Virginia Attorneys Wants Closer Hearings

From The Roanoke Times:

Why should Covington [Virginia] residents seeking Social Security disability benefits have to drive 90 minutes -- to Beckley, W.Va. -- to plead their case?

That's the question a Covington lawyer [Bill Wilson] is asking in a campaign to get the Social Security Administration to hold hearings in Covington. Since March, residents of Covington and Alleghany and Bath counties whose disability claims reached the hearing stage have had to drive to Beckley.

Previously, they had to travel to Lewisburg, W.Va., a roughly 30-mile drive. The drive to Beckley is about 80 miles. ...

Aidan Diviny, spokesman for the administration in Philadelphia, said the hearings were moved to Beckley because the agency's lease on the Lewisburg building expired in April and because the Beckley office has two hearing rooms. ...

Watson said the Covington office handles about 130 disability claims a month from residents in Alleghany and Bath counties and the three West Virginia counties of Monroe, Pocahontas and Greenbrier. Most of the claimants, he said, are West Virginians.

Diviny said all claimants can request to have their hearings held in Roanoke instead of Beckley. However, the drive to Roanoke is about 60 miles from Covington, with a travel time of more than an hour.

But Wilson is agitated because when claimants travel all the way to Beckley, they don't plead their case live before an administrative judge -- the judge is sitting in a room in Charleston and the hearings are held via videoconference.