STAR CITY, W.Va. Star City’s elected officials, including a new mayor, were sworn in, and no changes were made to the city supervisory team during their regular meeting Tuesday.
Mayor Sharon Doyle, Recorder Steve Blinco, incumbent councilors Todd Gregg, Lynette DeChristopher, and Gregory Epps, and newly elected councilors James Morris and Andy Laskody also decided to make no changes to the city supervisory team.
Tim Stranko, Star City Attorney, Jennifer Colebank, Chief of Police, and Director of Code Enforcement Bobby Doyle will all continue their roles. Due to the appointment of Ponch Reyes as Magistrate in Monongalia County Michelle Widmer Eby was appointed to serve as the Municipal Judge.
“Our supervisory team all remains the same, we have three members of council reelected that I’ve worked with before and two new councilmen,” Doyle said.
This is the first election ever held by James Morris. Morris is a retired WVU employee with a background in human resources and wants to see more community involvement and better communication.
“I wanted to give back to the community and contribute,” Morris said. “Star City is a wonderful place to live; we enjoy it, and I just wanted to contribute to the community.”
Priorities for the year are to promote and grow the farmer’s market, create more opportunities for the arts, street paving, and to complete a major storm drainage project.
“It runs from Fenwick all the way to the bottom of the Star City hill by the river,” Doyle said. “We are actively trying to obtain funding; it’s an $8 million project, and the Star City budget is $2.5 million.”
The process of modernizing the city code began Tuesday with two codes relating to the duties of the mayor. Stranko told council members that during the year, additional codes will be brought for review and update.
“The mayor asked to continue to go through the city code and modernize, or to bring the code into synch with how we actually do business here,” Stranko said. “These are the first two articles, and you’ll see more.”
Mayor Sharon Doyle abstained from the roll call vote for Bobby Doyle.