WEST LOGAN — The town of West Logan may be asking for some help from the West Virginia Municipal League in collecting overdue Business and Occupation Taxes from a local business that is several years in arrears.

Mayor Darren Akers discussed the issue at the Feb. 9 meeting of the West Logan Town Council.

Akers said the business had been delinquent for some time and that he had spoken with the business owner about a payment plan to begin paying on the B&O taxes. At that time, Akers had thought the problem would be resolved. Prior to that, West Logan Police Chief Robert Ward had contacted the local businesses which were in arrears on their B&O taxes notifying them that if they did not pay up soon that the town would be forced to turn the matter over to somebody else to collect.

The West Virginia Municipal League has a program where it identifies the exact amounts of what a business owes and goes about taking them to court to collect. The League is paid in a percentage of recovered funds. Recently the Municipal League attended a Man Town Council meeting where the matter was discussed and a Municipal League attorney explained the program.

Akers told councilmembers the business owner had agreed to start paying and had actually made a payment but did not make any further payments.

"We need to go see these folks again, and talk to them," Akers said. "We are not satisfied and we need to let them know we can take this to the Municipal League and let them handle it for us if they don't want to pay. This is not fair to the other businesses in our city who do pay. He knows the council has been talking about the Municipal League's collection program and if he doesn't pay up we will have no other option than to pursue that."

Councilmembers also heard more in what amounts to a personal dispute that had been grinding on for several months turning into a local feud.

Some time back, Kenny Trent had approached the council stating he had purchased a parcel of property that he could not access as an abandoned building was located in the middle of the roadway. The buildings owner refused to have it moved.

The dispute then dragged on for several months and eventually the town discovered that the road in question was owned by the Department of Highways, not the town, in effect leaving the town out of the dispute.

"That's not a road," claimed Roberta Vance of the area near Hicks Hollow and Ninth Avenue. Vance owns the structure in question.

"The town of West Logan does not have anything to do with the roads there anymore," said Akers, explaining that a previous West Logan Mayor had given those roads to the state to take over so they would be paved and upkept. "We don't have any authority over the roads there. We have nothing to do with it."

Vance then complained that another neighbor parked cars on her property and complained about altercations with that neighbor. Ward said that both the complainant and the neighbor claimed that they owned the property where the cars were parked and noted that the town had no authority over parking on private property.

Ward said that if the woman did own the property she could have the cars towed but the city had no authority to tow cars off private property. When she complained of threats, Ward advised her to call 911 immediately when any altercations took place, noting that 911 calls were taped and logged.