If I’m not mistaken, there are no outsider candidates running for City Council, right? They’re all associated with one of the city’s two tickets?

Jim Manilla’s features Wes Nugent, Ron Bane, Linda Herbst (those three form the council’s current majority), as well as candidates Mark Furfari, Jay Redman, and Bill Graham.

Jennifer Selin’s features Marti Shamberger (as an incumbent), and candidates Bill Kawecki, Mike Fike, and Nancy Ganz.

Which means, I think, that we’re not getting any candidates who might reasonably considered outsiders. This is hugely unfortunate, as the city would be far better served by a City Council capable of acknowledging and representing a diversity of opinions, a council which wouldn’t end up being so entirely predictable. 

At least part of the problem is the insane way that our city’s elections are run. Between the incomprehensible ward mapping (“Hey, we drew these lines 600 years ago and there’s no sense in changing them now!”) and the inexplicable voting (more on that in a minute), we have biased ourselves toward outcomes wherein we get wedged between slates of candidates. 

Let’s talk about that voting though - when we vote in Morgantown, we vote to fill seven council seats, one representing each of the city’s wards. Oddly though, we all get a say in everybody else’s alleged representative. What that means is that a motivated block of voters could very easily choose each off the city’s seven councilors, regardless of what particular wards care about. The scenario is unlikely of course, but still possible.

In other words, we’re not rewarding candidates for representing places or neighborhoods or constituents - we’re rewarding them for assembling a collection of voters with a shared interest in political outcomes. That might make sense on a national or state level, but on the local level, what we’re functionally doing is forcing representatives onto wards who might not share their representatives values. Got that? A candidate could lose in the ward that they’re running to represent and still win. Or perhaps worse, a candidate could win the ward that they’re running to represent and still lose. 

For those wondering, this rarely happens, but Marti Shamberger did lose her own ward in 2009: 56-50. She still won the overall vote 765-543. 

This means that there is no real need for a candidate to concern himself or herself with the people they allegedly represent. All that matters is (barely) putting together enough votes to win overall; then candidates can do whatever they want. 

This is explained away by participants in City Council itself - they’ll swear that things would be much, much worse if we had ward-by-ward voting rather than the current system, although absent any evidence of this, there’s no reason to automatically believe the claim. The fear is that either wards will be pitted against one another in a race for the city’s limited attention (given how quickly potholes get filled in some neighborhoods but not in others, I’d wager that this fear is being overblown for the sake of maintaining the current structure) or that we’d lack geographic diversity on the council. That second point is more salient than the first, but does geographic diversity really trump ideological diversity? 

In other words, if Jim Manilla and Wesley Nugent and Ron Bane and Linda Herbst are going to vote in lockstep every single time they sit in a meeting, does it really matter what neighborhoods they’re representing? (To be fair, these four did diverge on one issue once; it had something to do with responding to the city’s citizens during meetings.) The same holds true for Jenny Selin, Martin Shamberger, and Bill Byrne. 

What would be ideal is figuring out a way to promote a diversity of ideological participants on the council. One way to do that do that might be ward-by-ward voting; another might be abandoning the need for geographic diversity. What’s clear that though is that our current structure creates an us-or-them scenario in which compromise is never an option because compromise is never a possibility. The current two camps cannot seem to agree with one another about anything and it seems unlikely that any of our prospective candidates are likely to unsettle this dichotomy. So here’s to structural change and getting all of this over with as quickly as possible. 

We’ve got a City Council election coming at the end of this month. There are signs everywhere and we’re going to endure two-and-a-half weeks of mud being slung back and forth between the two slates of candidates that are running. Such is life. 

Accepting that though isn’t the same as embracing it. Especially when what we’re being asked to accept is so inane. This, for example, is arguably the lamest Facebook page imaginable:

1. The page is set up to look as though it is a general page that captures all candidates. It isn’t. It is a page for one of the city’s two slates of candidates: the one lead by mayor Jim Manilla (and joined by sitting councilors Wesley Nugent, Linda Herbst, Ron Bane, and candidates Mark Furfari, and Jay Redmond). 

2. This page exists as nothing more than a list of grievances, which is odd, given that this slate of incumbents and candidates control the council’s majority. A simple read through reveals all sorts of complaints, like the hiring of the city manager (whom this majority “fired” several weeks ago), like the implementation of Vote By Mail (which this majority did away with several months ago), like the city’s financial troubles (which this majority has done nothing about in two years of complete control). 

3. This page contains nothing substantive about what these candidates would propose to do. There are pronouncements about the importance of neighborhoods and the need to broaden the city’s tax base, but there is nothing about how they would actually achieve this. 

Here’s hoping the end of April inexplicably gets here sooner than expected. Enduring these campaigns is always so incredibly tedious, especially given how completely convinced of themselves candidates have to be to get into the game.

As a free suggestion though: tell us what you want to do, not what’s been done to you.

We’re introducing a new segment here at TheCityOfMorgantown: Two Guys Talking About… The two guys are locals Aaron Hawley and myself, Sam Wilkinson. We wanted to have a chat about the recent demolitions of the Sunnyside neighborhood, as this represents a significant change in a place that we’ve watched go from bad to worse during our 30+ years here in town. We both wanted to publicly consider what’s be done, what’s been proposed, and what we think at least a few of the spillover effects will be.

My comments will be italicized; Aaron’s are bolded. 

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Let’s be honest: Sunnyside was an ongoing nightmare, and the only way to start a genuine rehabilitation process was to tear much of it to the ground. Still, I am deeply troubled that such a process inevitably ended rewarding all of the wrong people. Whether it was the negligent landlords who never bothered to give a damn about the property they owned, city officials who never pursued alternate avenues of neighborhood maintenance, irresponsible students who spent decades degrading the place, or university officials who long adopted a “not our problem” attitude about the slums, all of been allowed off the hook and, in many cases, were handsomely rewarded for their misbehavior. 

Your first point is absolutely correct: something DID need to be done in SunnySide and the logical first step is to totally raze the place. I understand that people making huge payday a in the process really chaps you, but to me it seems besides the point. This is America, anytime anybody does anything somebody’s going to get paid.  Wouldn’t a much worse outcome have been that negligent landlords DIDN’T get paid, continued to hold their properties, rule their fiefdom and collect rent from mom and dad in Jersey?  The problem would’ve continued into perpetuity at the low low price of having a few students killed annually in housefires. To me, while the payday some of the landlords recieved may seem obscene, nothings more offensive that students dying in easily preventable housefires, something that is unfortunately all to common in Morgantown.

Have there been housefires in Sunnyside? I know they’ve hit the College Avenue houses and I thought there was one in Lower Greenmont. I suppose it’s saying something that I can’t even keep track anymore. And yes, I agree that people are going to end up getting paid. Change isn’t possible without it. So how about this: will these demolitions be the start of a substantive cultural change in that area? Will the construction of new and presumably nice(r) student housing end up mattering? Are those demolitions the end of Sunnyside as we’ve come to know it?

I think it is saying something that they just aren’t memorable anymore.  I know a few people whose lives were irrevocably altered because of the rat-trap they lived in college.  My friends survived their fire, but one of their roomates didn’t and the survivors carry an incredible amount of guilt to this day.  While I can’t point specifically to any of the properties that were destroyed, their future use obviously ran that risk. To answer your questions, though: yes, three times.  I believe this WILL lead to substantive cultural change directly as a result of the new development.  People tend to respect things that are new and nice.  We can complain about how the students treated the neighborhood until we’re blue in the face but the reality was, why shouldn’t they trash the place?  It had been trashed when they arrived, and they ensured it would be trashed when they left.  The students who move into the new complex will be far less likely to destroy the new development than students living in the slums. Towers has stood for 40 years with an even higher concentration of students than Sunnyside, and I can’t imagine the students will treat the new development any differently.  I think the eradication of what the students viewed as essentially “disposable housing” will lead to a big cultural change which of course means the end of Sunnyside “as we know it”.

Is the only way to revitalize old neighborhoods then to demolish them? Is that the only hope we’ve got? In nightmare scenarios, like Sunnyside, maybe it is; but surely this shouldn’t become the model throughout town, should it? Woodburn, Greenmont, Wiles Hill all still ideally have a future that doesn’t involve thorough demolition, don’t they? Maybe that’s asking too many questions, and before going further, I should make clear that amongst my long-term ideal goals for the city is a return, at least in part, to the sort of neighborhoods that we’re becoming extinct (and which are now basically gone) as were growing up: a small shop, a local bar, etc. The schools (probably) won’t come back, but creating smaller gathering places for people so that a sense of micro-community can arrive is an ideal worth striving for. Maybe the new storefronts in Sunnyside will allow for this. And if that’s what it takes to achieve such outcomes then perhaps I need to get a job as a bulldozer operator. 

First off, I’m sure you’d look swell in a hard hat.  The question you ask is both a yes and no question.  Is the only way to revitalize a neighborhood to demolish it? No, of course not.  Did Sunnyside need to be demolished? Absolutely.  The chief difference between Sunnyside and the neighborhoods you mentioned is that those other neighborhoods still have usable buildings.  Sunnyside had a series of decaying buildings that were pretty much beyond repair. There was no incentive for the landlords to repair their properties, either with a culture of destruction surrounding their properties.  I think giving the students something they recognize as new and nice will change things dramatically.  Creating gathering spaces on the storefront level would do a lot to achieve a sense of community, but it would still have to be a place people WANT to gather. A new Subway isn’t going to do the trick. I feel the most a part of the local community in Morgantown when I’m belly up to the bar at Gene’s, so I’d love to see the developers include a tavern but I’m really not holding my breath for that one.

A new Subway ISN’T going to do the trick, you’re right, but what sort of community institutions are possible? I imagine a University worried about a party atmosphere isn’t especially interested in allowing for bars down there. What else is there? A pizza place? A barbershop? Just thinking about this reminds me of my own suspicions about what is being promised. It’s worth remembering that this won’t be the first development in the Sunnyside(ish) area that has promised to include gathering spots. Both the ill-fated Augusta on the Square nonsense and the corner development on University and Stewart were supposed to include places for business. Neither ever delivered. What’s binding the university to deliver what has been promised this time?

Obviously, your suspicions are completely justified considering the false bill of sale we’ve been presented in the past.  My concern is that even if there are storefronts, they’ll be homogenized corporate businesses.  You can’t really build community in a McDonald’s, but hey, you never know.  This University sees fit to sell its own students a beer between classes, so anything can happen.  That said, even if no storefronts are included in the new development it should be a boon for downtown businesses across the board, especially if it increases the total number of students in Sunnyside.  I have to feel that the over-development of West Run has pushed student shopping dollars to the big box stores and away from downtown.  It’s good to keep a steady influx of consumers coming to keep our downtown area going, which is something which has perservered despite all the changes over the last two decades.  Morgantown really is lucky to have a thriving downtown, and I think keeping students close (and mommy and daddy’s money closer!) goes a long way towards preserving that.