LEWISBURG — The Greenbrier County Commission voted Monday to take no position on the proposed sale of local telephone services in 14 states.

The multi-billion dollar deal, set for a Jan. 12 hearing before the state Public Service Commission, would affect 600,000 residential and small business customers in West Virginia, the most of any state.

Ross Lewis, president of the Communications Workers of America local based in Beckley, appealed to the county commission to adopt a resolution in opposition to Frontier Communications’ purchase of Verizon’s assets and service territory.

“West Virginia is better off with Verizon than with Frontier,” Lewis said, explaining the union fears Frontier is taking on too much additional debt to be able to continue to provide quality service to its customers.

“If Frontier falters, we will be the ones to pick up the pieces,” he warned.

Local resident Joan Browning countered with her own recent experience with poor service from Verizon, pointing out a traffic accident on Maplewood Avenue in Fairlea knocked out telephone service to dozens of households in the Ronceverte area for up to 11 days.

“Your constituents may have different opinions than (those expressed by) the CWA,” she told the commissioners.

Lewis acknowledged Verizon has let its equipment deteriorate and its trained personnel drift away, most recently seeing 110 technicians take early retirement in the face of the threat of losing retirement benefits if the sale to Frontier is consummated.

“The union can’t make the company hire people,” Lewis said, adding, “We needed more people before those 110 technicians quit.”

He maintained Frontier could “go belly-up” due to the burden of fixing a mess of Verizon’s making.

“The Public Service Commission should make Verizon live up to ... the promises they have made to the state of West Virginia,” Lewis said. “All we want is to be able to do our job.”

John Mutscheller, local manager for Frontier based in Marlinton, said his company offers Lewis and other CWA members currently employed by Verizon exactly that opportunity.

After the close of the county commission session, Mutscheller said most, if not all, of Verizon’s employees will be retained by Frontier. “We will honor their contracts,” he said.

Bottom line is, Verizon wants to sell, and Frontier is willing and able to buy, Mutscheller stated.

“Frontier is a good match for Verizon’s territory,” he said. “You can’t force Verizon to keep this territory; they’re going to sell it to somebody. If not Frontier, then who?”

Frontier’s service area already includes the northern portion of Greenbrier County, as well as Pocahontas County.

— E-mail: talvey@register-herald.com