Infrastructure above all else, says Hannabass

Jul. 7—OAK HILL — It's all about infrastructure.

Proper concentration on underlying infrastructure can keep a municipality, a company or various other segments of society strong and thriving.

"The way I look at it, infrastructure is the most important function that your city government has," Bill Hannabass said on Thursday, June 30, which marked his final day in the office as Oak Hill city manager. "It's boring to a lot of people, but it's very, very necessary."

"Recreation is something that gets everybody's attention and everybody looks at, versus infrastructure," he added. "You've got to have your infrastructure in place."

His retirement was effective on July 5, and his replacement, Damita Johnson, wa slated to work her first day as his replacement on July 6. Johnson has been Oak Hill city treasurer/clerk for several years, and Hannabass says she will be an able replacement for him. "Up to this point, Oak Hill has always been in fantastic financial condition, and I'll credit a lot of that to Damita Johnson," he said. "Oak Hill has always been solvent, very financially strong (even weathering the departure of Walmart around 2006)."

Hannabass' retirement caps a government career that featured a 13 1/2-year stint as city manager, which was preceded by a four-year city council term and 1 1/2 years in the city's mayor chair.

Hannabass, who will turn 62 on July 3, said it's time for him to relax a little, take a long-overdue vacation and get involved in volunteering, with the local humane society on the top of the list.

He originally was talked into running for city council to perhaps throw some support behind the soon-to-be White Oak Rail Trail, he recalled. That work, as well as in other city issues, piqued his interest. "It really opened my eyes to how important your local government is to you, and the amount of good things possible through your local government. Most people don't pay much attention to city government or county government, but it's very important."

He later replaced Barbara Hickman as mayor, then resigned to assume the city manager post when Tom Oxley (now an Oak Hill city councilman) retired. "I had really big shoes to fill; Tom Oxley is a very talented person." Hannabass said he leaned on Oxley for advice and support back then, and still does.

He lists some of the strides made by the Fayette County city of 50 employees and 8,000 residents in recent years:

—Work continues on Needleseye Park, a nearly 300-acre climbing, hiking and mountain biking park, including getting some funding through the New River Gorge Regional Development Authority for the trail system and a disc golf scenario. "And that's going to be a heavily used park. It's not right now, but it will be."

—"We've got a host of projects that have been in the hopper for a while," he said. "You're going to see rail trail lighting in the Virginia Street area, and the Virginia Street sidewalk project (will commence)." In the latter, a grant application was done by Hannabass and Oxley in December 2008, but the project has seen various delays to now, through no fault of the city, Hannabass said. "It's about to happen now."

—"I'm proud of our street paving in Oak Hill," he said. "Our city streets are in great condition. You'll see paving in Oak Hill, I believe, next week. And every year, we've paved a significant amount. We've invested in it so heavily that we pave streets before they're in horrible condition. It's cheaper to pave them were there are not potholes and horrible pavement."

—A stormwater mitigation project in Minden is currently in the engineering phase, with cost pegged at slightly over $4 million. "It could start in fall, more likely next spring."

Also in Minden, the final phase of a recent $25 million project is an additional $7 million inflow and infiltration system for sewer lines and collection in Minden and Sanger and other places that were within the Arbuckle PSD.

—"We have positioned ourselves to be able to do a lot of drainage projects that are more involved than most municipalities our size can take on," Hannabass said. One was recently completed on Trump Avenue, and others are planned in Hidden Valley, the Butler Street area and the Miller Avenue area. "It's fortunate because we have the equipment and the trained equipment operators to do a lot of the drainage ourselves, and save hundreds of thousands of dollars."

—"One of the infrastructure items that we lag behind in is our sidewalks," he admitted. "Our sidewalks are in poor condition, and we're going to have to address those."

—"As a management tool, we've incorporated GIS (geographic information system), and all the departments use it. It saves a ton of time. You can tell real time what's been done and what's not been done." Information utilized includes mapping infrastructure, inspections and structural inspection board items. "When somebody calls me with a complaint, first thing I do is go to the computer and (see if it has been handled or where the work stands.)"

—In his estimation, "We have the best funded police pension fund in the state of West Virginia." When municipalities have to "kick a (financial) can down the road, pension funds is an area that is normally affected," he said.

—The city has a current annual budget slightly over $4 million, not counting ARPA supplementation. "It is a lot of money, but you have to take into consideration our police department alone that budget is over $1 million, and it's very necessary and there's not a lot of fat in it."

—A very active structural inspection board (SIB) has resulted in numerous building renovations or demolitions in recent years. "The SIB is heavily managed by GIS and is not arbitrary. Everything is looked at in black and white numbers." The primary premise is that "we look at the condition of the structure and whether it's safe or not."

Hannabass says state DEP officials have identified Oak Hill as one of three models statewide in how dilapidated structures are being handled. Oak Hill has been invited to Charleston for a future conference to highlight its efforts.

—I can't not talk about Minden," said Hannabass. "Well before the current Superfund site and all that, we had a public service district right beside Oak Hill that was failing, and a lot of people didn't want to admit it.

"We've helped (the situation) to the tune of $25 million, and we're not quite finished. Yes, we did annex Minden. Our boundary now touches the New River ... on the property of ACE Adventure Resort (which is in Oak Hill limits). I'm proud of that, I'm proud of the entrepreneurs that started ACE many years ago, and to have a good relationship with ACE.

"There's been some real dollars spent in Minden." Many structures in Minden have been demolished under the SIB program, he added. "I hope by now that people are starting to realize there are benefits to being annexed."

—"In Southern West Virginia, we are in an uptick right now in property values, rental values, all that," Hannabass said. "I can remember (even) back in the day, we were never in financial trouble. We went through some hardships like Walmart leaving Oak Hill (around 2006). We weathered that fine."

—City council recently agreed to buy the former BB&T building for $675,000 for the purpose of relocating city hall there. "As far as the BB&T building itself, I don't believe it's a bad building necessarily. I think that there were a lot of questions that should have been answered before council agreed to purchase it."

He said that staff who actually work in the current city hall weren't put in the loop early. "No one was initially consulted, myself included, to answer the basic question 'does the City of Oak Hill need a new city hall?'"

"The other looming question is how much money is it going to take to refurbish the BB&T building to get it (to) usable space? And, what do we do with the current city hall (which is connected with the Lively Family Amphitheater, and the basement is used for parking and storage)?"

—"I really think that the city manager form of government has the potential to work better than most municipal forms of government," Hannabass concluded. "Where there's a clear distinction between city council that determines policy of the city, that's mostly ordinances and the desire of what direction we're going in, and then your city manager administers that for the city council.

"But when you have other forms of government, you have elected officials that manage, it usually goes awry, it gets political ... You have politicians that are depending upon votes to get re-elected if they want to stay in office. Politics come into play. They're going to pave a street that the president of the Lions Club lives on versus a street that needs it more, things like that. I think it keeps politics out of it and it's a better process."

Email: skeenan@register-herald.com or follow on Twitter @gb_scribe