WELLSBURG, W.Va. — The Wellsburg community and leaders around the state are mourning the loss of longtime Wellsburg mayor and city employee Sue Simonetti. She died Wednesday at the age of 75 inside Wheeling Hospital.
Brooke County Senator Ryan Weld, a lifelong Wellsburg resident, remembered her on the floor of the state Senate on Thursday, saying that Simonetti got him into civic duty.
“Sue’s presence will be missed greatly. In our councils and as a part of the community, she will be missed. She is the only person that I still did not mind when she called me kiddo. That’s what she has called me ever since I have known her,” Weld said.
Weld’s comments came moments before a moment of silence on the floor for the late mayor who was in her third term and 12th year as the leader of the city with more than 2,500 residents. Simonetti announced in November she would not seek re-election for mayor.
Simonetti had been a city employee for more than 30 years prior to becoming mayor including secretary-treasurer for the Wellsburg Water and Sewer Board for 22 years and served two years as city clerk. She is also a past chair of the executive board of the regional Brooke-Hancock-Jefferson Metropolitan Planning Commission.
Her accomplishments as mayor, highlighted in her obituary, included her work on the Brilliant-Wellsburg bridge over the Ohio River that is expected to open before the end of the year. Simonetti was instrumental in getting the grant for the beautification of Wellsburg which included the replacement of the sidewalks downtown, also the grants to tear down the dilapidated homes.
She was a native of Beech Bottom and a 1963 graduate of Wellsburg High School.
Visitation for Simonetti will be held from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday at the Mullenbach Funeral Home, 669 Main St. in Follansbee. The Rev. Arul Anthony will be the celebrant for a funeral Mass scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, 1300 Charles St. in Wellsburg.
She is survived by her husband of 51 years John V. Simonetti at home, one daughter, three brothers, and one sister.
Weld said Simonetti will live on in the Brooke County community forever.
“There may have been mayors who were better at the inside politics or playing the political gamesmanship that sometimes is required for public office, but nobody cared for the city of Wellsburg more than Sue,” he said.
“Nobody cared more for the town that she had lived in for decades, that she had been a city employee for 30 years prior to becoming mayor, more than Sue. Sue Simonetti is the embodiment of what small-town mayors are.”