Board selection opens Region 4 seat on opiate settlement foundation

Ben Conley, The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.
·2 min read

Mar. 15—MORGANTOWN — Thursday's announcement that Jonathan Board has been selected as executive director of the West Virginia First Foundation leaves Region 4 without a representative on the 11-member body tasked with distributing hundreds of millions in opiate settlement dollars statewide.

Board was selected to be Region 4's representative back in July.

Now, Monongalia County Commissioner Tom Bloom explained, the region needs to come together to make another choice.

"So now that this has happened, we're going to have to get a letter out very soon. We're supposed to have a quarterly meeting sometime in April. I'm going to request that if they have a recommendation for the foundation, they bring that recommendation and we will discuss it and vote on it at that time, " Bloom said.

As the most-populous county in the region, organizing the process falls to Monongalia County.

It's no small task.

There are 13 counties and 63 municipalities in Region 4.

The first time the region selected a representative, all 76 had the chance to nominate a candidate—there were six nominations and representatives from 28 of the 76 governmental bodies came to the meeting.

This time around, Bloom said he would like to expedite the process by using the same procedure the region chose to form its project review committee—each county can make one nomination and the collective municipalities within each county can make one nomination—for a maximum of 26.

"That's what I'm going to recommend. That way, there can be two [nominations ] from each area. Maybe they come together and nominate one, " Bloom said. "But my feeling is it needs to be an open process again. I see that as the only possible way to be fair to everyone."

Bloom said he intends to run this plan by Board and the foundation in the coming days.

As for the aforementioned project review committee, this is the regional body that will vet funding applications before passing them on to the West Virginia First Foundation for final consideration.

Of the 26 possible seats, the county received 16 names by the March 1 deadline.

There will be at least one representative from every county, except Marion.

Both county and municipal representatives were appointed from Braxton, Harrison, Lewis and Monongalia counties.

Jon Dower (county) and Courtney Cira (municipal) were selected to represent Monongalia County.