MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — One of the more well-known active members of the downtown Morgantown community wants city voters to consider him for a spot on the Morgantown City Council.
Former Main Street Morgantown President Mark Downs has continued to reach out to voters ahead of the early voting period for the 2025 Morgantown Municipal election, where he has made his pitch for why he should be on the Sixth Ward Morgantown City Council seat. A born and raised Morgantown resident who also has served on the board of directors for Workforce West Virginia and previously worked as Chief of Staff at NASA, Downs hopes that he can help Morgantown grow and improve relating to certain aspects of the community.
“I understand our history, and I have relationships with leaders from across the community that are important to the success of the city,” said Downs. “As a two-term Main Street Morgantown president and Economic Vitality Chair, I’ve got the experience and kind of working knowledge about what’s going on right now.”
If elected onto the council, an area of focus Downs hopes to address is to increase activity in downtown Morgantown. This includes finding ways to support local businesses by exploring avenues to ease down on regulations that he has heard play a role in businesses moving out of the downtown area for several years. While Downs didn’t openly support any initiatives related to unsheltered individuals, like the proposed municipal camping ban on the ballot for the Morgantown Municipal election, he did announce that he would support any ordinance that would allow for businesses in the downtown area to operate with less red tape.
“They’re on the front lines in keeping our communities safe, so it’s tremendously important to me, and that’s the same with the firefighters,” said Downs. “Firefighters are out there risking their lives, and it’s nothing that should be taken lightly.”
Downs also mentioned on WAJR’s Talk of the Town that he would like to make steps towards improving the relationships with the governing body and city first responders. This stems from years of contentious conversations with representatives from unions with Morgantown police officers and firefighters as members and the city over issues related to holiday and overtime payouts and the allocation of pension funds, the latter of which leads to the need for the city to transfer future officer and firefighter hires to take part in the state pension program. With communications between members of both forces and the city not in the best of places, Downs hopes he can improve on that if elected.
“City policies and processes are, I think, are more responsible for our vacant storefronts in downtown Morgantown than homeless people,” said Downs. “When you take risk-based decisions and wrap them in layers of red tape, businesspeople are going to look elsewhere,” he said.
For the Sixth Ward seat, Downs will face small business owner Stephanie Hunt in the 2025 Morgantown Municipal Election. The winner will take over for Councilor Dave Harshbarger, who announced he was not running for Morgantown City Council back in January 2025. With the Sixth Ward council seat being one of only two contested races in the election (the Second Ward seat has Jodi Hollingshead officially on the ballot with Jason Reed eligible as a write-in candidate), Downs hopes voters will view him as the perfect candidate to represent the City of Morgantown.
“There’s no learning curve for me on Morgantown, I love it here, and I’m committed to it, so I just ask people to vote for me, Mark Downs, on April 29th,” said Downs.
Early voting for the Morgantown Municipal Election begins on April 16 at the Historic Train Depot at Hazel Ruby McQuain Park.