City of Morgantown Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Petition Forces Public Vote For Morgantown Camping Ban

The ordinance will go to a public vote and be placed on the April 29, 2025 ballot. The ordinance will remain suspended until after the results of the election.

A camping ban will be on the ballot this spring in Morgantown.

Wednesday night the Morgantown City Council voted four to three against the repeal of the camping ban ordinance they passed in September.

The ordinance expands an existing camping ban and carries up to 30 days of incarceration as the penalty for repeated violations. Violators can also face fines ranging from $200 to $500. The ordinance does require that shelter first be offered to those experiencing homelessness before a citation is issued, but there are only around 50 shelter beds for the more than 150 people estimated to be experiencing homelessness in Morgantown. Most of those 50 beds are already occupied.

The vote was triggered by a public petition signed by more than 10 percent of registered voters in the city. The initial petition did not have enough valid signatures to be certified by the city clerk. But an amendment with more signatures, submitted to the clerk last week, put the petition over the required 1,348 signatures.

Councilmember Danielle Trumble voted to repeal the camping ban. She commended the petitioners for their efforts.

“I’m proud of what our community accomplished, and I think that that is definitely an achievement that they got together and got so many signatures, and it should be a voice,” Trumble said. “I’m thrilled that I’m not on the ballot this time around, because I think this election is going to go crazy. But yeah, at the end of the day, I still, I just can’t morally find life. I believe that the will of the people will be had, but I myself can’t vote for it.”

Council seats from the city’s three even-numbered wards are up for election in April. Since it was first proposed over the summer, opponents of the camping ban ordinance like Molly Kennedy, who spoke at Wednesday’s meeting, have warned council members they would remember their actions come election time.

“You can take this opportunity and you can do the right thing, or you can repeat the same cycle and double down on bad policy yet again, and the same folks who trekked all over the hills of this town to collect petition signatures will be ready to do the same thing when your names are on the ballot alongside this bad policy,” Kennedy said. “You can do better. You have the chance to do that right now, and we have the opportunity to put all of our time and energy to better use. Maybe when the time comes for your re-election, we will remember that you listened to expertise and you listened to lived experience, and you represented your constituents.”

Deputy Mayor Jenny Seline supported the ordinance since it first came up for a vote, and voted against the repeal. She said action needed to be taken to create a sense of urgency around the issue of homelessness.

“One of the responses was that it might take a year to talk to someone, perhaps that had an addiction or a problem because they had been out in the unsheltered world enough that they were not used to being in a building. They were habituated to being outside,” Seline said. “I would like to see people more quickly have a housing first model, and getting people into housing, rather than get so habituated to being outside. Those are some of the motivations that I have for creating this urgency and why I – misguided though I may be – continue to push for something like this, because I believe in having a viable community where our space is shared and clean and usable.”

Per the city’s bylaws, the ordinance will go to a public vote and be placed on the April 29, 2025 ballot. The ordinance will remain suspended until after the results of the election.

Morgantown Certifies Petition Against Camping Ban

The City Clerk of Morgantown has officially deemed an amended petition for referendum of the city’s recent public camping ban sufficient.

The City Council of Morgantown passed a camping ban in September aimed at addressing homelessness in the city by banning camping on all public property.

Almost as soon as the ordinance was approved by council, a formal petition to repeal the ban was filed with the city clerk’s office, and supporters began to gather hundreds of signatures. The petition process has suspended the implementation of the ordinance’s enforcement.

The initial petition was deemed insufficient by the city clerk in October after just 956 signatures were considered valid. According to the city bylaws, a petition must be signed by 10 percent of the city’s qualified voters.

An amendment to the petition was filed with the city clerk Nov. 6, and on the evening of Nov. 12 the clerk announced in an email that, “This petition includes the required number of valid signatures from at least 10 percent of the total number of qualified voters registered during the last regular City election, which amounts to 1,310.”

The certificate of sufficiency will be presented to Morgantown City Council at their next meeting on Nov. 20, where council members will have the opportunity to address the ordinance. They can choose to repeal the ordinance, or a referendum on the camping ban will be placed on the city’s election ballot in April. The ordinance will remain suspended until the election.

This is the latest action in a flurry of similar activity against public camping in West Virginia. On Nov. 7, the Clarksburg City Council approved its own camping ban that is slated to take effect in January.

Petition To Repeal Morgantown Camping Ban Certified Insufficient

The city clerk of Morgantown has certified that a petition submitted by citizens for a referendum on the city’s recent camping ban ordinance is insufficient.

Earlier this month, Morgantown citizens submitted more than 2,000 signatures in a formal petition to repeal a public camping ban approved by city council in September.

Wednesday night, the city clerk certified that the petition did not include the required number of valid signatures. According to the city bylaws, a petition must be signed by 10 percent of the city’s qualified voters, equal to roughly 1,300 signatures.

But in an email to West Virginia Public Broadcasting, Brad Riffee, Morgantown’s director of public relations and communications said just 956 signatures were considered valid.

The ordinance expands an existing camping ban to all public property and carries up to 30 days of incarceration as the penalty for repeated violations. Violators can also face fines ranging from $200 to $500. It is estimated there are more than 150 people experiencing homelessness in Morgantown.

Organizers told WVPB that they thought the ban was “cruel” and similar policies in other municipalities have been ineffective to address homelessness. But Wheeling and Parkersburg have approved similar ordinances over the past year. Clarksburg advanced its own public camping ban last week.

Petitioners now have two days to notify the clerk of their intent to amend the petition and then another ten days to collect more signatures.

Morgantown First Responders Vote ‘No Confidence’ In City Administration

First responders in Morgantown have held a vote of no confidence in the city council.

Members of firefighters’ union IAFF Local 313 and the police union Mon Preston FOP Lodge 87 have voted “no confidence” in the Morgantown City Administration.

A vote of no confidence is a vote in which members of a group are asked if they support

the person or group in power, usually in government.

In a press release, firemen cited a yearslong lawsuit with the city over holiday pay for their vote of no confidence. Police cited “recent administrative attacks on the police” including the city’s attempt to create a civilian review board.

The vote comes on the heels of an effort started this summer to recall all members of the city council, as well as a recent controversy around whether the city manager lives in Morgantown.

Huntington, Morgantown Earn Perfect Scores For LGBTQ Inclusivity, Non-Discrimination

The Human Rights Campaign has released its 2021 Municipal Equality Index. The index ranks cities on how inclusive they are.

The rankings are based on factors including nondiscrimination laws, municipal employment policies, inclusiveness of city services and law enforcement with regard to LGBTQ persons and municipal leadership on matters of equality.

The cities of Huntington and Morgantown have both achieved perfect scores for 2021.

Jack Jarvis from Fairness West Virginia presented the awards virtually, today.

“The index isn’t a perfect tool for measuring how inclusive our cities are,” he said. “But it’s one important tool we have. It allows us to see how our cities stack up against cities across the country.”

Huntington received a perfect score for the third consecutive year. Morgantown also achieved a perfect score of 100 for the first time this year. The national average score is 67.

“It’s time for the world to know that West Virginia can be a welcoming place where all kinds of people belong,” said Andrew Schneider, executive director of Fairness West Virginia. “We’ve known for a long time these communities are welcoming, and today’s report card proves that. I congratulate the leaders of Morgantown for all of their hard work this year toward inclusivity. I look forward to more cities joining the ranks of these all-stars, and to leaders at the state level stepping up to protect all Mountaineers from discrimination.”

Morgantown’s score in the 2020 MEI was 77, meaning the city jumped 23 points in a single year. Part of Morgantown’s significant score increase was because members of city council there adopted a bill to ban so-called conversion therapy.

“The city of Morgantown is a welcoming place where everyone is valued,” said Morgantown Mayor Jenny Selin. “We’ve worked hard together as a community to advance policies that will ensure our LGBTQ residents can live free from discrimination, and we will continue this important work in the future. All of our children, including our LGBTQ children and their friends, deserve the chance to grow up in communities that support them. I’m proud that our city has earned full marks on the Municipal Equality Index this year.”

Other West Virginia cities listed in the report are Charleston, Wheeling Charles Town, Lewisburg and Parkersburg. Charleston was the only other city from West Virginia above the national average with a score of 94.

Parkersburg scored just 13 in the report.

Huntington, Morgantown and Charleston were also designated “All-Star” cities for scoring above 85 points despite being in a state without LGBTQ-inclusive statewide non-discrimination laws.

The City of Charleston adopted the state’s first conversion therapy ban in August. Caitlin Cook, a member of Charleston’s City Council, was the lead sponsor of that bill and is a member of the city’s LGBTQ Working Group.

“We became the first municipality in our state to ban the harmful practice of conversion therapy on minors and established an LGBTQ working group to continue advancing inclusive policies in the Capital City,” Cook said. “Looking forward, it is my hope we can continue to value and uplift LGBTQ voices in our community as well as improve our inclusivity score.”

Across the country, there are 74 cities in this category.

Leaders from Morgantown, Charleston and Huntington joined Fairness West Virginia to announce the scores and celebrate the improvements. Watch a recording of the virtual ceremony here.

Morgantown Creates Civilian Police Review Board

Morgantown City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to create a civilian police review board, the culmination of a year-long process sparked by the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.

In the wake of Floyd’s murder and nationwide protests, Morgantown city officials and community members started to talk about how their city could benefit from a police board with civilian members. The city formed a special committee and it began meeting weekly to hash out the proposal’s details.

“I cannot thank the folks who showed up to the committee enough,” said Deputy Mayor Rachel Fetty during Tuesday’s meeting. “We received the contributions and the careful recommendations and thoughts of really every segment of the population that I can think of, from folks within the department, folks who are married to members of the Morgantown police department, folks who have experienced being policed as persons of color or as members of LGBTQ+ groups, or as human beings.”

The board is the second of its kind in the state, but the first to be created by a city. Bluefield has a similar police review board, formed in the wake of a consent decree by the Department of Justice.

The Morgantown ordinance approved by the council looks markedly different from earlier plans that would’ve given the power to investigate citizen complaints of police misconduct.

The power to investigate was removed from the plan following threats of legal action from West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and the Mon-Preston Fraternal Order of Police (FOP).

Wheeling-based attorney Teresa Toriseva, who represents the FOP, told the Dominion Post Tuesday that she will file a lawsuit challenging the legality of the board. Under the ordinance, the police chief will carry out any police conduct investigations and then send the findings and disciplinary actions to the review board.

The review board will be able to accept the police chief’s actions or suggest their own recommendation, a level of oversight Toriseva says is in violation of state code. The FOP’s view on the board’s legality is not universally held.

“What is at issue here is the question of who runs the Morgantown police department, the chief or the FOP and Ms. Toriseva,” said Bob Cohen, a retired attorney and member of the Morgantown/Kingwood branch of the NAACP. “Here, Chief Powell has accepted the process outlined in the ordinance but the FOP says he cannot do so. Under a strange interpretation of West Virginia statutes, the FOP is attempting to dictate the chief’s process and to tie his hands. Council should not bend to their threat.”

Cohen was one of seven speakers during the public comment portion of Tuesday’s council meeting. Community members and representatives from the Morgantown Human Rights Commission, ACLU of WV, and Morgantown/Kingwood NAACP all spoke in favor of the bill.

“Whenever we help marginalized communities, we help everybody,” said Jerry Carr, president of the Morgantown/Kingwood branch of the NAACP. “So, I just want to make sure that people understand that no one got in this business thinking that it was just about helping that one group. This is something that’s ubiquitous, it can impact every facet of what’s going on, including the police department.”

Under the ordinance, civilians can file complaints against police officers with the board. The board will pass them onto the Morgantown police chief for investigation.

Fetty said this is a significant change from the previous system that required community members to go to the police department and file a complaint directly.

“At the end of the day, the most critical piece is that we will, as a community be contributing to this discussion about how policing will work in our community and how we’d like to see it unfold and how we can contribute and cooperate with the Morgantown police department to ensure that policing happens in a safe and careful way that is respectful of everyone’s constitutional rights, and respectful also of the rights that our officers have as employees of the city,” said Fetty.