MORGANTOWN — Signs opposing Morgantown’s draft annexation plan were displayed along Spruce Street prior to Tuesday evening’s regular city council meeting.
Once the meeting began, more than a dozen members of the overflow crowd stepped to the microphone to voice their discontent — one went so far as to hand out tea bags to members of council, explaining “The redcoats lost.”
“I think you know that we don’t want you in our neighborhoods. We didn’t ask you to come in. We don’t want you there. We don’t need your supervision,” Point Marion Road resident Robert Hall said once the tea was delivered. “Why don’t you back up and listen to what you’re being told.”
City Manager Paul Brake said the city is doing just that, reiterating the preliminary timeline laid out by the city — which would have placed an annexation proposal before the county commission next month — will be extended by three to six months.
Brake and City Attorney Ryan Simonton also addressed why the nearly 12,000 residents and 367 businesses to be impacted by the draft plan will not get to vote on whether they become city residents, a fact that has prompted many to decry the city’s “forced annexation.”
The city is using annexation by minor boundary adjustment, which would require as little as two votes for passage — one by city council and one by the county commission.
Brake explained that the city cannot call for a vote on annexation, and that minor boundary adjustment — “minor” being a word provided by state code, not the city — is the only way in which the city can initiate the annexation process.
“The petition requirement to trigger an election on an annexation request must be filed by 5% of the property owners within the city,” Simonton said, explaining that if an election is triggered, the vote would be held city-wide, as well as in the area proposed for annexation.
In other city news, council passed on first reading a budget amendment revising the city’s spending plan by $1.4 million to the positive based on FY 2018-’19 carryover.
The vast majority of those funds will go into the city’s contingency fund ($545,900); toward the Forest Avenue settlement with property owner James Giuliani, which was originally approved in the previous fiscal year but never released ($525,000) and OPEB, or other post-employment benefits ($250,000).
City Finance Director Jim Goff said the deposit in the city’s contingency fund will bring that total up to $826,345.
Lastly, the traffic flow on Second Street will be restricted to one way — from University to Grant — for at least 90 days and a number of metered parking spaces will be placed on the north side of the one-way street.
The changes are to accommodate Appalachian Cannabis Co., which lost its on-site parking spaces as they were non-conforming under the “retail sales establishment” use and presented a hazard to vehicles and pedestrians, according to the city.
With council’s vote, the changes can be implemented immediately, but temporarily. The issue will likely come back for permanent consideration in August.
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