MORGANTOWN – During a candid interview on WAJR’s Talk of the Town with Dave & Sarah, Morgantown Mayor Bill Kawecki discussed a number of issues related to the city’s proposal to annex 3.8 square miles through a minor boundary adjustment request.
The conversation covered a range of topics and Kawecki attempted to provide answers to basic questions about the plan and assertions made for the justification of pursuing such an endeavor.
One of the justifications for the city seeking the minor boundary adjustment has been the idea of “shared responsibility” for paying for services the city provides. Services, some members of city council have argued benefit residents and businesses outside the borders of the city. Kawecki was asked to provide an example of a taxpayer funded service that is being provided by the city to non-residents in the proposed annexation area.
He did not provide a direct example.
“If you’re looking for something you have to go out and buy, that’s going to be problematic,” Kawecki said.
Kawecki cited advocacy in Charleston as a derived benefit and pointed to the effort to improve pedestrian safety in the area, an effort that includes the Monongalia County Commission and West Virginia University.
Kawecki was pressed again to provide an example in Morgantown.
“Let’s talk about where are your churches? Who houses your charities? Where do you have Kids Day? Come downtown and see what the city is doing. We’re providing, as a city, the atmosphere in which those things exist. We provide the environment for the largest employer that exists here, West Virginia University. They benefit or suffer from whatever reputation we have.
“How would they do with recruiting students or professors if we had a bad reputation or were unable to provide services?
“What kind of community do you want? Give us the tools that we need, join with us and participate. When I say participate, certainly we’d like to have your money, but we’d also like to have your input. We’d like to have you working with, you know, different volunteer groups that address a number of different issues.”
Kawecki also tried to clarify what is meant by city officials’ description of the annexation plan still being a work in progress. He indicated the proposed area for annexation, which includes 12,380 residents and 367 businesses, and the use of a minor boundary adjustment is not up for debate. Kawecki said the part that is a work in progress is the implementation plan, if the Monongalia County Commission approves the minor boundary adjustment request.
“The plan is, if we were able to get annexation how would we go about implementing this without being so intrusive, to be as least intrusive as possible,” Kawecki stated.
When pressed about why the city opted to rollout a draft for minor boundary adjustment request if it was still gathering information and so many questions persisted, Kawecki offered a family vacation metaphor.
“It’s a little like planning a trip. You decided where you want to go and having made that decision where you want to go, then you try to figure out the route. What we’ve done here is identified the areas and that kind of where we want to go. Now, we have to figure out how to get there. Does that mean we’re going to travel that route that we initially planned? Well, no. We’re going to look to see what is practical, whether there are detours or something that could be done,” Kawecki said.
The mayor was also content with the city’s effort to notify the public of its intent to request the minor boundary adjustment. However, at the same time, he offered to take the blame if residents did not feel there was adequate notification.
“We didn’t knock on everybody’s door, that’s true. We didn’t do a mailing, that’s true. We did make this public. It wasn’t hidden. It was on the webpage, we did a news release.
“I guess people don’t take notice of things until it’s in their backyard. I think we did a good job of making it public,” Kawecki stated.
If he had to do it all would he push for the city to send a mailer to notify residents and businesses? Kawecki responded: “I don’t know.”
Kawecki added he was surprised to learn the that residents in “No Man’s Land,” the unincorporated area between Star City and Morgantown petitioned to be annexed into Star City.
Finally, Kawecki was asked if he was confident this was the right direction to pursue.
“Yes, I believe it is the right direction. The question is, can we do this in a manner that is acceptable? I hope we can.
“I’m after the idea of a quality of life. The idea of a better Morgantown. It’s a difficult sell when you got to reach into someone’s pocket to do it and I understand that. It’s not my intention. If somebody has a better plan, please come and tell me.”
The full interview with Kawecki is available at wajr.com.