The Haymaker Forest

Our City Council, where I represent our Seventh Ward,  agreed, 6-1 on first reading,  to buy a piece of forest in and adjacent to the city for park land that was about to be developed. A second reading was to be held on June 19, allowing us time to reconsider and get input from the public. Our local Fox News radio outlet asked all of the Councilors to come on the radio, and I agreed to come on the Friday before our meeting, June 15. The hosts, Dave and Sarah, were easier on me than they had been with the last two Councilors they interviewed, but they couldn't get me to say I would vote against this purchase. The big problem was the cost, at 5.2 million dollars. People were out all week on Facebook demonizing the Council generally, and me and Mark Brazaitis particularly about this purchase. I told Dave and Sarah I didn't think opponents would show up for a meeting, because they typically don't. They begged people to come out and oppose us on Tuesday and took my statement as a challenge.

After Friday's radio program, more ugly personal stuff was posted against me and Brazaitis, who has been the real force behind our plans for Haymaker, including someone who posted several times how much Brazaitis' family paid for their house. Our addresses are already public information. I kept track of the people who called us names or impugned our character in the days leading up to the meeting, twenty-nine in all. People who sent thoughtful e-mails and messages to me in particular, got thoughtful and polite answers back. If they wrote to all of the Councilors, I answered if they were from my ward.

I counted forty-eight speakers on the topic of Haymaker Forest on Tuesday, thirty-seven opposed, and eleven in favor. I had my list of the name-callers and character assassins, but only four showed up and one of them apologized for his online rudeness. The others were more rational than they had been online. Ultimately, we voted to postpone action. This means we could try to negotiate a lower price, or we could lose this land to development, which would be a shame.

Meanwhile, there is a court suit against the six of us Councilors who voted in favor of this purchase on first reading, and the online people are worried that I have a Nixon-like enemies list.

I handled all of this as well as I could. I beefed up my privacy settings on my personal Facebook page, although the page I manage, Barry Wendell, Morgantown Councilor, Ward 7, is open.

The issues, the real ones that people brought up, are the price we agreed to pay without a current assessment and that this was all brought up in a hurry at the end of May to be voted on June 5 and 19, and the deal closed by June 29. People complained that there was no plan for the park, and that it would not benefit most people in the city, only those in the area immediately adjacent to it (including Councilor Brazaitis.)

The argument for doing this was that there was already a bulldozer, and even if we felt it was a rip, the developers held all the cards. In our long-range plan for the city and county, Haymaker was supposed to be open space. Much of the property is outside city limits, where the deck is stacked in favor of developers, there is no zoning, and no need to put in curbs and gutters, sidewalks or even reasonably navigable streets.

We had a "process error." People in the City and County  felt we were not transparent about this purchase. Many, including Mark Caravazos, the city Fire Chief, felt that if we had that much money to spend, we could spend on existing parks, buy a fire truck and replace two fire stations that are obsolete.

The money wasn't going to be from the regular budget and we were going to have to raise it somehow, maybe with a levy on the ballot in April. Since the meeting, the radio broadcasts and the newspaper articles ( the newspaper and talk radio are owned by the same company), I've started getting letters praising Council for looking into the deep future and preserving a beautiful forest for trails. For me, I wanted future generations to marvel at the beauty of the forest and thank our present Council for being far-sighted. Maybe that's just a pipe dream, and we will be forgotten.

We did have a financial plan to buy the forest without going into the city budget; maybe it was too complex for people to get it. And we didn't make it clear enough that we were going to have a commission to decide how to use the park, where to put in trails, provide parking, and other amenities. The commission would also look for other parcels of land that could be repurposed as parks. There were already people from The West Virginia Land Trust and other organizations who offered to volunteer their services.

The budget problems in Morgantown go back decades. Part of the problem is that West Virginia University buys up business property in Morgantown and takes it off the tax rolls. The Monongalia County Commission has a huge tax increment financing district off I-79 just south of the Pennsylvania line that draws businesses. So far, there is only student housing and no schools or public parks, so expenses are kept low. There are many built-up areas just outside city limits that should be annexed, but developers don' t want to be subject to zoning and stricter building code enforcement. Some homeowners don't want to pay for the better police and fire protection, snow removal, and curbside recycling that Morgantown provides.

Taxes are not high here, but many elderly people live comfortably in homes they bought for $30,000 forty years ago that are now worth $300,000 and are taxed accordingly. People over sixty-five (me included) do get a tax break, but for many, that's not enough for them to be able to stay in their homes. I understand living on a fixed income. I was criticized for saying I would raise taxes when so many low-wage people depend on food pantries to get enough to eat. I suggested that strikes be organized against minimum wage employers like Target, Wal Mart and Kroger, and then I was blamed for "shaming poor people."

Those who live outside Morgantown but work inside the city limits pay a "user fee" that has been used to hire more police and to pave the city's streets. They believe that gives them a right to decide what the city does. It does not. Only those living in the city limits have a say. I suggested that people in the County areas concerned about what the City of Morgantown does ask to be annexed into the city.

We have our work cut out for us. We have to make it clear to the residents of Morgantown and Monongalia County exactly what we are up to and how we can pay for it. At the same time, we need to fully fund all the city's services that are perpetually starved, even if it means raising taxes, pushing to annex businesses outside city limits, and confronting West Virginia University, The Monongalia County Commission, and media outlets in town who feel free to demonize us as individuals.

My hope is that we can work out a deal, at the much lower assessed value of the property, to create a beautiful public open space for Morgantown. Meanwhile, plans are afoot to confront our inadequate budget, and figure a way to make Morgantown, more than it is already, the best place to live in West Virginia.