MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Morgantown’s mayor and new deputy mayor say the direction to move now, in the days following the removal of councilman Mark Brazaitis as deputy mayor, is forward.
“We’re not stopped right now,” Jenny Selin, voted as new deputy mayor Tuesday, said on WAJR’s Morgantown AM. “There’s certainly some damage that’s been done and damage to repair in our relationship, and that’s been ongoing. Now, I think we can kind of have that reset and really make a good push as we go into the fall.”
Council voted 5-2 to remove the deputy mayor designation from Brazaitis, who has been at the center of a number of controversies this summer.
“Do I think we’re moving forward? Do I think that solves it? I think that defines the position of council, and that’s exactly what it was meant to do,” Mayor Bill Kawecki said.
Kawecki said, despite how the city charter defines the deputy mayor’s role, it was important that everyone be clear that council speaks with one voice.
In the past few months, Brazaitis has engaged in several very public disputes with West Virginia University, the Monongalia County Commission, the Hazel Ruby McQuain Charitable Trust, the BOPARC Board, and several other agencies.
“A lot of those items, we share that same passion — we share that same goal,” Kawecki said. “The only thing we don’t share is the way it was approached. And some of the comments made are not things that I believe to be correct nor the correct way.”
Brazaitis, a professor of English at WVU, will not teach this semester. Brazaitis sent a letter from his employer to WAJR Aug. 11 informing him that he had been removed from the classroom for the semester and was barred from campus.
“Mark is not speaking for council,” Kawecki said. “He’s not speaking for the collaborative or the total voice of council. Council speaks for itself.”
Both Kawecki and Selin said the media’s desire for ‘salacious’ stories regarding Brazaitis has taken focus off of other more positive stories.
“People just don’t realize all the good things that are happening because we’re in need of a reset,” Selin said. “There is not a ‘fake’ Morgantown. There’s just the greater Morgantown area and Morgantown, the county, and all the other municipalities.”
Selin cited a comment Brazaitis made that seemed to describe those living outside of the city limits as ‘fake’ residents of Morgantown. The comment took on a life of its own, even leading to the creation of its own Facebook group.
In contrast to Selin and Kawecki, the only two holdovers from the last council, Brazaitis is in his first term of office.