Local News

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Four members of the Charleston Police Department were promoted this week.

CPD Chief Scott Dempsey, Major Jason Webb and Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin held the promotional ceremony Tuesday at City Hall. It was the most promotions by the city in a public ceremony since 2017.

The following officers were promoted:

Lieutenant Steven Matthew Webb to Captain
Sergeant Kevin Oldham to Lieutenant
Corporal Travis Bailes to Sergeant
Patrolman Opie Smith, III to Corporal

Capt. Webb, a 25-year veteran of the Charleston Police Department, said there’s no other position he would rather have than to be a police officer in the City of Charleston.

“It’s a calling to be a police officer,” he said. “This job has been a dream job for me, I can’t think of anything else that I would like to do.”

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A first of its kind bill will motivate 911 dispatchers in the Mountain State to stay on longer but retire sooner.

Lawmakers and Kanawha County Commission members joined emergency officials and telecommunicators Tuesday afternoon at Kanawha County Metro 911 to watch as Governor Jim Justice sign the Statewide 911 Retirement bill, the first of its kind in the state and in the nation.

“I mean, when it really boils right down to it, you’re heroes, you’ve done so much for this great state it’s unbelievable, and every single day, you step up and you do things that are unimaginable for us that don’t do it,” Justice said to telecommunicators at Tuesday’s bill signing.

Kanawha County Metro 911 Director John Rutherford said the bill creates an all new retirement system for 911 dispatchers and telecommunicators that allows them to retire as early as the age of 50 after 20 years of service. 

He said being a public safety employee can be a highly stressful job– from shootings and police pursuits, to performing CPR and saving lives– adding that this makes the turnover rate for the job to also be very high.

However, Rutherford said that this bill will help to encourage emergency personnel to stay at the job.

“This will enable us to tell an employee, ‘stick with us another ten years, you’ve got experience, you can save lives, you can keep our citizens safe, stay with us,’ and that enables us to do that,” Rutherford said.

Rutherford has been with Metro 911 for 12 years, and he said prior to the bill, he had only seen three people retire from the job.

During the signing ceremony, Rutherford recognized Senator Eric Nelson, one of the many lawmakers there at Tuesday’s event, who had been a longtime advocate of bill.

He also recognized the Kanawha County Commission for their longtime support of the bill, as well. Rutherford particularly wanted to recognize Commissioner Kent Carper who had worked closely with him for over 30 years. He said in that time, Carper had always supported the improvement of the county’s’ public safety standards through the Public Safety grant, and awarding funding to the volunteer fire department, police and EMS.

Rutherford said they have all been working with legislators to pass the bill for a total of 7 years, and now that it’s finally passed, it changes everything.

“When they answer the phone now you’re going to have an experienced employee who can give you instructions on how to stop the bleed, how to do CPR, keep police officers safe during pursuits by relaying information, it changes everything about public safety, makes it better and improves the profession,” Rutherford said.

Derek Johnson has been an employee at Kanawha County Metro 911 for 16 years. He was one of the many 911 telecommunicators at the event Tuesday who was more than happy to see the governor’s pen hit the paper to sign the bill.

Johnson said the job has always struggled with retention as employees have to deal with people on their worst days, something not many can do for decades on end. but he said this bill should help improve retention rates and boost overall workplace morale.

“With the old retirement system we did have, you would have to work until you were 62 before you could retire, this enables, once you get 20 years of service, age 50, you can retire, draw, and enjoy life, and after 20 years, you’re ready,” he said.

He said the role has vastly improved for all of them now.

“It takes it from being a job to a career, because you can come in, you can do 20 years, and a have a good retirement to look forward to at the end of your career,” Johnson said.

Rutherford said their 911 council is now in correspondence with other states’ 911 centers who are reaching out to them wanting to know the details of the retirement plan highlighted in the bill in hopes to implement something similar in their state.

He said the bill goes into effect January 1.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Dozens of elementary school students are learning about being good environmental stewards in honor of Earth Day.

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and the Clay Center teamed up to host the annual Earth Day Celebration Tuesday for grade school-aged kids across Kanawha and surrounding counties.

WVDEP Youth Environmental Program Director, Annette Hoskins said it’s a great learning experience for the kids.

“It’s great because they learn so much, but they don’t realize they’re learning because they’re having such a great time,” said Hoskins. “The kids are super excited to see bugs, and the fish, snakes, and learn about run-off and litter control.”

Various exhibits from state and federal agencies were on hand with the WVDEP. They had educational displays and activities set up for the students promoting environmental stewardship and resource conservation.

WVDEP’s Environmental Youth Program was teaching kids about recycling though activities such as the life-cycle of a water bottle.

Other exhibits included those from West Virginia American Water, who was talking about the state’s drinking water, Chemours, teaching them about preserving the state’s natural resources, and live bugs, fish and snakes native to West Virginia’s streams and forests were also there to show kids how it’s important to preserve them, as well.

A fifth grade student from Overbrook Elementary School in Charleston, Lydia McCallister, was excited to be taking part in the water bottle activity in which the students would pretend they were a water bottle and where they might end up, whether at a landfill, on the ground, or in the recycling bin.

She said she has always valued recycling and was excited to learn more about it.

“It feels good, because my parents taught me a lot about recycling, but I want to learn more, because I always like to know more, so it’s really good to learn about it,” McCallister said.

Hoskins said it’s never too early to instill in people the importance of protecting the world they live in.

“You know, we only have one earth and we have to take care of it, or our future generations are not going to exist, so absolutely we have to teach them at a young age what they need to do,” Hoskins said.

McCallister said while she knew of the importance behind not littering the planet, one aspect she didn’t know that she learned at Tuesday’s event was just how much plastic ends up in the earth’s oceans.

She said it all starts with one person just taking the time to get educated about the steps they can take to help protect the planet, and that in turn, will create a ripple effect.

“If you know knowledge you can tell more people and you can educate them and you can help more people,” McCallister said. “If one person has the knowledge then they can do more then the ten people who don’t know it,”

The Watershed Improvement Branch, Division of Air Quality and Rehabilitation Environmental Action Plan (REAP), and the U.S Army Corps of Engineers were among other organizations on-hand with environmental education and activities Tuesday.

The annual event was held the day following Earth Day, which is observed on April 22.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia University’s Mountaineer Athletic Club is hoping to build off a positive year for WVU athletics with their annual scholarship dinners on their statewide tour.

Several WVU head coaches, student-athletes and alumni were in attendance for the annual Charleston Scholarship Dinner Monday evening at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center. In 2023, the Charleston Scholarship Dinner raised over $55,000 towards the MAC Charleston Scholarship Dinner Athletic Endowment.

Wren Baker

WVU Athletic Director Wren Baker said being in the capital city is always an exciting time and this was no exception.

“This is such an awesome event and we have such passionate fans in Charleston,” Baker said.

Around 500 people filled up the convention center with blue and gold for the dinner. There were also speeches given as the night went on including one from former WVU men’s basketball coach John Beilein.

Over the course of the next few weeks, WVU officials and coaches will be making stops in Wheeling, Parkersburg, Martinsburg and Glade Springs. Baker said new this year will be stops in Washington, D.C. and Charlotte, North Carolina.

“We’ll see a lot of Mountaineer fans near and far,” Baker said. “It’s really a great time to be a Mountaineer.”

Baker spoke highly of some of the successful athletic teams from last year including the football team. Neal Brown was one of several coaches also in attendance. Baker said he’s expecting a great turnout for the WVU Gold and Blue Spring Football Game coming up Saturday, April 27.

“I think the spring game attendance is going to be way up this year so we’re excited about getting everybody up to Morgantown,” he said.

Neal Brown

Coach Brown is excited about the upcoming season too and was happy to see such a big turnout for the Charleston Scholarship Dinner.

“It’s a community full of Mountaineers, there’s no question about it” Brown said about the city of Charleston. “Anytime we can come down here and spread the gospel about what we’re doing within the football program, we try to take advantage of it.”

There’s a lot of good energy surrounding the team, according to Brown. WVU will have seven home games this season at Milan Pushkar Stadium. The season opener is August 31 against Penn State, who the Mountaineers opened the season with in 2023.

Brown described the mentality of WVU fans heading into the season as being “all in.”

“It matters and you want to coach and play at a place where it matters and it matters to the people of West Virginia,” said Brown.

Neal Brown has been head coach of the football team since 2019. He’s going to be spending a lot more time over the next couple of weeks with new men’s basketball coach Darien DeVries, who was in Charleston for the first time Monday.

Darian DeVries

DeVries has already been busy trying to put together a staff and a roster of players ever since being hired on in March. He previously spent six seasons as the head coach of Drake University. Since then, it’s been a nonstop effort to create a team, but Monday was a quick break from all of that for DeVries and a chance to put more names with faces.

“I haven’t had a lot of time to get out and about so this was great to meet a lot of people,” DeVries said.

“The people here are so supportive and I’m excited about engraving myself more into the community,” he added.

Much like Brown, WVU women’s basketball coach Mark Kellogg is trying to build on the momentum that his team picked up last season.

“I feel like we’re in a much better spot now than we were a year ago and I’m just really excited about what’s to come,” Kellogg said.

In his first year in Morgantown, Kellogg’s club went 25-8 and booked a trip to the Women’s NCAA Tournament. The team isn’t losing much to the transfer portal and a lot of their core players are returning. This past season, the team also had one of the best attendance marks they’ve ever had.

Mark Kellogg

“There is momentum in the program and we just have to capitalize on it and take it to a whole new level,” said Kellogg.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A 12-member Kanawha County jury has found a man guilty of first-degree murder in a Charleston murder case.

The jury got the Tyran Gray case Monday afternoon after the defense rested its case. The jury recommended mercy for the conviction.

Gray, 27, of Detroit, who shot and killed Norman Sweeney, 49, on Charleston’s West Side on September 9, 2022, chose not to take the stand Monday.

The defense claimed it was someone else that shot Sweeney, not Gray. Authorities said Gray was mad at Sweeney about a stolen package.

Gray was originally charged along with Cortini Ann Stovall, who authorities said was driving a white car that sped away from the shooting scene. Stovall had pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of accessory after the fact of first degree murder.

Stovall told the court she took Gray to another home following the shooting and was then paid $600 to take Gray to Detroit.

Charleston Police Detective Joshua Mena testified for the prosecution Monday. He showed a map of the locations involved in the crime scene, which included 532 Wyoming Street, 530 Wyoming Street, and 309 Glenwood Avenue.

“Does this map show the trajectory of the cameras you were able to find to trace the white car?” Kanawha County Assistant Prosecutor Monika Jaensson asked Mena.

“Yes ma’am,” Mena replied.

“And, so you were able to find through street cameras the path the white car took from Wyoming Street to Glenwood, correct?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Mena again replied.

Stovall apparently had rented the white car from Enterprise

Mena said the in and out mileage on the car was consistent to driving from Charleston to Detroit and back.

Gray will be sentenced later this year.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The closings of two longstanding and established restaurants in the city of Charleston has more people looking for work.

It was announced Sunday that The Chop House and Tidewater Grill abruptly closed. Both restaurants are owned by Mainstreet Ventures Restaurant Group and both had spots in the Charleston Town Center Mall for many years.

Kevin Gudejko, President of Mainstreet Ventures Restaurant Group, said the two locations were simply losing too much money over the past few years. Mike Gibbons founded Mainstreet Ventures, but sold it a few years ago.

Some employees said they were notified on Saturday that their place of work was not going to be open the following day and would close for good.

Chef Paul Smith

Chef Paul Smith, owner of The Pitch and 1010 Bridge in Kanawha County, said he feels for both the ownership group and the employees. He said there’s no easy way to close a business.

“I see both sides of it,” Smith said Monday. “When you tell your team that you’re closing, sometimes things go out the back door, sometimes people don’t show up to work so maybe a month turns into closing next week because all of our staff is gone or all of our product is gone.”

Smith called the news of the two closures a “gut punch.”

“I also feel terrible for the employees,” he added.

Charleston Town Center Mall has seen a lot of restaurants leave the building or close in recent years. Panera is gone along with Five Guys and Qdoba to name a few. Smith said the mall is a tough place to be at the moment.

“Tidewater had been there for many years and Chop House was at one time one of the premier restaurants in town,” said Smith.

A handful of other Charleston businesses have already posted to social media about hiring or reached out to laid off employees to let them know that they have openings. Employees have also been offered by Mainstreet Ventures Restaurant Group to relocate to another location in Ohio or Michigan.

Smith is trying to lend a hand to former employees too. He encourages folks to apply for a position at 1010 or The Pitch. He still believes the capital city is a great place to be in the restaurant industry.

“If you’re an employee, put in an application,” he said. “We’ll find something for you.”

Traffic at the mall has not been what it used to be and that most likely played a part in the decision from the corporation to close the two restaurants. Smith said the expense for companies to occupy a space at the mall is also too great to overcome.

“I don’t know what they’re paying but I’m sure it’s outrageously expensive,” said Smith. “I would probably rather be in Southridge, but I want downtown and the mall to be more successful. Malls are just dying in general.”

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The sun has officially set on a more than 40-year-old staple of the Town Center Mall as Charleston officials say they now look ahead to the future, and the construction of an $80 million sports complex to take its place.

Members of the media met with the City of Charleston and the Kanawha County Commission to get a last look at the former Macy’s building Monday before it’s torn down later this week. Construction on the new Capital Sports Center is expected get underway at the site following the demolition.

Amy Shuler Goodwin

Charleston Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin told reporters that the location, which is directly across the street from the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center and just a stones throw away from most of the city’s hotels and restaurants was ideal, as the future complex is anticipated to be host to thousands.

“What’s so exciting about this part of town is you’re seeing a total revitalization,” said Goodwin. “This has become, in this section of town, kind of the sports and entertainment hub.”

The former Macy’s had sat empty since 2019.

Kanawha County Commissioner Ben Salango said that the building will be demolished in phases, with the process set to begin on Thursday when city and county officials will reconvene at the site for a press conference.

He said demolition will take about six to eight weeks, then they will have to finalize the architectural drawings of the new sports center, which is expected to include several basketball, volleyball, and pickleball courts, a soccer field, a running track, an Olympic-sized swimming pool and more.

Salango said, then, the actual construction on the complex will take about another two years to complete.

“So, we’re about three years out, but you have to start somewhere and this is where we’re starting,” Salango said.

Ben Salango

He said this is the largest project the city and county has ever taken on together.

Salagno said they have worked very hard on the plans for the project and it has taken them about two years to get to this point.

“It was a much bigger challenge, a lot of obstacles, including legal obstacles, than we had anticipated, but this week we’re going to start the demolition, we were able to close on the property last week,” he said.

Salango said the new complex is also expected to bring in much more foot-traffic to the mall, which he added that the lack thereof served as a major driver in the recent and immediate loss of two longtime restaurants there– the Chop House and the Tidewater Grill.

He said, however, that the future sports facility is not being built to save the mall, rather it’s to provide a significant economic impact to the city and the entire state.

“This is not necessarily mall-specific, I think it will help whatever’s left of the mall, but we’re not looking back at 1995, I’m trying to think and the mayor is trying to think of 2025 and 2035,” Salango said.

The Tidewater Grill had been at the mall for 39 years, and the Chop House had also seen a couple of dozen years as a tenant of the Town Center, as well, which opened in 1983.

Goodwin said while a lot of great memories reside within the two now former restaurants, their closures mark a motion to look ahead.

“Birthdays, anniversaries, graduation parties, great celebrations that happened in both of those facilities, but as we look towards the future, what’s going to be there,” she said.

Goodwin said sports tourism is a major aspect highlighting the economy of tomorrow, and she said the new complex will only help to energize and continue the momentum the city has already garnered through sporting events and the tourism it brings in.

She said Monday, reiterating what Salango had previously stated, sports tourism went from a $19 billion industry to a $40 billion industry just in the span of two and a half years, and they hope to further advance that in the city through the complex.

Goodwin said just like the past, the location will continue to serve as a staple to the community as well as the state.

“There’s a lot of memories, a lot of history, but what we’re looking forward is the future, what can this be,” she said. “And just like what the mall did back in 1983, being one of the largest malls in the country, this is also going to bring in the type of future growth and future development,” said Goodwin.

Salango said the city and county have each put in $5 million towards the construction of the Capital Sports Center, and in addition, they have received a federal earmark of $2 million from Senator Joe Manchin.

He said the next steps for acquiring funding for the projected $80 million facility will fall to additional direct funding spending requests and bond payments.

The Sports Development Authority Board charged with handling the project’s business affairs hired Sports Facilities Inc., a company who has worked with around 70 different sports complexes throughout the country.

Rodney Loftis & Sons is handling the demolition and ZMM Architects is working through preliminary designs of the new facility.

The press conference on the Capital Sports Center is set for this Thursday at 1 p.m.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A Hurricane man is going to prison for stealing money from his mother and grandmother.

George Anderson (WVRJA)

George Henry Anderson II, 48 was sentenced Monday in Kanawha County Circuit Court to 2-20 years in prison. He was sentenced in February to 2-10 years in prison for similar crimes in Putnam County, .

Judge Dave Hardy sentenced Anderson to 2-10 years, a $10,000 fine and ordered him to pay nearly $31,000 in restitution after a conviction on a charge of stealing from the elderly. Hardy also sentenced Anderson to the maximum 10 years in prison for using a electronic device to defraud. He’ll have to pay a $10,000 fine.

Kanawha County prosecutors recommended Hardy sentence Anderson to 7 years probation but the judge rejected that and sentenced Anderson to the prison time to be served consecutively.

Anderson had a previous conviction in connection with crimes against children.

Hardy said Anderson exploited both children and seniors, the two most vulnerable populations.

Anderson’s mother spoke against him at Monday’s sentencing.

SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Efforts at a local college are underway to make its campus a little safer from gun violence.

BridgeValley Community and Technical College is receiving a $400,000 Congressionally Directed Spending (CDS) award to implement a Gunshot Detection System.

The CDS request was submitted by U.S. Senators Shelley Moore Capito and Joe Manchin in their efforts to enhance community safety measures.

BridgeValley CTC President Casey Sacks said the allocation underscores the significance of making investments in technology that prioritizes the safety and well-being of students, faculty and staff.

Casey Sacks

“It’s one of those things that you hope to never have to use, but our Chief of Police alerted us even to the existence of the technology,” Sacks said. “Once we learned that the technology existed, we thought let’s see if we can get that on campus.”

Sacks said the system has the ability to detect in real-time precisely where a firearm was fired off and can immediately notify first responders of its location.

She said it will enable quick responses from law enforcement and fire departments through its strategically-positioned sensors and expansive notification platform, which she said will be much faster than calling 911 and having to describe the situation and its precise location.

Sacks said that even before their efforts to acquire the detection system on campus, however, safety has always been a main focus at BridgeValley, as they collaborate often with first responders to hold disaster-response training events.

“We’ve been really proud of the work that we’ve done with first responders, but we’ve been incredibly proactive, BridgeValley holds annual disaster events where we do drills,” she said. “Two years ago, we did an active shooter drill, last year the drill that we did was around a helicopter crash.”

She said they plan to conduct another drill in the fall. An exact scenario for it, however, Sacks said is to still be determined.

Sacks said while it’s all hypothetical scenarios they train for now, it’s preparation for if such emergencies were to actually happen on the BridgeValley campus, as she said, you can never be too cautious.

“The idea around these drills is to help us better work with first responders to think, like, what would happen if something like this were to happen in our community, and so we’re just trying to be as proactive as possible,” Sacks said.

She said the detection system will just be another instrument in place that will optimize continued safety standards on campus, but Sacks said the system is not quite in place just yet.

After just receiving word from Capito and Manchin that the funding for the detection system has been acquired, Sacks said they will now have the Department of Justice give them what amounts to a grant award agreement.

She said they will go through the grant award agreement process and then they will go out to bid in determining which company will install the system.

Sacks said with the implementation of the system, they hope to be a model for other colleges and K-12 institutions around the area, and let them know that there’s a lot that can be done to leverage technology to the schools’ safety advances.

“We’d all love to have more police officers, for example, but our budgets don’t always allow that to be possible, so anything we can do to help our agencies work together, we really love our partnership we have with the South Charleston Police and the Montgomery Police on our campuses,” Sacks said.