MORGANTOWN — If you are concerned the relationship between the city of Morgantown and the Morgantown Utility Board has been strained in recent years, brace yourself.
An ordinance up for discussion as part of Tuesday’s Morgantown City Council Committee of the Whole agenda would, among other things, change the makeup of the utility’s board of directors; make property acquired by the utility property of the city; and give city council veto power over MUB projects over $1 million or deemed by council to be “outside the ordinary course of business.”
MUB Spokesman Chris Dale said MUB leadership was unaware of the ordinance until the council agenda was posted late last week.
“MUB’s board will meet in a special session this Thursday evening and we will issue a statement soon thereafter,” Dale said when asked for comment.
But the ordinance is getting attention beyond MUB headquarters.
Monongalia County Commission President Tom Bloom said he was “flabbergasted and quite shocked” with what’s in the ordinance, calling it “annexation by default.”
Bloom explained he was on Morgantown City Council in 1987 when the utility board was set up specifically to limit city governance over the utility.
In November 2018, when council last discussed an ordinance making the city manager a member of the MUB Board, former MUB General Manager Tim Ball protested, stating “City leadership intentionally set up MUB to operate as autonomously as possible in order to nurture an apolitical atmosphere focused on engineering and problem solving.”
Bloom noted that 62% of MUB’s water customers and 55% of sewer customers live outside the city. He also said the idea that MUB would need council permission before taking on development projects in the county is “ludicrous” and “could be detrimental to the future growth in the county.”
“However, if this is the direction that the city council wants to move, then I look forward to discussing with them a county-wide utility board along with a county-wide airport authority,” Bloom said, explaining he was speaking for himself and not the county commission.
The proposed change to Article 169 would mandate one-of-five MUB Board members be a member of city council and make the city manager a nonvoting ex-officio board member.
Currently, the board is made up of five residential customers, no more than two of whom can live outside the city.
The proposed ordinance is available as part of the meeting agenda packet at morgantownwv.gov
The committee of the whole meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at the West Virginia Botanic Garden at 1061 Tyrone Road.
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