Entire County Commission could be facing criminal charges following multiple court orders Copyright 2019 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Copyright 2019 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Video

JEFFERSON COUNTY, W.Va. - The Jefferson County Commission will appear in court to answer for potential offenses concerning the flag outside its meeting room, which could possibly mark the end of a year-long debate.

David Tabb, who many know as "Mr. Flag," attended the commission's most recent meeting on Thursday to deliver the news.

"The Jefferson County Commission have been invited to Hardy County, Moorefield, to a conference in front of a judge to ask why they haven't put up flag poles and flags of the proper size," Tabb said.

Tabb is the plaintiff in the case, and the "invitation" is a court order.

According to the order, all of the Jefferson County commissioners could be held in contempt of court for disobeying another court order that Tabb brought against them in June.

The most recent demand for action is aimed to force the commissioners to uphold their end of an agreement they made with Tabb, promising to regulate the size of flags outside the Jefferson County commission's meeting room.

"Since (flags of the proper size) are not up, I personally believe that all the business that has occurred in front of the County Commission is illegal," Tabb said. "It cannot be properly attested to or assigned to the court house, because they are not in the proper setting."

This conflict started about a year ago, when the commission moved its regular meeting place from the Jefferson County Court House to the Charles Town Library.

Tabb, as a Jefferson County resident, felt spurned by the fact that no official document stated this move was taking place, so he commissioned a court to draw one up as part of a "meeting place regulations" agreement between himself and the commission.

Part of that agreement included Tabb's request that American and state flags of the state-mandated size be displayed on the state-mandated flag poles outside of the meeting place in the library by a certain date.

Both the comission and Tabb signed this agreement, but by June of 2015, Tabb claimed that the American and state flags erected outside of the library weren't the appropriate size, as mandated by state law.

According to WV Code §7-3-2a, any courthouse in the state is required to display both an American and state flag outside of its premises, both measuring 4x6' on separate flag poles.

West Virginia Code §7-3-2 maintains that any building containing a room that has been annexed as part of a courthouse is subject to those same laws.

Thus came the June 2015 court order, part of that agreement allowed the commission to use a room in the Charles Town Library as their official meeting place, in lieu of their room in the Jefferson County Court House.

The orginial agreement between Tabb and the commissioners holds that the commission will use the library as a meeting place, although, that same agreement states the meeting room in the library was never officially annexed, so the commissioners don't think that they did anything wrong.

"I believe the allegations are not meritorious, and I believe that the commission has tried its best to follow the court's order, and I believe they followed the law," said Nathan Cochran, the assistant prosecuting attorney in Jefferson County.

Although, June's court order challenges the commission's innocence, by alleging that the commission was obligated to fix the flags by September 1 of this year, despite the law, because flag size was part of the original agreement between the commission and Tabb.

WHAG asked the commissioners about the case on Thursday, but they referred all questions to their assistant prosecutor.

All of the commissioners are expected to appear in Jefferson County Circuit Court on September 24 to address the issue.