as a matter of legislative finding to be
for a public purpose and use, in the public interest, and for the
general welfare of the people of West Virginia, to alleviate and
prevent economic deterioration and to relieve the existing
critical condition of unemployment existing within the state.
§8. Compensation of members; expenses; excusal 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, but only insofar as the authority shall authorize.
(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.
§9. Findings respecting necessity for exercise of right of
eminent domain; authorization to exercise right of eminent
domain.
(a) It is hereby found and determined by the Legislature
that in fulfilling its prescribed purposes and exercising its
powers, including the purpose of promoting, developing and
advancing the business prosperity and economic welfare of the
member counties for which created by acquiring lands and other
real property to be furnished by lease, sale or other disposition
as industrial sites, the authority is performing essential public
purposes; that the performance of such essential public purposes
are frequently impeded, unduly delayed, or wholly frustrated by the refusal of the owner or owners of property to convey title
thereto, by imperfections in the title to essential land and
other real properties, by lost heirs or widely scattered owners
of undivided interests in essential lands and other real
properties and by owners of relatively small but essential
parcels of a proposed land development site who refuse to sell
their land or other real property to the county; and, that the
exercise by the authority of the right of eminent domain within
the limitations herein provided is therefore necessary and
appropriate to achieve the said public purposes of the authority.
(b) The authority is hereby authorized and empowered to
exercise the right of eminent domain if an order of the county
commission in which the property to be acquired by eminent domain
authorizes exercise of the right of eminent domain as to any
proposed acquisition: Provided, That prior to the issuance of
the order by the county commission, it shall hold a public
hearing on the public necessity of the exercise of eminent domain
and shall cause a Class II legal advertisement to be published in
accordance with the provisions of section two, article three,
chapter fifty-nine of the code of West Virginia, one thousand
nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, prior to the hearing: Provided, however, That a separate hearing must be held and a
separate order promulgated for each parcel over which the
authority wishes to exercise the power of eminent domain.
§10. Incurring indebtedness; rights of creditors.
The authority may incur any proper indebtedness and issue
any obligations and give any security therefor which it may deem
necessary or advisable in connection with carrying out its
purposes as hereinbefore mentioned. No statutory limitation with
respect to the nature, or amount, interest rate or duration of
indebtedness which may be incurred by municipalities or other
public bodies shall apply to indebtedness of the authority. No
indebtedness of any nature of the authority shall constitute an
indebtedness of the governing body of the member counties, or a
charge against any property of said county commissions or other
appointing agencies. The rights of creditors of the authority
shall be solely against the authority as a corporate body and
shall be satisfied only out of property held by it in its
corporate capacity.
§11. Agreements in connection with obtaining funds.
The authority may, in connection with obtaining funds for
its purposes, enter into any agreement with any person, firm or
corporation, including the federal government; or any agency or subdivision thereof, containing such provisions, covenants, terms
and conditions as the authority may deem advisable.
§12. Property, bonds and obligations of authority exempt from
taxation.
The authority shall be exempt from the payment of any taxes
or fees to the state or any subdivision thereof or to any officer
or employee of the state or other subdivision thereof. The
property of the authority shall be exempt from all local and
municipal taxes. Bonds, notes, debentures and other evidence of
indebtedness of the authority are declared to be issued for a
public purpose and to be public instrumentalities and shall be
exempt from taxes.
§13. Participation and appropriations authorized; transfers and
conveyances of property.
The member counties, or any one or more of them, jointly and
severally, are hereby authorized and empowered to contribute by
appropriation from their respective general funds not otherwise
appropriated to the cost of the operation and projects of the
authority.
The member counties and any local entity are hereby
authorized and empowered to transfer and convey to the authority
property of any kind acquired by said county or local entity for or adaptable to use in industrial, economic and recreational
development, such transfers or conveyances to be without
consideration or for such price and upon such terms and
conditions as the said county or local entity deems proper.
§14. Contributions by member counties, local entity and others;
funds and accounts; reports; audit and examination of
books, records and accounts.
Contributions may be made to the authority from time to time
by the member counties or local entities, and by any persons,
firms or corporations which shall desire to do so. All such
funds and all other funds received by the authority shall be
deposited in such bank or banks as the authority may direct and
shall be withdrawn therefrom in such manner as the authority may
direct. The authority shall keep strict account of all its
receipts and expenditures and within sixty days after the end of
each fiscal year, the authority shall make an annual report
containing an itemized statement of its receipts and
disbursements for the preceding year, and such annual report
shall be delivered to the county commission of each member county
and shall be published as a Class I legal advertisement in
compliance with the provisions of section two, article three,
chapter fifty-nine of the code of West Virginia, and the publication area for such publication shall be the member
counties. The books, records and accounts of the authority shall
be subject to audit and examination by the office of the state
tax commissioner of West Virginia and by any other proper public
official or body in the manner provided by law.
§15. Sale or lease of property; reversion of assets upon
dissolution.
In the event the board of the authority shall so determine,
the authority may lease or sell all of its property and equipment
on such terms and conditions as the authority may fix and
determine. Upon the dissolution of the authority, all of its
assets and property shall revert to and become the property of
the member counties, unless otherwise agreed to in writing by the
board.
§16. Liberal construction.
It is the purpose of this bill to provide for promotion,
development and advancement of the business prosperity and
economic welfare of the member counties, their citizens and their
industrial complex, and this bill shall be liberally construed as
giving to the authority full and complete power reasonably
required to give effect to the purposes hereof.
§17. Provisions severable.
The several sections and provisions of this bill are
severable, and if any section or provisions hereof shall be held
unconstitutional, all the remaining sections and provisions of
this bill shall nevertheless remain valid.
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(NOTE: The purpose of this local bill is to establish the
Corridor G Regional Development Authority in the counties of
Boone, Lincoln, Logan, and Mingo.)