MORGANTOWN – The Preston County Public Service District No. 1 hopes to find 1,545 missing paper customer files next week. The files contain customer Social Security and driver’s license numbers.
The files and the file cabinets they were taken from have been the subject of discussion at several PSD1 board meetings, and included in allegations listed in complaints against the board filed with the Public Service Commission.
Colorful language is occasionally employed at PSD1 board meetings, and new board member Rex Sisler expressed his frustration with the situation colorfully during Tuesday’s board meeting.
“It’s been a s***show since I’ve been in three months,” he said. “How does that not put up a red flag to anybody?”
He asked how many files are missing and learned it’s about 1,500 (the 1,545 figure comes from the consolidated complaints filed by two customers with the PSC).
“Fifteen hundred people,” he said. “No one in this room can figure jacks*** with their records. … This is my third meeting and I don’t now how anybody else ain’t going apes*** over it.”
He continued, “I know I’m a board member but I’m also a customer and my records are out there too. If I come in the door here and want something, they ought to be able to have my records within minutes.
The fate or location of the files is unknown because no one has looked for them, and because the answer to the question of where they may be has changed over time.
The Dominion Post first learned about the issue in October 2025 in a joint interview with customer and former employee Penny Nicholson and customer Michelle Hatch, who currently have formal complaints in process at the PSC.
They said then that the PSD1 office had six file cabinets, but a now-former employee decided to reduce the number to two. Without board authorization, the former employee allegedly had planned to sell the files – valued at $518 each, according to the consolidated complaint cases – for $50 apiece. But that sale fell through so the former employee donated them (to a church, it was said at Tuesday’s meeting) in September 2023.
As for the files in those four cabinets, one story says they were thrown in a trash bin. Another says they were placed in the remaining two cabinets in the PSD1 office. And another says they were placed in tubs and stored in the PSD1 building storage loft.
In Hatch’s update to her complaint, filed Tuesday with the PSC, she says, “For over seven months, Penny Nicholson has been asking where her customer file is with her personally identifiable information, and has been given multiple different excuses that, over the last two months, we have learned to be untrue.”
At the April board meeting, Nicholson raised the issue once again. Liston said that the church that had received the file cabinets was returning them.
Nicholson demanded her file and the current PSD1 secretary went to the office to look for it – but found nothing.
The issue arose again during Tuesday’s board meeting. Liston said the files haven’t been located yet. He hadn’t had a chance to coordinate with the other board members or plant staff to look for them.
Nicholson asked the other two board members if they are concerned about the missing files. John Bishoff said he wasn’t on the board at the time the cabinets were removed from the building. Reminded that his file was among the missing, he said, “I have no idea where they are.”
Sisler simply said yes, then later offered his more extensive comments.
Liston agreed with the other board members and the PSD1 plant employees to set a time next week to go up into the loft to look for the files.
In the meantime, the PSC has these comments from the complaints to ponder: “How long have these files been missing? Is there proof that there was approval to discard and proper procedures were followed?” And could the files be in the possession of someone who has no authority to possess them?
