LORNE, West Virginia — The Tallow County Commission will repeat a zoning hearing after the public packet distributed Friday included completed minutes for a meeting that had not yet occurred. Commissioners took limited testimony Monday but made no decision on a proposed equipment-storage yard near Cinder Ridge.
The application seeks to rezone 18 acres from agricultural use to light industrial use. Ridgeway Utility Services plans to store trucks, cable reels and portable generators on the property. The county planning board recommended approval with limits on overnight lighting and vehicle access from Coalbank Road.
Clerk Miriam Lott prepared the ordinary packet with the application, staff report, site plan and written comments. On Friday afternoon, a resident called to ask why the final pages described Monday's hearing in the past tense. Those pages identified 13 speakers, summarized their remarks and recorded a 2-1 vote approving the rezoning with four conditions.
Lott said she initially believed minutes from an earlier case had been attached to the packet. The text, however, named the Cinder Ridge parcel, the current applicant and commissioners serving this term. It also included a condition requiring downward-facing lights that had been suggested privately by planning staff but was not in the published recommendation.
Two residents listed as speakers said they had not submitted written comments or discussed their positions with county staff. One, Maribel Knox, was quoted objecting to engine noise near her pasture. Knox said she had planned to raise that issue Monday and had written nearly the same sentence in notes kept at home.
The county's document contractor reviewed the file history and found that the disputed pages were created at 3:14 p.m. Friday under Lott's account. Lott was working in the same file at that time but said the pages did not appear on her screen. The revision history contains no pasted text, outside author or recovered draft.
Commission counsel advised the board not to vote on the application. Members opened the hearing so residents who had traveled to Lorne could speak, then announced that all testimony would be taken again October 19 after a new notice. The applicant agreed to the delay but said extending a lease option on the property will cost approximately $2,600.
Five of the 13 people named in the premature minutes spoke Monday. Three used sentences that appear word for word in the packet, though each said they had avoided reading it after learning of the error. Knox deliberately changed her prepared opening. The room recording contains her revised words, while the clerk's live transcription displays the sentence attributed to her in Friday's file.
County information staff replaced the public packet with the application materials and marked the minutes as unapproved. Printed copies collected from the hearing room will be retained with the case rather than destroyed. Lott said the commission will use a blank minutes template and a second clerk for the rescheduled hearing.
The disputed minutes record Commissioner Hal Brenner making the motion to approve and Commissioner Ruth Kale voting against it. Brenner said Monday that he had not decided how he would vote. Kale said the four listed conditions are plausible but do not include the drainage review she intended to request.
After the room cleared, Lott compared the attendance sheet with the 13 speakers named in the packet. The handwritten lines matched the people who appeared. A fourteenth line had been completed beneath them with no name or address, only the words 'present after close.' The ink was dry when Lott collected the sheet, and the room recording shows her placing a blank form at the door before the hearing.