While Ridgeview News was an advocate of the Calhoun Sheriff’s Department in recent months regarding his lack of transportation it seems his judgment with regards to his previous transportation was lacking if not possibly crossing a line of legality regarding WV State Code. Ridgeview News received multiple complaints as to the manner Sheriff Basnett handled the selling of 5 retired cruisers.
The WV Code states in §7-3-3 regarding the sale of county or district property:
(a) Except as may be prohibited by law or otherwise, the county commission of a county is authorized by law to sell or dispose of any property, either real or personal, belonging to the county or held by it for the use of any district thereof. The property shall be sold either at an on-site public auction or by utilizing an Internet-based public auction service, and the sale shall be conducted by the president of the county commission, but before making the sale, notice of the time, terms, manner and either the location of the sale or the Internet-based public auction service to be utilized, together with a brief description of the property to be sold, shall be published as a Class II legal advertisement in compliance with the provisions of §59-3-1 et seq. of this code, and the publication area for the publication is the county: Provided, That this section does not apply to the sale of any one item of property of less value than $1,000.
Apparently Sheriff Warren Basnett, without the knowledge of the Calhoun County Commission, ran a Classified advertisement for two weeks in the Calhoun Chronicle, not a Class II Legal ad, regarding the acceptance of “silent bids” on 5 retired cruisers owned by the Calhoun Sheriff’s Department. The ad likely should have said “sealed bids,” l rather than silent and should have been ran in the legal ad section not the classifieds, which makes even the advertisement questionable. The ad instructed those who were interested in making a bid to come in person to the tax office. Because of the nature of how the bids were accepted there is no way of knowing who came in, what they bid, or if there was anyone other than the winning bid which came from James Parsons, father of Calhoun Sheriff Deputy Cody Parsons. The amount of the winning bid was $500 which is likely undervalue for even the scrap price that you would get for 5 cars not including the equipment in and attached to the vehicles ‘ that alone would have been worth far more than $500. The cars, which were parked at the Grantsville Volunteer Fire Department have already been removed by Mr. Parsons.
I reached out to Sheriff Warren Basnett and asked if there were any other bids, and was told that $500 was the highest and only bid received.
Ridgeview News will continue to follow the development of this story.
