By Sarah Richardson
A special meeting of the White Sulphur Springs City Council was held on Nov. 18 in council chambers. The first item of business was the approval of Civil & Environmental Consultants Incorporated for contract work on the upcoming bike park. They are an engineering and environmental consulting firm based out of Pittsburgh, PA.
In 2021, White Sulphur received a grant to design a new community bike park, which will be located adjacent to Hope Village. The park will include a pump track, jump lines, skill features, and other elements. In 2023, GVORBA members partnered with the city, Region 4, and WVU’s Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative to secure $2.6 million for the project. A groundbreaking is anticipated to be scheduled as soon as next year.
“This has been reviewed by the committee as well as our consultant on this, and they are all ok with it,” explained Mayor Thomas Taylor. “I read over this, I read over it a couple times, it looks to me.” Council voted unanimously to approve the bike park contract with Civil & Environmental Consultants Incorporated.
“We are very excited to get this project moving forward,” said Taylor.
The other item of business was a request for alley closure located off of Greenbrier Avenue, known at Third Avenue, presented by Laura Hanna. Mayor Taylor pulled meeting minutes from July 1999 that concerned the same alley closure, where it was described as a “ditch line” that the city did not use as an alley, and with all neighboring landowners voicing support of the alley’s closure. In 1999, it was voted for the city to do a quitclaim deed for the alley property.
“The City abandoned all of it in 1999, and we can’t go back and change what Council did in 1999,” explained Taylor. He stated that the utility right-of-way remained.
After much discussion, it was determined that, according to their attorney, there is legally no alley to close, and the meeting was adjourned.
