Delegate hopefuls in McDowell County talk roads, water, hope and four-wheelers

Mountain State Spotlight traveled to McDowell County in late May to speak with residents around the county to get an idea of the issues they’re facing in their everyday lives. From those conversations, we compiled a series of questions for both candidates in the 36th Delegate race to answer.

On the Republican side is S. David Green, a local insurance agent who was appointed by the governor in January after the previous delegate resigned. On the Democrat side is Tiffany Clemins, a school teacher who ran unsuccessfully for state Senate in 2022.

The candidates’ responses have been edited for length and clarity.

1. Many McDowell County residents are concerned about their ability or the ability of their neighbors to get groceries, especially if they live in more remote parts of the county. What will you do as a state lawmaker to help folks who might not be able to easily get to Bluefield for groceries?

Tiffany Clemins: I think it’s really important that McDowell County start rebuilding its infrastructure – just having access to transportation, connected roadways. We have the money that’s been provided by that bipartisan bill – it’s over $4 billion, that can be used to rebuild our infrastructure, and it’s just really important as a delegate to fight for those funds to be prioritized here in McDowell County. So that’s something that I’m super invested in, and have a mission to go to Charleston, and achieve that mission when I get there.

Context: Clemins is referring to the Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that was passed by Congress in 2021. According to the White House, approximately $4.7 billion dollars has been invested in West Virginia through the act as of March 2024.

S. David Green: So we’ve already had West Virginia State University come down. They did a listening session in McDowell about a month ago. West Virginia State University has a lot of access to grants and grants funding for agricultural development. So one of the things that we would like to be able to work with is getting some of these old buildings torn down, getting our residents involved in creating small farms on the areas of land where you normally can’t build anything back there.

So we’ll put community farms there, and then have farmers markets, sheds for farmers markets to be built by grant funding, so that our community can be able to help itself to be able to grow the resources that they need to be able to create revenue from the sale, and to be able to help make sure that our residents are able to have access to good fresh food farmed locally.

So that’s kind of a holistic approach that we’re looking at going through.

Context: Agriculture is not a huge industry in McDowell – according to the 2022 USDA Agriculture Census , the latest data available, the county ranked 55th in crop production and 52nd in livestock and related products such as eggs and milk. However, ag is on the rise – according to the census, the county saw a 43% increase in the number of farms and a 299% increase in the average size of farms.

2. Residents of McDowell County expressed a loss of faith in institutions of government. Many feel like they are on their own, that the state government isn’t or can’t or won’t help. If you are elected, what will you do to restore confidence in the state government?

Clemins: Living down here and not seeing a lot of change and growth. It definitely does change your perspective. And this goes all the way back to the decline in the coal mining industry and just the way that the agencies talk to residents here.

There are a lot of people that struggle with having clean water, and then they’ll contact different agencies, and they get the runaround. I understand where they’re coming from. But I want to be very transparent if I’m elected, and be honest, and work with state agencies to find out what the next steps are, how we can get grants to provide funding, if there are issues.

But really just being transparent and saying, “Hey, this is going to take a while or we don’t have this funding for this, or we’re working on funding for this.” Just so that they know that there’s somebody that they can trust. I want to be a part of that and work with committees and work with different levels of our government.

Green: It comes down to the individual person’s resolve and drive that gets into these positions.

I was appointed as the delegate in January. And in my short – what is it now four or five months now – of being a delegate, I have seen so many opportunities that are available, and all we have to do is to be able to match the opportunity up with willing people in McDowell County. So to that end, we are actually sponsoring 18 listening sessions myself. I created a nonprofit organization called Prosper McDowell. It is made up of 14 individuals from the county, all throughout the county and different pieces of the county, some retired, some teachers, some officials, some business owners, parents, stay at home moms. But we’re made up of a diverse group of McDowell Countians.

We’re going to be able to get the community involved to be able to see who has a passion to be able to, for instance, take on a drug rehab center.

There are no drug rehab centers in McDowell County. I asked the lady who’s over with the state and the simple reason is, she has not been able to find anybody willing to run one in McDowell County.

There’s programs available out there, we just got to be able to find willing people in the county to be able to step up and fill those roles, and it’ll be a boon for the county being able to bring those services in, it’ll be a increase to the people who’s able to step up and actually do those roles.

3. Water and sewer problems – including straight piping into creeks and concerns about drinking water quality – were brought by residents. What would you do as a legislator to help McDowell County with these problems?

Clemins: You know, it goes back to my first answer about using that infrastructure money, and making sure that it gets prioritized for basic needs, like clean water.

There are a lot of people here right now donating water to different areas in McDowell County to help with that. I know of nonprofits, like Dig Deep, that want to work in Appalachia and specifically southern West Virginia, making sure that residents are hooked up to the public water systems. Just really working with the DEP and, and getting them on board to see this is an issue, and making sure that coal industries are maintaining a healthy environment for our residents. They should be using funding to make sure that everything that they’re doing is safe for our environment and our residents here.

The last thing we need is people getting sick. And we have a lot of people getting diagnosed with different illnesses in their bodies and chemicals in their body due to having water that’s toxic, or that’s been polluted by chemicals.

Context: Dig Deep is a California based non-profit organization that is dedicated to expanding access to drinking water across the country. They are currently working within the Navajo Indian Reservation, Texas and Appalachia. According to their 2022 annual report, they are operational in McDowell and Wyoming Counties.

Green: So I’m already in the process of helping one of our residents whose water has already been contaminated. We’re going through the process of trying to understand where the contamination came from.

But there’s gonna be several approaches. I’m already on the technology and infrastructure committee so I can get a full understanding of it. Right now, I think 40% of McDowell County has public service water, and 60% does not. And so I would like to be able to get a plan together with an exact timeline of when we can get 100% of having public water. There’s actually some locations, like for instance, Gary, that already has public water, but they have issues.

But to answer that question, legislators can go up there and just say, “ Hey, we got a problem with our water, we need help with our water.” But if they need to look and talk to our local PSDs and be able to talk to our local people, boots on the ground people, our commissioners to find out what it will take to be able to get this thing accomplished? We need to work that goal out, that timeline out, that process ourselves and then bring it back, to the finance chairs, to the individuals that say, not only do we need water, but here’s our plan and our solution to be able to get this taken care of in five, seven or 10 year plan.

I mean, you can’t just snap your fingers. We don’t have the budget for that, that’s unrealistic. We can have a set plan to be able to work toward getting all those locations to be able to have water.

You can’t just single out McDowell County and say, well, McDowell County is the only one that’s gonna be getting all the water. It has to be a statewide initiative for all of our locations that don’t have water, which counties are the most lacking, try to get them all up to the same playing field, and then continue to be able to pick them all up as a whole. Collaboration and having good partnerships with the rest of the delegates makes sure that you can get people on the same page to get things passed.

Context: While much focus has been on McDowell County’s water availability and quality, the county’s comprehensive plan notes the practice of “straight piping” – dumping raw sewage through a pipe into a creek – is prevalent in the county. According to the report, an estimated 67% of the county uses a straight pipe system. Wastewater projects are in the works in various municipalities in the county, per the report.

4. The Hatfield McCoy Trail and other tourism efforts are seen by some as ways to reverse some of the economic decline McDowell County has experienced since the 1980s. What would you do as a lawmaker to help these efforts and to see that they provide benefits to everyone who lives in the county?

Clemins: I think tourism is really big. I kind of compare McDowell County to Fayetteville. It’s wild and wonderful here, just like it is in Fayetteville. We have ATV trails, we have trails where you can go and hike. It’s a very beautiful area, if we use the resources correctly and make sure that we’re investing that tourism back into McDowell County.

When I was in college I helped create the Convention and Visitors Bureau here. And in order to have that pass, we had to have funding for it, so we ran a hotel occupancy tax and projected how much revenue would come from that.

I’m sure that’s increased now that there are more places for ATV riders to come and stay. But we really have to use that income wisely so that we can address dilapidated buildings – we’re either tearing those down and rebuilding new buildings.

We have a very naturally beautiful home and there’s no reason why we cannot upgrade and be like Fayetteville that has places to stay, small businesses for, people that come in and buy food and invest back into McDowell’s economy.

So it’s going to be really important to make sure that laws protect tourism and then the funding is put down here for that. We also have a road that’s connecting in McDowell County. The Coalfields Expressway that’s going to be connecting here in McDowell over the next couple of years that’s going to help us to have access to businesses and just bring more people in.

Context: The King Coal Highway, which is four-laner running from Williamson to Bluefield roughly along the route of U.S. 52, is expected to link up with the Coalfields Expressway, a four-lane running from southwestern Virginia into southern West Virginia in the area of Welch, the county seat of McDowell.

Green: It’s not the end all solution. It is something that is positive for us but it’s not going to be McDowell County’s savior.

I’m very pro-Hatfield McCoy trail, 100% pro. Bringing in this tourism angle is a wonderful kind of vitamin or boost in the arm for our county, but it’s not going to be the only solution to bring our county out of where it’s at. It’s not going to be the only economical turnaround.

I’m actually on the Economic Development and Tourism Committee in the House. I am working very closely with the county CVB [Convention and Visitors Bureau] – I am actually a member of the CVB board – for us to be able to get the word out about McDowell County to surrounding areas, neighboring states, etc. for people to come to McDowell County.

The things that we want to work on, is to show our residents good opportunities that they themselves can be able to invest in and to be able to start up, such as lodges, such as restaurants, those sorts of things.

The CVB, in working with the CVB and being part of the CVB board, we are working to be able to help our residents create those businesses and create those economic opportunities for themselves. Instead of having a lot of outside people come in and see the opportunities and be able to put money into our county.

Again, it’s great that outside people are doing that and I’m glad for the lodges that are being owned by outside individuals that are bringing people in. But we want to be able to help share with our residents positive ways to get funding sources so our current residents can start their own businesses and keep that revenue in the county.

I’m also on the board of the Wyoming County EDA to be able to help our residents get funding for themselves to be able to create lodges, etc.

And also to help them understand the right processes and procedures so that they can actually be profitable and be able to help them not have to figure out some of the basic challenges that they’ll face and be able to work through them with them, to get them to a position of profitability, and success a lot quicker, without all the headaches.

5. Where do you see McDowell County in the 20 years?

Clemins: So if we consistently work over the next 20 years, and rebuild our infrastructure, making sure that there’s reliable Wi Fi, but there are upgraded, maintained buildings or new buildings to host like treatment centers and hospitals, and we’re working on our education, investing in our students. I really think that we’ll have more people come in, because we’ll have places or small businesses with reliable Wi Fi. And we can have telehealth, and we can have treatment centers. But that money has to be used wisely to rebuild McDowell County. So in 20 years, with consistent effort, and a community that’s wanting change and working together, I think that we could be like a modern day Fayetteville.

Green: McDowell County in 20 years, with the road systems coming in … I see this happening well before 20 years ….

We have the greatest people in the whole United States. And I mean that sincerely. That’s not a political statement. I have always felt that. I’ve lived in McDowell County for all my life. We have the greatest people in McDowell County. I’ve heard stories after stories after stories of people coming into our county, and being so impressed and so amazed with the quality of people that we have. We also have some of the prettiest nature in our county. Our county is a beautiful county.

I see our county becoming a haven for remote workers to be able to come and do remote work. We really want to see that going and I feel like that’s going to be an increased population that we have.

I want to be able to see us bring back the hope, bringing back the pride into our county. Within 20 years, I want to see us being in the top 10 of West Virginia’s counties and not in the bottom 50. Hands down.

I fully expect the determination and the love that our county has for each other and within itself, if we reignite that passion within us, we have the ability to see great things happening.

We have the two roads that are going to be converging: the King Coal Highway and the Coalfields Expressway coming in that’s going to divert there at Welch. That’s significant. We as a county have to prepare ourselves for that, for that event. Mullens did not. I have an office there. Mullens did not prepare itself for the road coming in. And the growth that it’s experiencing has been stunted. It will eventually get there. But it could have been a lot more explosive, if they would have prepared themselves in advance. So the local government has got to get together. Another thing I want to see in 20 years – actually a lot sooner than that because it’s happening now – you will actually see the people in government working together, instead of working in silos. So you’ll see your county commissioners, you’ll see your heads of the EDA, your heads of the CVB, your public health, your sheriffs, magistrates, judges, you’ll see them working together and coming together as a collective team to be able to find solutions instead of everyone working in their silos.

So in 20 years, McDowell County will still be as pretty as it ever has been. The people will still be great. But we will be in a much better economic position. We’ll be able to have the pride back in our county, even more than what we have right now. And I am proud of my county. Even with the issues that we have, McDowell County is awesome. And it will always be home.

6. Is there anything else you would like to add and let voters know about that we didn’t touch on here today?

Clemins: Yeah, I think it’s really important that we talk about hope. Because living here, and it being your reality, it’s your home, you feel a sense of pride because you’re from a south county, and that’s good.

But you also feel like you’re forgotten about here. But I think that there are a lot of people here who care about McDowell County, me being one of them. And I think that there is hope for McDowell County. It’s gonna be really important that people show up to vote in November, because that’s the only way that real change can happen, if people actually get out and vote. We had a really low turnout in the primary. In order for us to rebuild our home, it requires people to have a voice in that and to choose people that they know are going to go and fight for them.

Green: Well, again, lifelong resident. I’m a successful business owner. I own an insurance agency with our headquarters in Welch, but we’ve expanded into Wyoming and Mercer. We employ residents of McDowell County and have brought jobs to McDowell County. I also own my own laundromat. It’s one of the nicest laundromats this side of the East Coast. It’s a half million dollar laundromat there in Welch and again bringing jobs back into the county. Welch hadn’t had a laundromat in 20 years, so I put one in. Everybody that goes there brags on it and is very complimentary.

And I’m not saying to lift my own self up, but just to say, I see a need, I get them fixed. I’m a person that’s a doer that has a track record of being successful, was in the coal industry for 12 years. So I know that side of things, I am very passionate about our coal miners, I want to protect their coal jobs. But I also want to be able to be an out of the box thinker and to be able to see other avenues and profit has come in to be able to bring wealth and prosperity back to McDowell County.

I’ll just also mention as well – I’ll be able to make sure that we take care of our seniors, we’ll be able to take care of our opioid pandemic and the drug problems that are going on. We don’t want to forget that we’re not only focused on economics, but we’re also focused on making sure that our living conditions and the family unit is retained.

Delegate hopefuls in McDowell County talk roads, water, hope and four-wheelers appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight , West Virginia's civic newsroom.