Task force plans to analyze the impact it has on businesses
BY DAVE WILSON
With a goal of trying to analyze the impact of Morgantown’s annexation plan on area businesses and the community as a whole, the Morgantown Area Partnership formed an annexation task force to take a strategic look at annexation and growing the area as a whole.
“Certainly this issue of annexation is getting a lot of publicity and as we’ve had discussions in our board meetings with representatives of the city and the F.A.I.R. (Forced Annexation Isn’t Right) group, which is opposed the annexation efforts by the city of Morgantown,” explained president and CEO of the Morgantown Area Partnership Russ Rodgerson on WAJR’s Talk of the Town with Dave and Sarah.
“We decided it was an issue that we needed to create a small group of board members to take a deeper dive and do a lot of research and look into the whole impact of the annexation process to get a better understanding, as well as provide some feedback to our public partners from the business perspective.”
Rodgerson said the goal of the task force is not to establish an official position on the city’s annexation proposal, but to communicate factual information about the process and annexation’s potential impact to its members.
“We certainly understand why communities want to do annexation, but we want to understand the impact on business and some other ways
that we might be able
to accomplish this growth cohesively without over-impacting one organization or others,” Rodgerson said.
Morgantown’s proposal to request a minor boundary adjustment to annex 3.8 square miles, which encompasses 12,830 residents and 367 businesses, has drawn considerable public pushback from residents and business owners in the targeted areas. The city of Morgantown held four public meetings this month to provide information about the proposal, but those meetings produced more questions than answers.
Rodgerson is hopeful that engaging in direct communication with the over 450 businesses that make up the Morgantown Area Partnership and public partners will help sort fact from fiction and provide a better understanding of a complex issue.
“We’ll be engaging the city of Morgantown, private businesses, experts in certain fields. This isn’t a small group of people getting together. We’ll be reaching out and try to get people who can provide information that is pertinent. This isn’t a vacuum. Researching facts and getting input is critical. This is not something that a small group is going to take care of. We’re going to talk to people.”
The partnership, which encompasses four entities — the Morgantown Area Chamber of Commerce, the Monongalia County Development Authority, the Morgantown Area Economic Partnership and Sunnyside Up — is a business organization focused on wealth growth across all of Monongalia County.
The task force is to begin meeting soon.
Twitter @DaveWilsonMN
