49th House district candidate Q&A: Stanley Adkins and Jean Nutter respond to Nicholas County resident’s questions

When we visited Nicholas County , we heard from many residents that their local schools need to be rebuilt and the area needs community centers and addiction treatment facilities.

As part of Mountain State Spotlight’s “Citizens Agenda” approach to covering this year’s elections, we asked the candidate for the 48th House of Delegates District questions about these issues. Republican Stanley Adkins , a certified public accountant and former Summersville mayor, will face Democrat Jean Nutter , who used to work in marketing and tourism for the Midland Trail Scenic Highway Association.

Find out which House district you live in here.

These interviews have been edited for clarity and length.

Question: Nicholas County residents spoke about the need to build and rebuild important community institutions, especially for teenagers and young adults. Currently, construction is still underway to replace Nicholas County’s schools after they were damaged in the 2016 flood, and it’s not expected to be completed for at least another year. What will you do to support building back Nicholas County Schools?

Stanley S. Adkins

House of Delegates Republican

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609 Vaught Street Summersville WV 26651 More About Stanley S. Adkins

Adkins: Nothing. No, schools are controlled by the Board of Education, the State Board of Education. In this case, FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency]. There’s lots of agencies involved. None of those are the Legislature. The Legislature will have no role except jabbering. And they can talk, or they can go to meetings.

Nutter: Boy, I tell you that it’s been an ongoing situation, hasn’t it? It’s so sad that it has come to this. It got political. Things that should not be political are becoming political, and we do need something for our children, all the way around. We need after-school activities for our kids and a real place to put them.

We’re losing so much money, and I know [Democratic candidate for the House 48th District] Devin Spinks is more familiar with the Hope Scholarship than I am and the money it’s drained from Nicholas County. But in the millions of dollars. And so here we have these preschool kids and Head Start, and all of that money is having to be combined just to fund regular schools.

I think it is time that the state government and federal government stepped up and helped us with our education. And the Hope Scholarship probably is a big part of the problem.

Question: One Summersville resident talked about how some of the places he and his friends would go as teenagers no longer exist. What could you do to help bring activities for teenagers back to the county?

Adkins: When I was the mayor, we built a teen center. Very nice, very well-equipped. And guess how many kids came? None. So that wasn’t the right thing. Summersville built a skate park up at the Nicholas Memorial Park. Very nice, very nice. They have one. The city’s invested quite a bit of money in the park. As a matter of fact, they’re developing a new recreational park.

So if I was in the Legislature, I’d be trying to find money somewhere that would help fund those kinds of projects for here in Nicholas County. I think kids should have something to do. But legislators are not kids. They don’t know what to do. You know, we don’t like teen centers, we don’t play ping pong anymore. We play on our phones, we’re not going to go to a teen center and watch TV. We’re not going to go down there to learn how to knit.

Jean Nutter

Democrat

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Nutter: I think that those things could be done through the school and through some of the existing organizations that we already have. Even if the city would find a place that we could incorporate the 4-H groups and the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts and the different organizations that’s already in place, then we can get more kids to get involved with those, and we can make a center that kids can have activities.

Question: Other county residents talked about the need for more housing to replace old, dilapidated homes. What would you do to improve housing in counties like Nicholas County?

Adkins: The basic answer is nothing. But, with that said, when I became mayor, we needed housing. So the first thing we could do is to make housing easier. So we put in a new water plant.

So you can’t do anything to make somebody build a house. What you can do is to make the infrastructure: put the road in, put the power in, put the water in, put the sewer in, and that makes that lot attractive. It’s cheaper and more convenient to build.

Nutter: I worked in tourism for quite a while. Housing was a big issue back then. Now, what we have is we have a lot of people doing the Airbnb thing. So I can make $1,000 a weekend or I can make $500 a month with the same house. I don’t know how we regulate that, but I think that’s where we need to start. Because people are actually building homes, building small homes, building big homes. There’s actually all kinds of construction going on but it’s for Airbnb.

Question: Some residents who work to address or have lived experience with addiction spoke about the lack of treatment centers and sober living homes in Nicholas County. What would you do to help improve access to addiction services in places like Nicholas County?

Adkins: I have no clue. I don’t know how much the state’s involved in that, they should be more involved in that I would think.

We need more treatment centers, no question. And however those are funded, I’d have to do some research. But if the state budget can be involved — and I imagine it is — but if it could be involved more I’d be very supportive of that.

I think that would be a nice focus, and I do apologize for being uninformed about how that’s all done. But I pledge to find out.

Nutter: This is personal for me. My son was murdered with fentanyl. That’s probably one of the biggest reasons I’m running. I think there’s a few things we could do to change what’s going on. And one is we need accountability for how that money is spent. I don’t see that there’s any accountability from the state. We don’t need more cruisers bought with that money. We don’t even know how much money Nicholas County acquired, but we know it’s a lot.

So I think the two things, major things, is how we’re spending our money and how we’re regulating the drug industry with law.

49th House district candidate Q&A: Stanley Adkins and Jean Nutter respond to Nicholas County resident’s questions appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight , West Virginia's civic newsroom.