MORGANTOWN — “Interesting process.”
Morgantown Mayor Bill Kawecki showed a flair for the understatement on Tuesday as Morgantown City Council put what looks to be the final chapter on the nearly six-month saga of the White Park water line.
Council voted unanimously to approve the licensing agreement approved by MUB on Monday, ending a protracted, public, and at times, contentious negotiation between the city and the utility.
The 30-inch, gravity fed line will connect MUB’s new Flegal Reservoir, under construction along Cobun Creek, with its treatment facility, located off Don Knotts Boulevard.
The issue has been in the public eye since April, when MUB halted work on its original path through the park after public outcry over impacts to the park.
The licensing agreement will allow MUB to resume work with a number of stipulations, the most notable of which includes the construction of a public trail with two water crossings for public recreational use to be developed by a trail designer.
MUB will also pay an annual license fee equivalent to $3,000 per linear mile of trail to BOPARC for maintenance. Additionally, MUB will plant two trees for each tree removed during construction of the water line, in consultation with the Morgantown Tree Board.
“Overall, I believe what we have is a compromise that will serve the interests of the city as well as could be expected,” Deputy Mayor Rachel Fetty said.
MUB General Manager Tim Ball said on Monday that work on the line, which was about 80% complete when the project was halted, will resume in early to mid January.
In other city news, City Manager Paul Brake said he anticipates bringing forward a roadmap of how the city can best address some of the issues raised by downtown business owners.
Brake pointed to the Nov. 26 committee of the whole meeting as the likely unveiling of that plan.
Entrepreneurs, particularly those on Walnut Street, have voiced their frustrations with activity downtown, some of which is tied to people frequenting social services, like Health Right’s Friendship Room.
Council hosted an informational session on the issue on Oct. 11.
“The way that we ended the meeting was with a kind of self-imposed 45-day deadline to come up with a work plan,” Brake said. “Not what the solutions are, but how do we go about this. There’s many different stakeholders. There’s many different individuals. There’s many different considerations.”
Brake’s comments came in response to a request by Hoot and Howl owner Stephanie Swain, who originally spoke out on the issue during the Sept. 17 meeting of council. She returned on Tuesday to follow up.
“Any kind of progress, any kind of steps forward, it would be fantastic to know that kind of stuff,” she said. “Just so our concerns aren’t being swept aside.”
In other news, council:
- Approved amending the 2017 and 2018 Community Development Block Grant action plans, repurposing a total of $216,800 from those plans toward accessibility projects in the former Woodburn School building.
Those funds will be added to nearly $500,000 in CDBG funds collected for the Woodburn project since 2015.
Council approved a contact with Veritas Contracting totaling $791,134 for the work, which includes construction of an elevator, accessible restrooms and other accessibility upgrades.
- Approved a rezoning of the parcels that make up a portion of Marilla Park — the skate park and old shirt factory location — from I-1 (industrial) to R-1A (single family residential) to bring it in line with the rest of the park property.
The change is part of a years-long process by the city’s planning department to update and overhaul the city’s zoning map, bringing it in line with the digitized tax maps produced by the county assessor’s office.
The Marilla Park parcels represent the only zoning changes in the zoning map overhaul, which council also approved.
- Approved the annexation of a parcel on Liberty Street into the city at the request of the property owners.
