CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia’s Capital City is getting a new leader.
Amy Shuler Goodwin has been declared the winner, succeeding longtime Mayor Danny Jones.
Goodwin is a former deputy secretary of commerce and West Virginia tourism commissioner. A past spokesperson for both Gov. Bob Wise and Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, she had never run for public office before now.
She and her husband, Booth Goodwin, a former U.S. attorney and prior Democratic gubernatorial candidate, have two sons.
“We have to grow our population. It’s our biggest challenge here in Charleston,” Goodwin previously told 580-WCHS, a MetroNews affiliate.
“We need to start being aggressive in implementing strategies that not only keep our young people here, but bring people back. When people say, ‘The brain drain is real here in Charleston,’ they’re not kidding.”
Akers is owner of Akers Law Offices and the current Charleston city clerk. He and his wife, Maryclaire Akers, a senior assistant prosecuting attorney in Kanawha County, have three children.
His campaign for mayor was his first political campaign.
“I would love to see us better our economy. I would love to see us reverse our population decline and actually have more people living within Charleston city limits and I would like to see us make Charleston a safer and cleaner and deal with the vagrancy issues,” Akers said.
Public safety, though, was the priority issue he cited the most on the campaign trail leading up to Tuesday’s Election Day.
Also in the race was Andy Backus who ran as an independent and billed himself throughout the campaign as an “Independent Thinker,” using the color purple — bringing together the major party colors of red and blue — for his campaign materials.
A Charleston native, he works as adult education instructor for the Mountain State Educational Services Cooperative out of Garnet Career Center in Charleston. He and his wife, Jessica Backus, have six children.
Throughout his campaign, he talked about jump-starting Charleston’s economy.
“We need to re-engage the small businesses that we have here now. We need to start looking at what we’re doing right and do more of that and look at some things that maybe we can improve upon — do what we need to do to help our businesses that are already here to grow,” Backus said.
“Past that, we’re going want to go start knocking on doors. We need to starting bringing in new business and we need to be flexible.”
Backus was not invited to participate in an AARP West Virginia Oct. 16 debate that included Akers and Goodwin who sparred about the now-defunct needle exchange program within the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department.
Last week, Brenda Isaac, the president of the Kanawha-Charleston Board of Health, resigned from the position she’d held for more than a decade partly because of her public statements of support for Goodwin.
Mayor Danny Jones is the longest-serving mayor in Charleston’s history.
He first took office in 2003 when he was elected to replace incumbent Charleston Mayor Jay Goldman who had lost renomination in the Democratic primary. In this year’s race, both Jones and Goldman endorsed Akers.
Jones was last re-elected in 2015 and said at the time his 4th term would be his last.
In addition to serving as mayor, he hosts a talk show, “580-LIVE with Charleston Mayor Danny Jones,” which airs on weekdays at 9:06 a.m. on 580-WCHS and wchsnetwork.com.
Up until this election season, Charleston’s city primary and general elections had been on separate schedules from regular primary and general elections.