Putnam's Job Killers? Not Hardly.

Halburn's Negative Attitudes Killing Putnam County Jobs



Halburn's latest screed tries to blame Putnam County Commissioners Stephen H. "Steve" Andes, James H. "Jim" Caruthers, Raymond "Joe" Haynes, Hurricane Mayor Scott Edwards and others for all the ills he sees in Putnam County's business climate.

He claims that business, transportation, and education projects have been killed by those local officials. He calls their voting records anti-business and anti-progress and says they're keeping business and progress from Putnam County which hurts our community and causes needless job losses.

That just isn't true.



As he did, we'll also start with the picture above this paragraph. That's a vacant lot behind the Mi Pueblito Mexican Restaurant, in Hurricane - near Gino's and Tudor's.



Halburn complains that in 2004, Putnam County Commissioners Steve Andes, Jim Caruthers, and Joe Haynes turned down a Tax Increment Funding proposal that was needed to build an office building and retail stores. The lot remains vacant, allegedly costing Putnam County construction, office, and retail jobs.

First of all, you stupid bastard, Joe Haynes wasn't even on the County Commission when this decision was made.
At that time the Commission President was Jim Withrow with Andes and Caruthers being the other two members. But that's just the kind of shoddy reporting we've come to expect from Putnam County's news loser.
(ed. note: After reading it here, Halburn went back and changed the name on his blog to Jim Withrow. You can send us a check for the proofreading, you fat fuck.) Tax Increment Funding money is created when a property is assessed before the property is developed, and then it is reassessed after development. The difference between the two tax values is used to pay back bonds that fund the development.

At the time, WV Commerce Secretary Kelley Goes said that the state approves tax increment financing for water, sewer, road and other "off-site" infrastructure improvement projects.
"We typically don't do retail and residential development," Goes said. "Our philosphy with TIF is you exhaust all other funding allocations, and TIF fills the gap."

So what is the real story here?
Developers approached the Commission about using TIF money to fund their project.
How much are we talking about here?
SIX MILLION DOLLARS!
And WHO are we talking about here?
Former barber and state senator Oshel Craigo.
The man who owns Gino's Pizza, Tudors Biscuit World and a string of other businesses and land all across the state.
He milked the people of West Virginia for 22 years in the WV Senate and then he then wanted them to finance his latest project.
A 16,000-square-foot office building and another building for retail stores. The office portion was to be occupied by the Department of Health and Human Resources which would then move from Teays Valley to Hurricane. Which, by the way, would have doubled the rent that they were paying.
The County Commission said no.
The site could have been developed without TIF funds, but it has not. The County Commission is not to blame for that.

Oshel Fucking Craigo can get financing on his own. He doesn't need the people of West Virginia to underwrite his development projects.
The County Commission's vote wisely saved the citizens' money.
They were right to keep the taxpayers from getting clipped again by Oshel the Barber.
Hallburn takes money from Craigo's companies for ads on his blog, a fact that he does not disclose.

His next whine is is about Rt 35 and another one of the politicians that he has a vendetta against, Karen Facemyer. Facemyer is another Putnam county representative that Hallburn has repeatedly harassed over his non-existent noise issues.



His complaint about this matter? He blames West Virginia
Senators Karen Facemyer, (R-4th) and Mike Hall, (R-4th) for not getting U.S. 35 completed, saying they "drank the "no tolls" Kool-Aid." After their constituents spoke out against any tolls on that road, they took the position that the segment could be built-without tolls. Which it could have been.
Facemyer and Hall both did something that is rare in politics today. They listened to the wishes of their constituents and acted accordingly. They did what they were elected to do.

Where was Hallburn during this debate? All over the map.

First he said "Finish the new US 35 - Even if it means tolls."
Later, when County Commissioner Haynes came out in favor of tolls if it would help complete the road, Halburn criticized him for it! Why? Because whatever Haynes is for, Halburn is against.
He criticized Mason County officials for changing their vote endorsing the tolls after they learned the tolls would increase yearly.

Like fellow liberal John Kerry, Hallburn was for the tolls before he was against them.

Then after the public outcry over the tolls and the was the whole matter was handled, Hallburn suddenly eschewed tolls and called for the road to be completed with tax dollars.
He even called Senator Hall " a genious" (sic) for his plan to finance the road through budget surplus money.

Looks like Hallburn has blisters on his fat ass from riding the fence on this matter. There's also a word for what he's doing here: hypocrisy.



Then there's the old Black family airstrip located just above the Hurricane Walmart and Hurricane Marketplace. Several years ago, the Blacks offered half of that property, free of charge, to Marshall University to build a Putnam County campus. Marshall said "No, thanks." The County Commission was even willing to sell bonds to finance the construction. The lot is still vacant.

We fail to see how any politician at any level is responsible for this. Marshall made a business decision. With the main campus less than 25 miles away in Huntington, regional centers in Teays Valley and Pt. Pleasant and a Graduate School in South Charleston, Marshall obviously saw no need to spend the money to build an unneeded facility in Hallburn's backyard.
Certainly Hallburn's profanity laden article about Marshall's plans to build a new center didn't help.



Next, he moves on to harping about the vacant land owned by the Putnam County Development Authority above the Hurricane Marketplace.

This time, he blames another one of his favorite whipping boys, Hurricane Mayor Scott Edwards for the land not selling. Hallburn came up with a hare brained scheme that the PCDA donate the land as a park to create business traffic for the Hurricane Marketplace. Apparently, they're the bad guys for not giving away land paid for with public money.
He continues to complain that the Hurricane Marketplace still has six empty stores, refusing to recognize that the country is in the worst economic downturn since the great depression, overseen by his fellow über-liberal, President Barack Hussein Obama. And that malls across the country are suffering the same problem.

And, as usual, he unethically neglects to inform his 29 readers about his interest in developing that land. He thinks it will increase the value of second wife's run down property and make it easier to sell.

He continues to blame Edwards and the PCDA for not buying the dilapidated, overpriced property owned by his second wife and her mother by saying by saying that he has refused to redevelop the Walmart neighborhood. Halburn has compounded his stupidity and unwillingness to take responsibility for his own problems by refusing to build his own soundwall and plant his own trees to protect his family from the non-existent "excessive noise" from the store.

The photograph below shows the location in Teays Valley where Sheetz wanted to build.



Sheetz applied for a zoning variance with the Putnam County Planning Commission. It was denied.
The Planning Commission's reasoning?

Sheetz gave an inadequate explanation of safety issues associated with the location of a new traffic light. The site sits between two residential neighborhoods that are in extremely close proximity to the proposed light. A new traffic light could just as easily create problems which may be worse than what currently exists. Safety concerns were also raised regarding children at the bus stop at Green Acres and White Rock Subdivisions.
Sheetz had no answers about how to correct these problems, so the variance wasn't approved.
There's no evil intent. Just a common sense ruling. Sheetz is free to correct the problems, answer the questions and reapply.

Of course Hallburn's desire for a donut and a cup of coffee outweigh the need to keep our neighborhoods and children safe.

Hallburn says more jobs were killed by the politically-appointed bureaucrats. We think that Halburn was embarrassed once again because another project that he promised would happen fell through.

Then we get to the pools. Somehow we always do.

Every year at the end of the summer, Halburn starts complaining about the pools closing.
He whines that closing the pools before Labor Day puts lifeguards out of work.
No, numbnuts, the lifeguards are out of work because they're back in school. They voluntarily left their jobs. It doesn't effect the unemployment rate one iota. That's why the pools are closed. There are no customers. They're all back in school. It's not economically feasible to keep a pool open for a couple of swimmers a day. Try and get that through your thick skull, fatboy.

He continues his bitching saying in Eleanor, the Putnam County pool also closed early. Then he complains about the $158,000 renovation of the pool. After decades the shoddily built pool was in dire need of repairs. Somehow, Haynes, Andes, and the Putnam County Parks and Recreation Commissioners were apparently responsible for this damage even though they've only been in office a short time.



Then he complains about green water at the pool, saying they still aren't maintaining it properly. Of course they're not, asshole. THEY'RE NOT MAINTAINING IT AT ALL!!! The pool is closed for the winter. That's why it's only half full.

And then there's the Dog Swim. Started by Karen Haynes (who Hallburn called a bitch, by the way, because she is married to his enemy Joe Haynes) as a way to raise funds for a new county animal shelter, this has been a pet peeve of animal hater Mark Halburn since its inception. He moans about the fact that the pool is usually closed before the swim due to the lack of lifeguards, saying that in 2010 the swim, which is only for a few hours on one day, cost more than $1,142 by using some arcane mathematical calculations. PutnamLIES.com proved those numbers wrong when we determined the actual cost for the day was only $250.



The next dead horse he attempts to whip is the proposed kiddie pool at Waves of Fun in Valley Park. In the grass below the wave pool he says there should be a kiddie pool.



And once again, you guessed it, it's all Andes, Caruthers, and Haynes' fault for turning down a $250,000 grant and canceling the kiddie pool project.
No, what they did was turn down a grant that would have required the taxpayers of Putnam County to cough up a matching $250,000 in order to receive that grant.

 














And once again Hallburn talks about screwing kids.


This is the photo Mark Hallburn stole from Scott Edwards and added to his opinion blog.

Earlier this year, Hurricane Mayor Scott D. Edwards brought out a group of children for the groundbreaking ceremony of the sprayground at Hurricane City Park. It was supposed to open by August. However, Edwards wisely decided to save the taxpayers money by having city workers install the facility instead of spending $50,000 $100,000 to hire outside contractors.



What's Hallburn's problem?
Project delays prevented the pool from opening this summer.
Now, crews will have plenty of time to get things right instead of rushing the installation only to have the facility open for a couple of weeks at the end of the season. That $50,000 $100,000 Hallburn claims that Hurricane would have quickly made it up by families flocking to the town and shopping before and after the kids enjoy the sprayground. That kind of money is not generated by people swimming ALL SUMMER, much less in two weeks. Once again Halburn demonstrates his lack of business acumen by saying that positive publicity would have been valued at more than $50,000.
Publicity isn't worth shit, lardass. If it was, your negative publicity would have run you out of town years ago.

There's a pattern here: If it's one of Hallburn's political enemies: attack, attack, attack.



Hallburn isn't finished with his stupidity. He has this lame brain idea to to rename Orchard Park Road and Saturn Way to Hurricane Motor Mall, as if that's going to sell some cars.. Calling something a "motor mall" doesn't make it so. It's not any government's job to tell businesses what name to operate under. This is just one more just another way for him to attack Scott Edwards.

If Hallburn is serious about jobs, there a few things he can do.

First, get one himself.

Second, hire some employees for his oh so successful & lucrative opinion blog.

Third, move the "offices" of that oh so successful & lucrative opinion blog out of his second wife's basement into one of the vacant storefronts that he is constantly complaining about.

And fourth and most importantly, stop running down and harassing those business and government leaders that he disagrees with.

After all, how many businesses want to locate in an area where they have to worry about some asswipe with a blog badgering and extorting them into taking out an ad or have to worry about him making a scene because he thinks someone treated him rudely?

As for Hallburn, the gutless pussy with all the answers doesn't even have the balls to run for election, because he knows he would be soundly defeated for any office that he would run for and his inflated ego won't let him accept that fact. Putnam County voters are pretty smart, they see through his act.
But you really wouldn't expect a "man" who won't take responsibility for his own problems to take responsibility for others, would you?

Stop blaming everyone else for the problems you've created for yourself, crisco and look in the mirror. If you're so goddamn smart and have all the solutions, step up. Show your true colors and run for office. Negativity kills jobs!
Put up or shut up!