The Justice family has until Oct. 24, 2024 to make its final loan payment to Beltway Capitol for The Greenbrier Hotel. If that payment isn’t made, the hotel will go up for auction the next day. (Chris Jackson | West Virginia Watch)
I wasn’t going to write about Gov. Jim Justice this week, but the man held virtual news briefings two days in a row, and there’s another scheduled public auction of The Greenbrier Hotel, so really I had no choice.
A legal ad in the West Virginia Daily News Thursday morning announced a public auction of The Greenbrier Hotel will take place on Oct. 25, the day after the Justice family’s deadline to pay to avoid a second default. The first default happened in August, but a deal was made to stop that auction.
Unfortunately for Justice, he had his second virtual press briefing of the week scheduled for Thursday morning, hours after Brad McElhinny of WV MetroNews broke the news about the auction listing.
Justice did bring up the situation, and repeated what his lawyer said — that the legal advertisement is a “procedural matter.”
Naturally, reporters mostly asked questions about the situation with The Greenbrier.
Many reporters have heard rumors that Omni Hotels & Resorts was in talks to take over the hotel, but when asked about it, Justice said that it was “smoke and mirrors.”
“There is no way that Omni is buying part of the Greenbrier, going to run the Greenbrier,” he said. “There’s no discussion. There’s been no discussion.”
Justice became agitated, and said he didn’t know “why we run with rumors.” Well, how will people know if it’s just a rumor or if there’s some truth to it without asking? There’s no need to get upset about being asked a question about a rumor. Clear it up, and move on.
In August, when the first auction was canceled, a statement from The Greenbrier said that the Justice family “has already secured this funding.”
Which begs the question, why didn’t they pay it in full already?
Justice said his family has made two scheduled payments — the first one was $500,000, the second one was either $1.2 or $1.3 million — he wasn’t sure of the exact amount. He added that the remaining balance of $22.3 million is to be paid by Oct. 24.
Many times during the briefing he said that the issues with The Greenbrier are “unbelievably unfair to us,” and “100% politically-driven.”
He ended the briefing by lecturing reporters on how they didn’t ask anything about the special session — except they did during the previous day’s virtual briefing. In fact, Amelia Ferrell Knisely asked Justice about his child care bill, and quoted him in her article.
During both briefings he also expressed disappointment that the press wasn’t at his Roads to Prosperity celebration on Monday outside the state Capitol with 1,300 highways employees. But a quick Google search shows that several media outlets did report on the event. Many other reporters were inside the Capitol reporting on the special session that he called.
Justice threw a seven year celebration for Roads to Prosperity, “the largest bond sale in state history” which would be used to “rebuild and maintain roads and bridges in every corner of the Mountain State,” according to the news release.
West Virginia leads the nation with the highest percentage of bridges in poor condition, according to the Federal Highways Administration’s data from 2023 — the same dubious honor it has held since 2020. That year 22% of the state’s 7,323 bridges were deemed to be in poor condition. This year 20% are still in poor condition while another 57% are only “fair.” It’s hard to understand why that is worth celebrating.
But back to the Greenbrier — Justice said that asking questions about the issues at The Greenbrier isn’t hurting him, but the employees.
“It won’t matter a hill of beans for me,” he said. “You’re not beating on me, you’re beating on 2,000 families that do good work every day.”
Those employees who almost lost their health insurance? I’m sure they’ve also heard the Omni rumors and saw the auction listing. Did the Justice family clear things up for them, or are they depending on the media to answer those questions for them?
“I respect and know you got to do your job. It’s a little bit much right now, to tell you the truth,” Justice said.
Yes, things are stressful when you can’t afford to pay your bills. Many West Virginians deal with that every day — except they’re not the millionaire who is running the state.
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