EXTRA! EXTRA! EXTRA! READ MORE ABOUT IT--Good Old Boy Backpeddling is alive
and well in Marion County West Virginia--read about the building that had
burned 3 times, windows out, rain coming in on county documents; read about
"we didn't throw any important records away"--I WONDER IF THEY BULLDOZE
CEMETERIES, ALSO?!!
Sam Cline
Morgan County Council ~
http://www.scican.net/government/mc-gov/councilm.html Morgan County Indiana
Historian - IHB/IHS ~
http://www2.ihs1830.org/ihs1830/cohist.htm Indiana
Genealogical Society ~
http://www.indgensoc.org/ Greene County Indiana
INGenWeb ~
http://www.rootsweb.com/~ingreene/greenegw.htm Knox County
Indiana INGenWeb ~
http://www.rootsweb.com/~inknox/knox.htm Lawrence County
Indiana INGenWeb ~
http://www.rootsweb.com/~inlawren/lawrengw.htm Morgan
County Indiana INGenWeb ~
http://www.rootsweb.com/~inmorgan/index.html
INGenWeb Links ~
http://www.rootsweb.com/~inmorgan/igwcclnk.html Greene
County Indiana Genealogical Society ~
http://www.rootsweb.com/~ingreene/gcgs.htm HoosierWeb ~
http://www.hoosierweb.org Morgan County History And Genealogy Association ~
http://www.rootsweb.com/~inmchaga/mchagai.html The candle light will always
be gleaming through the sycamores. The latch string is always out.
-----Original Message-----
From: Linda Lewis <cityslic(a)ix.netcom.com>
To: USGENWEB-ALL-L(a)rootsweb.com <USGENWEB-ALL-L(a)rootsweb.com>
Date: Friday, June 26, 1998 9:57 PM
Subject: [USGENWEB-ALL-L] FYI
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Because the other articles were reported here, the third article should
be, also.
Linda
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From: "Pam Mullinax" <pmullinax(a)mindspring.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <va-roots(a)vlinsvr.vsla.edu>
Subject: THIRD NEWSPAPER STORY ABOUT MARION COUNTY
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Please bear with me for this last, long email. There was a third story
published today, June 26, by the WV Times about Marion County, and to be
fair, it should be available to the same people who have read the first t=
wo
stories. It was, as follows:
* * * * *
By Theresa Haynes=20
Times West Virginian Staff Writer
FAIRMONT -=20
Local genealogists searching for an old marriage record or birth
certificate do not need to go sifting through the trash.
Marion County Clerk Janice Cosco said her department did not throw away a=
ny
permanent records from the Jacobs building earlier this month when
maintenance workers cleared away six BFI Dumpsters of outdated files and
papers from the historic building.
"Everything we are charged by law to keep was not thrown away," she said.
"No permanent records, that I know of, were thrown away."
Cosco, who has been the county's clerk for 18 years, said she still has
original copies of wills, birth certificates, death certificates, deeds,
marriage certificates, land transfers, voter registration records and
county commission records dating back to the county's inception in 1842.
She said her department discarded old fiscal records, pieces of paper
recording every penny spent at the county clerk's office, and outdated
universal consumer code slips, which record credit transactions.
Cosco said she is legally responsible to save the receipt books for 10
years and the consumer code slips for seven years, but she boxed and stor=
ed
the records for at least two decades.
For years the Jacobs building housed these outdated records, but earlier
this month Cosco gave maintenance workers permission to trash the papers
including some receipt books dating back to 1920.
The county clerk said she would have liked to save everything but there
just was not room to house it all. =A0=A0"The public needs to understand =
that
in order to keep their precious records we have to have a place to put
them," she said as she stood inside one of the courthouse's many fireproo=
f
vaults filled with old wills and birth, marriage and death records.
"(Marion County Commissioner) Cody Starcher has gotten all kinds of flak
over this, but Cody should get an award," she said. "He found the money t=
o
restore the Jacob's building so we could have a place to put the permanen=
t
records."
Last year Starcher was instrumental in getting the state to approve
transferring $330,000 from the jail improvement fund to renovate the
dilapidated Jacobs building.
When renovations are complete, the old building will be used for office
space and record storage.
Starcher, who is also overseeing the Jacobs building cleanup, said he did
not sort through the five floors of piled papers and books, but allowed t=
he
county clerk, circuit clerk, prosecuting attorney and assessor to walk
through the building and take what they wanted. Everything else was
discarded.
Local historians believe some records, including 10 leather-bound pre-Civ=
il
War Justice of the Peace books, were thrown away because no one in the
courthouse set them aside to be kept.
Because Justice of the Peace books are not considered permanent records,
Starcher said the county could have thrown them away years ago.
But the former Justice of the Peace said he does not know for sure if the
Justice of the Peace books dating back to 1842 were destroyed because he
does not know what the historical books look like or why anyone would wan=
t
them.
"I don't know why anyone would want to look at those anyway," he asked.
"=
I
guess it is all in the eye of the beholder." =A0=A0Starcher said even if
historians thought the information in the books was valuable, the books
themselves were damaged from years of sitting in a dusty, nearly abandone=
d
building.
"That building was burned three times and everything in there was rained
on. Some of the windows were broken out," he said. "Anything in there was
scarred, scratched or torn up."
The county commissioner said the Jacobs building still is in such poor
condition he is afraid to allow genealogists and historians to search
through the remaining records at the old building.
"We couldn't keep all five floors of junk and garbage and renovate that
building," he said. "We thought we would do something better for the town
and the county and renovate the building. That took precedence over a
couple of books that might have been thrown away."=20
* * * * *
MY COMMENTS:
First of all, thank each of you who have contributed your emails and
letters in protest of the actions by the Marion County Commissioners. I
was amazed at how quickly the masses responded despite our physical
separation (this 'ole Internet is pretty good, eh?). The pressure we
created was felt by all the local government, citizens and especially the
county commissioners of Marion County. =20
The jury is still out on whether all the materials that were dumped were,
indeed, unrelated to the object of genealogy or historian researchers. I
don't feel comfortable that their "definition" of what was thrown away
excludes materials that would be of benefit to some! We imagined the
worst, since Mr. Cody Starcher admitted there was not an inventory of wha=
t
was tossed. With no inventory, we were all free to imagine what was in
that pile, and Mr. Starcher can not prove us wrong. He has no idea he
didn't toss some historical or cultural treasure, no matter how minor it
may have been to him.
This is a democracy, and we do have a right to be told before public
records are thrown away. Our outrage continues to be about our paid
officials making unilateral decisions such as was made. They should not =
be
allowed to decide who to invite in to "take what they want" and then to
decide to have the rest hauled away before anyone else could see it. =20
It was Cody Starcher's secretive actions that raised the suspicions of th=
e
local Marion County historians and, eventually, the newspapers and then
each of us. We were all outraged over Commissioner Starcher's arbitrary
exercise of power, and we've done well to spotlight it! We have all acte=
d
in the spirit of the early American Revolutionaries (many of our ancestor=
s)
who demanded public officials be accountable to the public. As a friend
said, "we showed up with Email pitchforks, and Cody didn't like it."
Hopefully, our actions this week will serve to keep records that are left
in Marion County and elsewhere preserved. Thank you again for helping to
spotlight a wrongful action. If you should want to continue that pressur=
e,
that is up to you. An address list of the Marion County Commissioners is
below:
BOARD OFCOMMISSIONERS
PRESIDENT, James E Sago (304-367-5400) =09
200 Jackson Street / Fairmont, WV 26554 =20
Commissioner Cecily Enos (304-367-5400)
200 Jackson Street / Fairmont, WV 26554
Commissioner Cody Starcher (304-367-5400)
200 Jackson Street / Fairmont, WV 26554
Assessor Thomas Davis (304-367-5410)
200 Jackson Street / Fairmont, WV 26554
Circuit Clerk Barbara Core (304-367-5360)
PO Box 1269 / Fairmont, WV 26554
County Clerk Janice Cosco (304-367-5440)
PO Box 1267 / Fairmont, WV 26554
* * * * *
Pam Mullinax
E-Mail:
pmullinax(a)mindspring.com
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