CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — Though unable to attend Thursday’s meeting, the standing president of the Harrison County Commission will hold that title for another year.
“Every year, the commission has certain organizational matters or items they need to take care of, one of them is the election of a president to the commission,” said Harrison County Administrator Willie Parker. “Commissioner [Ron] Watson was reelected as the president of the Harrison County Commission.”
The two present commissioners, Bernie Fazzini and Frank “Chunki” Angotti, agreed that Watson should fill the role again while also reappointing other positions to various county committees and boards, pending questions regarding the availability of certain individuals.
Angotti and Fazzini worked through the remained of Thursday’s agenda with little issue until revisiting a portion of the findings returned in a recent audit of the county’s finances from the state mainly dealing with reimbursements from county-sponsored trips for Fazzini.
He either provided a summary statement rather than an itemized receipts or deducted funds spent on a family member from his claim so that the county would not pay for it rather than requesting split bills, according to the audit.
The issue was isolated from the other findings during the last 2015 meeting and set aside for Thursday because Angotti wanted to look over the specific findings.
Fazzini is currently under indictment in Harrison County Circuit Court on felony fraud charges related to alleged improper reimbursements received while on county-sponsored trips.
One point of clarity Angotti asked Thursday was if the findings involved trips that had been presented to law enforcement or the ethics commission.
“They are similar situations, just in a different fiscal year,” Parker said. “It’s similar items that need to be addressed as proper itemized receipts, proper documentation, just in a different fiscal year that it was found.”
Because they are new findings, Angotti wondered if they should be sent to the Sheriff’s Department to find any illegal activity, just as previous findings have been sent off.
As Angotti continued, Fazzini called for the motion to approve the findings and take the State Auditor’s recommendations. However, Angotti continued to make his case against Fazzini, which resulted in the commissioner leaving.
Once gone, Angotti continued on stating his case against Fazzini, from his claims of a continued lack of documentation to the amount spent on travel since Fazzini was elected ($45,500 from 2009 through 2015).
As far as the total, Parker said that it was all in the parameters of the monies for travel, as they had not gone over budget since his arrival.
However, he does plan on addressing the issue in a new way if the commission sees fit.
“That’s one item that I’ll be discussing with the commission for the upcoming fiscal year,” Parker said. “Do we want to establish a line-item for each commissioner, or do we want to continue with one overall total?”
Despite Fazzini walking out on the last item of the agenda, the meeting will still count.
“All the action that took place is valid action as long there’s two commissioners and voting in favor of it,” Parker said. “As soon as you lose a quorum for whatever reason –someone has an appointment, someone leaves, someone gets sick, whatever the case may be– the meeting is over.”
The only remaining item on the agenda was the audit finding and it will be carried over to the agenda for the commission’s meeting on January 14, when Watson is expected to be in attendance.