MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — As soon as next month, City Council members in Morgantown could be taking a vote that determines their own future as Council members.
City Council is discussing amending the Morgantown City Charter to increase term lengths for council members from two years to four years, a change that wouldn’t go into effect until after the 2019 election.
The ordinance was discussed during Council’s monthly Committee of the Whole Tuesday. According to City Council member Jenny Selin, this topic has been discussed for years.
“I think this has been a discussion that’s been going on for as long as I can remember,” she said Tuesday on WAJR’s Morgantown AM. “Ten years? Maybe even more. I think this is something that where talk is finally becoming action.”
The ordinance would allow a change for term limits of council members from two years to four and add a provision to have terms staggered as well, with the intention to avoid having all seven members of Council up for election at the same time. Selin feels the term limit change is important for the sake of getting things accomplished.
Selin also stated the longer term limits could help influence city employee candidates into taking positions due to the increased stability of elected office holders.”It takes a few years, I’d say a year, year and a half, to kind of get your bearings about how the system works,” she said. “How to get something on an agenda, how to get it developed before it goes on the agenda and have the backup documentation in place, just takes a while to know how to put forth items and get them accomplished.”
One area where Selin was less enthusiastic: the discussion surrounding whether the city elections should be attached to the May primary or remain in their individual April date.
“If you have a separate election, then people can focus on it,” she said “It’s better for businesses including (WAJR), because instead of sharing the airwaves with lots of candidates and lots of different issues, it gets it’s own time and it’s own consideration.”
Selin did concede that turnout has a tendency to be low, but also suggested that Morgantown is at it’s most populous during April.
“So when the Neighborhood Coordinating Council sits down and has this conversation, we’ll have Charlie Bryer there, who is a part of the original charter board and have him tak about how they made that decision, how they decided that it should be on a certain date,” she said.
The Neighborhood Coordinating Council will meet on Monday, February 12th at 7:00 p.m.