The public part of the Nov. 11th School Board meeting lasted just 12 minutes. That's brief for any public body. The record for a brief public meeting goes to the County Commission which once held an 7 minute meeting. Blink and you missed that one. With all five Boardsters present and just one in the peanut gallery, we did manage to glean out a nugget or two.

   Pentagon CPA Jennifer Paxton was first up with a financial update. From that report, from tax collections, this month, the School Board brought in $1,139,847. That doesn't include any other source of income, just from the taxpayer.
  Here's the ho hum stuff.
  Sebrina Grose was hired as a substitute teacher pending a whiz test
  Jeanette Keen moved from Clay Middle to Big Otter as an aide.
  Jokwin Schoonover was employed as an after school substitute teacher at Big Otter Elem
  Grithel Burns was hired as an after school math specialist at Big Otter.
   There is a brand new school bus garage ready for use except for one thing -  electricity. It's been that way for at least three months.
   Last month during a Board meeting, the first public information came out on the reason for the lack of juice for the place. It sounds like there has been a disagreement between the contractor (Flint) and the local power company, Elk Power AKA Black Diamond Power. At issue is who has to pay for the transformers on the pole. Based on brief comments from the last meeting and street talk, a couple notes.
  Engineers want the best service possible. Their plans called for modern power entering the building. Elk Power said no way jose. With t he local electric supplier standing firm in stance, the Engineer had to come up with some other kind of fuse box (panel actually). There was additional cost to design the different panel and more $$$ involved getting it in place and the earlier one out.
  Elk Power hung up on the pole some old model transformer ( some say from an abandoned strip mine down South) which almost immediately went Kapuuut. Another one was hung up three weeks ago. That unit fried when a power surge wiped it out. Still another transformer was hung on the pole (after the surge) and it was damaged by the installation crews.
  Week after week, problem after problem, and to date, no juice in the new bus garage.
  The Pentagon is sick and tired of the wait. On the 11th, questions came up on the problem.
  Boardster Dave Pierson, "The problem is the power company."
  Board Chair Dave Mullins, "We need our electric hook up right now!"
  Superintendent Joe Paxton told his Board that Flint is taking the issue, complaint, to the WV PSC for a decision.
 As for Elk Power,  as it least in previous times, they don't want to bear the cost of the upgrade themselves and are trying to get by with the least expense. Ditto for any power surges blowing up the control panel and other electrical items like the big power doors on the building.
  Above we mentioned "during previous times". We're talking about just a few months back when Black Diamond told the Town of Clay, you have to pay for a service upgrade for the Blue Knob water pump upgrade. That decision by the power company cost the Town an additional $12,000.
  Things are at  a road block for the Pentagon. Our guess, it's going to take some kind of Court case to decide who has to pay for what including power surges and what locals are required to pay.
  It's a cluster readers and with no end in sight.
  We said the meeting went just 12 minutes. That's not really true.  After 12 minutes, the Board went behind closed doors to toss out a Clay High  student. We didn't stick around for the oft lengthy secret time meetings.
  AW