By Richard Kerns
rkerns@newstribune.info
tribune staff writer

KEYSER — A Keyser police officer accused of sending a racially charged text message to a Keyser family passed a lie-detector test that indicated he did not send the offensive message and had no knowledge of its origin.
Addressing Monday's meeting of the Keyser Mayor and City Council, Police Chief Karen Shoemaker said Officer Ernie Miller took the test on Thursday. It was administered by the West Virginia State Police, which investigated the charge lodged against him.
“He passed it with flying colors, there was no deception on his part,” Shoemaker said.
An African-American Keyser family accused Miller of sending the text message, and their story was featured on WHAG television news out of Hagerstown. In response to their allegations, the State Police launched an investigation.
It has since come to light that programs are available on the Internet where text messages can be generated and sent from a computer, with the caller ID manipulated to indicate it was sent from a cell phone. All that is needed is the cell phone number.
Shoemaker, who just returned from a Department of Justice conference on technology in rural police departments, said officers will have to be educated as to their vulnerability in such matters.
“Criminals are getting more technologically savvy these days...,” she said. “If your cell phone
is known to another person, they can get on a computer and send a text message and make it look like it came from your phone.”
In other business, the Mayor and City Council voted to award a bid of $125,000 for a new street sweeper. The council opted to keep the existing sweeper — which required up to $40,000 in repairs — in order to use its suction device to clean city sewers.
The street sweeper will be paid off under a five-year lease-purchase arrangement. In addition to cleaning city streets, the sweeper also generates revenue from the state, which pays the city to clean Memorial Bridge. Westernport officials have also approached Keyser about using the sweeper in that community.
The council also agreed to advertise for bids for construction of a new street-department garage at the sewage treatment plant on Waxler Road. The existing garage near the pool is in serious disrepair, and the lot where it currently sits could be used for the planned upgrade and expansion of the city's water-filtration plant.
In related business, Keyser Councilman Sonny Rhodes reported Monday that he had attended a conference on financing such projects, and said funding for the $7 million upgrade should be lined up by the end of summer.
In other action, City Attorney John Athey — reporting on items that had been raised at the previous meeting — said the council is within its rights to increase the minimum purchase amount for requiring formalized bids from the current $2,000 to $5,000, to reflect the effect of inflation on buying power. Athey also said the city can add a voluntary contribution check-off box to its water bills to benefit the parks department.
In public comment, Mark Tranum reported that residents in the Vernon Street area are getting frustrated by ongoing blight problems, specifically a neighbor who will not remove his trash, which has been attracting rats. “There's a lot of well-respected neighbors who are getting fed up,” he said.
Mayor Glen Bunk Shumaker said the city is doing all it can to address the chronic problem. “Our hands are bound by the law,” he said. “We have to go through the channels.”
In response to the issue, the city attorney suggested that the city council consider revising its blight ordinance to increase fines and refine enforcement procedures to make the law more effective.
Finally, Kim Rolls of the American Legion Auxiliary announced that Legion representatives will be selling poppies outside Keyser-area businesses the weekend of May 23, as an annual fundraiser.
The next meetings of Keyser city government will be Wednesday beginning at 3 p.m. when the water, sanitary and recreation boards will meet.