MORGANTOWN — Four individuals have registered as write-in candidates in Morgantown’s municipal election.
At least one of them will be elected.
In 2019, former 3rd Ward Councilor Zack Cruze became the first write-in candidate voted onto council.
Paul Liller and Ixya Vega are vying to be the second, as city residents will once again need to write-in their choice for the 3rd Ward seat.
Vega, 22, is the West Virginia field organizer for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. She came to Morgantown in 2016 to attend WVU.
Vega is involved with Young Womxn of Color for Reproductive Justice, has served in a number of roles with Planned Parenthood and strives to be an advocate for young people and people of color.
“We have the university here and a lot of folks here, but it’s not always a welcoming place for everybody. Me, specifically, if I, as a young person, a brown person, walked into a city council meeting right now, I can’t tell you I’d feel super comfortable or super safe giving my opinions,” she said.
“It would probably be a room of older white folks who probably don’t think I know what I’m talking about, which is a little frustrating. I’m probably not the only person who’s felt like this, so I definitely want to be a voice for younger people and give BIPOC people more of a space at the table as well.”
Liller, 38, has lived in Morgantown for just over two years. Along with a partner, he operates Mask 4 Mask, a company that donates a mask for each one sold.
An outspoken advocate for the LGBT community, Liller said Morgantown was meant to be a temporary stop – then he met his husband, bought a house and started asking how he could get involved.
“That’s where I feel like I bring the most to the table. I’m not a traditional political candidate and I’m not interested in Democrat versus Republican or pledges or anything like that. I’m interested in making a great place for all of us,” Liller said. “Whatever makes us different, we’re all way more alike than we ever care to admit and we all need to come together and work together.”
Working to balance development and the integrity of the city’s neighborhoods is a focus for Liller, as is using the more than $10 million coming to the city through the American Rescue Act to assist the city’s bars and restaurants and lure new investment.
“We need to attract business. When Mylan shuts down, we’re going to have a lot of people out of work and I’m worried about that. It’s important that we find folks another alternative. We really need to be reaching out and building relationships with a lot of different people,” Liller said. “We have great people who live in Morgantown and we need to give them great options for places to work.”
Both Vega and Liller said assisting the city’s unhoused population needs to be a priority for the city.
Vega said Morgantown has a huge, but largely untapped resource, in the constant influx of young people coming to the city.
“I want to find a way we can include young people into the community, so that it’s not so much WVU students versus the rest of Morgantown,” she said. “I believe that if we can do something like a youth council or something like that – an additional branch to city council – that young people will get involved with the community and respect it and love it more, and also stay.”
Vega is one of three council candidates affiliated with Morgantown Can’t Wait, a local offshoot of West Virginia Can’t Wait.
“They follow values that I have, that people are being left out of the process, other people are making decisions for them and then nothing gets fixed. We’ve seen this historically in West Virginia in general and in Morgantown, but we’ve seen this all over the world. People are left out. Folks with privilege, the elite, make decisions for them and nothing ever changes,” she said.
Liller said he chose not to sign the pledge distributed to all council candidates by Morgantown Can’t Wait.
“My belief is that a politician has a responsibility – first, foremost and only – to the folks that they represent, and not to a special interest group,” he said.
Beyond the 3rd Ward race — for which there will be no candidates listed on the ballot — there is a write-in option for both city’s 1st and 6th wards.
In the 1st Ward, Seth Collins, 21, is a recreation, parks and tourism resources undergrad at WVU planning a graduate school focus on government and community development.
Transparency, particularly in city budgeting, as well as houselessness and incentivizing downtown business development are areas of focus for Collins.
“I am running for city council because I live very near to the downtown and can see some of the issues going on every day,” he said.
In the 6th Ward, former council member Jay Redmond, 64, said he’s participating as a write-in candidate in order to give voters a choice.
A lifelong resident of Morgantown, Redmond has worked for West Virginia Radio Corporation and West Virginia Public Television, and has owned and operated five small businesses in the city.
He said council’s focus should be locked on improving services for its residents and notes the city’s election process needs to change.
“Because no one else stepped forward, I submitted my name as a write-in candidate for city council in the sixth ward — so voters will have a choice. I do so without regret, but with full knowledge that until the city election is moved to coincide with a statewide primary or general election, increased interest and participation by city residents in unlikely, and true representative government in Morgantown is impossible,” he said.
Patrick Hathaway (1st Ward) and incumbent Dave Harshbarger (6th Ward) are otherwise unopposed.
