Huntington isn’t hitting the mark according to mayor-elect Steve Williams. But that’s all about to change.
When Williams,takes office on January 1, he says the city is going to use it’s diversity and people to bring in businesses that have often shied away from the River City. Williams says that’s because those companies haven’t always received a warm welcome.
“Huntington has a lot of good things happening,” he said. “Unfortunately, city government has gotten in the way simply because we haven’t watched our pennies and we’ve had financial problems.”
Just last year the city was $2.3 million shy of their projected budget and ended up cutting money from certain city department in order to make ends meet.
Williams says the first thing Huntington needs to do is stop comparing itself to other West Virginia cities and think outside the box.
“Our competition is Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Charlotte, Chicago. That’s who we are competing against. We need to step up our game in order to attract investment into our area and we will be doing that,” Williams said.
He says it’s also key to know when to team up with other West Virginia cities and when to go it alone.
“There are things where Huntington and Charleston should work together. And frankly there are some things that we should compete with one another,” according to Williams.
The mayor-elect knows changes won’t come easy and it will take time to turn things around. But he says he has four years to give it his best try.
“Our expectation is to expect excellence and to demand that we become an exceptional city.”
Williams says it’s going to take the entire city to make that happen.