CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The Kanawha County Commission said county Prosecutor Mark Plant’s office made a big mistake by not sending a representative to Tuesday morning’s special meeting.
“You can’t just go sit across the street over there in your taxpayer-paid office and pretend you haven’t created a problem,” said Commission President Kent Carper. “I will send a clear memo to the prosecuting attorney’s office that it is a mistake, a mistake, not to come in here and deal with issues before this commission!”
During the meeting, the commission discussed the escalating bill to pay for a special prosecutor to handle the majority of the office’s domestic violence cases. That’s because Plants is facing two domestic violence charges, filed earlier this year, which are still pending in the court system.
Kanawha County Circuit Judge Duke Bloom ordered a special prosecutor to handle the domestic violence cases to avoid any appearance of impropriety. Bloom appointed former assistant prosecutor Don Morris to head up a four-person team. Plant’s office said the $200 a hour Morris is being paid is costing too much. He’s requested Judge Bloom appoint someone from the prosecutor’s office to help out with the domestic cases to bring that number down.
Carper said he was outraged.
“They’ve raised the question of whether the compensation was excessive, grossly excessive. I have seen some gross misconduct. I have seen some excessive activity but not on this end of this saga,” stressed Carper.
He said the reason the county is shelling out $30,000-plus a month in special prosecutor fees is because of what Plants did and it should not be blamed on the judge, the special prosecutor or the county commission. Carper said the commission, who’s paying the bill, did their homework. Morris is being paid the going rate for his work.
Commissioner Dave Hardy took it one step further.
“With respect to (Plants), he can resolve it by affixing his name to a resignation and that’s what he needs to do,” said Hardy.
The commission can’t force Plants out of office. However, what they voted to do was to send a request to Plants to use $50,000 out of the Prosecutor’s Asset Forfeiture Fund to help pay the bills.
“I want to send to the prosecutor’s office a budget transfer, whatever you call it, to help pay for part of this mess that they created,” according to Carper. “That would come out of that fund. If they refused to do it, it’s my intention to freeze the fund which means it’s going to come out of the general fund eventually anyway.”
The commission also approved taking $50,000 out of their County Manager Contingency Fund to pay those bills as well. That wound bring the total to $100,000 to fund Morris and his staff over the next few months.
Carper and Hardy agreed it’s a shame taxpayer money has to spent this way but they say there’s no avoiding it.
As for the prosecutor and his office answering linger questions, Carper said if Plants wants one penny from the commission, he’ll have to do it face to face.
“Make no mistake about it. They will eventually have to come back in here. They need to answer questions to the public!”
Assistant Prosecutor Dan Holstein sent a letter to the commission last week that said the office would not take part in Tuesday’s meeting because Judge Bloom is scheduled to hold a hearing on their additional special prosecutor request on Thursday.
The county commission will meet again June 12. Carper said Plants or Holstein need to make sure to attend.
MetroNews put in a call to Holstein’s office, however, it was not returned.