BRIDGEPORT, W.Va. — The West Virginia Home Rule Board gave the nod to 16 municipalities Monday for Home Rule expansion.
During a meeting at the Bridgeport Conference Center, the board named Bluefield, Buckhannon, Charles Town, Clarksburg, Dunbar, Fairmont, Milton, Morgantown, Martinsburg, South Charleston, Parkersburg, Ranson, Vienna, Weirton, Nitro and Shinnston.
Chairman of the Municipal Home Rule Board Patsy Trecost said while every city brought good ideas to the table, these were able to set themselves apart during their presentations.
“Some cities just were very creative in the sense that they were going to make their city better and the cities around them better.”
The 16 municipalities named Monday presented a variety of plans to the Home Rule Board earlier this year including plans that would increase revenues and give cities more options when cleaning up their cities.
After many months of preparations, applications and presentations, the selected cities will only celebrate for a brief moment before getting back to work.
“First and foremost, we’ll sit down to see exactly out of the parts of our proposal, which ones were actually accepted into the program,” Clarksburg City Manager Martin Howe said. “Then monitor which ones we want to go forward with and drafting those ordinances to enact as we move forward.”
The cities will have to come before the board again once the ordinances are completed for approval.
When the state legislature voted to expand the program to 20 total cities, they added the provision that the board must approve the applicant’s entrance into the program, the participant’s home rule plan and every ordinance or amended ordinance dealing with the plan.
Those new cities will find out later which parts of their applications were approved. The board intends to hold two meetings outside of their quarterly schedule to handle the influx of ordinances with one on November 20 and the other sometime around the first of the year.
The municipalities not chosen include Bath/Berkeley Springs, Spencer, Lewisburg, Moundsville, Oak Hill and Princeton. St. Albans was disqualified before the presentations for not fulfilling the application deadline requirements. However, the board is contemplating sending a letter to Senate President Jeff Kessler and House Speaker Tim Miley, requesting they look at legislation in the upcoming session which would include the seven excluded municipalities into the program.
Trecost said though those cities were excluded, it was not because their plans lacked creativity.
“Home rule is a building block, not only for the cities and its area but also for the state to move forward with new ideas.”
The Home Rule designation is good through 2019. Four cities, Charleston, Wheeling, Bridgeport and Huntington, were part of the initial pilot project and will also continue with Home Rule through 2019.