The WV Secretary of State’s records shows an average of 3 to 4 FOIA requests per month submitted to the Jefferson County Commission.
The Jefferson County Commission claims it has a problem with FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests received over the past several years. The Observer reviewed the public records currently available and has not been able to corroborate these claims.
For the past two budget cycles, County Administrator, Edwina Benites-LM has requested an additional staff position dedicated to handling FOIA requests. Benites said that fulfilling and tracking these requests had become a burden for her office.
At the July 16 Commission meeting, Pasha Majdi, the Commission President, said that a politically-active resident had threatened to inundate the Commission with FOIA requests in response to how the Commission voted when it made two appointments to the Planning Commission earlier this year. Majdi led the Commission through a lengthy discussion and then into an executive session about asking for legislative action to restrict FOIA requests.
Asking For An Explanation
Earlier this year The Observer asked the County Administrator and several of the Commissioners for details about what requests were burdensome, to which we received only vague responses. Three weeks ago we requested a copy of the internal log the Commission staff uses to track FOIA requests. After several follow-up inquiries, the only thing we’ve heard from the County staff is that this request is being reviewed by the County Administrator and an outside attorney.
Secretary of State Tracks FOIA Compliance
The West Virginia Secretary of State also maintains a database of FOIA requests. All government agencies across the state (including counties and municipalities) are required to log the results of completed FOIA requests in a timely manner. The Observer used this database to analyze the FOIA requests received by the Jefferson County Commission. In 2024, the Commission reported that it received 47 FOIA requests. In 2025 it reported 29 requests and in the first five months of 2026 it reported 21 requests (chart above).
The information available from the Secretary of State database allows for a general categorization of the request and also shows how quickly a request was completed. In 2024, the average time for completion was 11 calendar days, in 2025 it was 12 days, and in 2026 it has been averaging 18 days. A few requests appear to be broad, but most appear to be requests for a specific document or specific correspondence to or from specific individuals. According to a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s office, those specific requests should be easy to fulfill.
While state law requires an acknowledgement of a FOIA request within five days and a response in a reasonable amount of time, Jefferson County still has 11 requests open from 2024, 9 open from 2025, and 7 for the first five months of 2026. From the description in the database, most of these requests do not appear to be overly difficult to fulfill. There are recurring topics, including the Middleway water bottling plant, that appear in several of these unfulfilled requests.
County Commissioner Jack Hefestay showed The Observer a document indicating that the County has received 13 FOIA requests in June/July from the individual who was the focus of Commissioner Majdi’s concerns. Because the County Commission staff has not provided any detail on these requests, The Observer cannot provide any analysis of how burdensome they are.
Discussions Earlier This Week
Steve Pearson, the Observer Weekly’s Editor, discussed his analysis of the County’s problematic handling of FOIA requests on WRNR earlier this week. You can watch the video here, during the second half hour of the hour-long segment.
Published in the Observer Weekly 2026 Aug 6.
By Steve Pearson