MORGANTOWN — Representatives of the city of Morgantown maintain the long-term goal of changes to Article 169 pertaining to the Morgantown Utility Board are about improving communication between the city and MUB.
After a whole lot of communicating on Tuesday, some members of Morgantown City Council decided they would like a little more time to talk it over.
The body voted 4-3 to table the ordinance with councilors Joe Abu-Ghannam, Ixya Vega, Brian Butcher and Deputy Mayor Danielle Trumble voting in favor of delaying the matter. Mayor Jenny Selin, Bill Kawecki and Dave Harshbarger voted in the minority.
The ordinance would, among other things, place one member of city council in one of MUB’s five board seats and add the city manager as a non-voting member.
But if better communication and collaboration is the long-term hope of the city, the short-term effect of the proposed ordinance has been to galvanize the two sides as MUB has come out adamantly opposed to the changes.
And it appears as if the Monongalia County Commission has officially lined up against the move as well.
During remarks before council, Commission President Tom Bloom decried a provision of the ordinance that would give city council veto power over any MUB projects over $1 million or deemed by council to be “outside the ordinary course of business.”
Bloom said placing such amount on MUB projects “is clearly arbitrary and capricious.” The city counters that the provision is a requirement of state law and is the same oversight that was previously the domain of the West Virginia Public Service Commission.
Much of the conversation opposing increased city oversight center around the fact that despite MUB’s creation as a municipally-owned utility, the majority of its customers, and the overwhelming majority of the major development dependent on utility expansion, are outside the city.
Bloom presented a county plan that would have two MUB Board members chosen by city council (or council members), two members selected by the county commission (or commissioners) and one chosen by the Morgantown Area Partnership Board of Directors.
Members of the MUB Board are currently all approved by council. There’s nothing in the existing code that would prevent council from appointing one of its members, as has been done in the past.
In his motion to table the ordinance, Butcher said he would like to look specifically at the portions of the ordinance dealing with MUB Board makeup as well as the $1 million project threshold that would trigger the need for project approval from council.
“I’m comfortable with the idea of the ordinance, but I think the details need some work,” Deputy Mayor Danielle Trumble said, backing Butcher’s motion.
In other city news, council unanimously voted to move forward with an agreement through which the city would take over the Sabraton facility that currently houses Defense in Depth, making it a police/first responder training facility.
