{"id":3527,"date":"2018-06-05T14:57:24","date_gmt":"2018-06-05T18:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3527"},"modified":"2018-06-06T07:43:04","modified_gmt":"2018-06-06T11:43:04","slug":"brooks-mccumbee-to-challenge-daryl-cowles-for-house-of-delegates-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=3527","title":{"rendered":"Brooks McCumbee to Run Against Daryl Cowles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Local school athletic referee Brooks McCumbee will run as an Independent against House Majority Leader Daryl Cowles (R-Morgan) for a seat in the West Virginia House of Delegates in District 58.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Brooks McCumbee on the teachers’ picket line across from Widmyer Elementary School, Berkeley Springs, West Virginia February 22, 2018<\/p><\/div>\n

That makes it a three way race between the incumbent Republican Cowles, the Independent McCumbee and the Democrat Bibi Hahn.<\/span><\/p>\n

McCumbee says he needs only 65 signatures of registered voters in the district to get on the ballot in November.<\/span><\/p>\n

McCumbee said made up his mind to run against Cowles during the teachers’ strike.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you were going to call a foul against Cowles, what would it be?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBlocking,\u201d McCumbee said. \u201cHe blocked the teachers from getting what they needed. And unsportsmanlike conduct — not being considerate of others.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

McCumbee said his mom worked as a state employee — as a masseuse at the Berkeley Springs State Park for close to thirty years. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen she got sick in 2009, she had a $100,000 medical bill,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd PEIA along with Medicare covered everything except $500. Now, it would be much more.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of my mom\u2019s situation, I knew the teacher\u2019s cause was just,\u201d McCumbee said. \u201cWhen you worked for the state, you didn\u2019t make as much as you should have, but you had good benefits. But now they don\u2019t even have that. Teachers rallied around me and said — you have to run against Daryl Cowles. When asked about the teachers\u2019 strike, Cowles would reply — I\u2019m watching. That\u2019s not good enough to watch. PEIA affects the state road guys, the gals at the courthouse, the people at the state parks. It affects the employees that run the offices down in Charleston.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCowles should have supported the teachers from the get go,\u201d he said. \u201cMedical insurance is high. Deductibles are going up. Out of pocket expenses are going up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFinally, the whole Republican side gave the teachers a five percent raise and felt that would appease them,\u201d McCumbee said. \u201cBut they want to get their health insurance fixed. There is going to be a strike in August or September. You can bet on it. And I\u2019m going to support the teachers 100 percent.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey need to roll back the deductibles, premiums and out of pockets to the way it was in 2009.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

McCumbee says that if elected, there are a number of issues he would like to work on.<\/span><\/p>\n

First, he would work to fix PEIA.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t how to fix PEIA, but the public employees deserve that it\u2019s fixed sooner rather than later,\u201d McCumbee said. \u201cThey need to roll back PEIA to the way it was in 2009. Fewer out of pockets, lower deductibles and less premiums.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He would work to raise the homestead property exemption for people 65 and older from $25,000 to $50,000. \u201cKnowing that won\u2019t fly, maybe we can get it up to $30,000,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

He would put metal detectors in all schools middle school level and up. \u201cThat would protect kids and teachers,” he says. “I was working a basketball game a couple of years ago at Harpers Ferry. You never see any cops at a girls middle school game. I saw four cops at that game. Turns out, there was a former student there with a gun that wanted to shoot the seventh grade girls coach. That wouldn\u2019t have happened with metal detectors.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He would exempt Social Security benefits from state income tax.<\/span><\/p>\n

He would like to drug test all school employees and athletic officials.<\/span><\/p>\n

And he would work to repeal the sales tax on home heating fuel. He\u2019d make up for the lost revenue by increasing the tolls on the West Virginia Turnpike by 25 cents.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead of spending $60 million on the proposed bypass around Berkeley Springs, McCumbee said he would spend it on a new Route 9 to Martinsburg and fixing up the roads in Morgan County.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Local school athletic referee Brooks McCumbee will run as an Independent against House Majority Leader Daryl Cowles (R-Morgan) for a seat in the West Virginia House of Delegates in District 58. That makes it a three way race between the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3527"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3533,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3527\/revisions\/3533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}