MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Huntington mayor Steve Williams has not made it official, but the only three-term chief executive of the city is eyeing a run for the Democrat gubernatorial nomination.
Williams talked about a possible run when a MetroNews reporter caught up with him a conference in Morgantown Wednesday.
“I’m having an awful lot of conversations right now,” Williams said. “There’s nothing that’s being said that’s led me to think I shouldn’t do this, but the reality is I’m a Democrat, and that will be an uphill climb, but I believe it’s a climb worth taking.”
Huntington won the America’s Best Communities competition in 2017 for a comprehensive plan to develop the “economic gateway” of the Appalachian region. In the last six years, the city has leveraged that award to win $55 million in additional grants, leading to major improvements in the Highlawn, Fairfield, and West Huntington areas.
“We have $514.7 million in projects that are active in the community right now,” Williams said. “It’s not all just public money; it’s private investments and philanthropic.”
Williams said in the years prior to the pandemic, the city embarked on a series of fiscal decisions that eased the blow of the pandemic. Huntington suspended, then permanently eliminated, the B&O tax in September 2021 for retailers and restaurants and the $2 million in annual tax revenue. Despite that, the city made the largest investment ever in police and fire services in the Fiscal Year 2024 budget.
“We straightened ourselves out fiscally before COVID hit, and as a result, we were able to reduce taxes and take a lot of the burden off our citizens,” Williams said.
Williams has dealt with drugs, homeless issues, and encampments that have resulted in fires that have damaged public and private property. The city has aggressively attacked blight, removing more than 100 blighted properties in 2019 and working with police and social service agencies to ease the problem.
“We have to be compassionately accountable, be compassionate to individuals, being homeless is not a crime, but you don’t go taking advantage of other people’s good fortunes.”