Moundsville Votes for Municipal Building Floor Plan
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MOUNDSVILLE -- City leaders voted to finalize a floor plan for a new municipal building, which has been in the works for much of the year.
At Tuesday evening's council meeting, Moundsville's city council voted 6-1 to approve the designs for the floor plan of the building, with councilman Phil Remke voting against. One of two floor plans had been approved by a city committee earlier in the month and submitted to council for approval. McKinley Architecture and Engineering and Brandstetter Carroll, Inc. had worked with the city to design the interior of the structure.
The city has discussed plans for the city building intermittently in recent months, with plans first being formulated in the springtime, according to city manager Rick Healy.
"We started, actually, right around the beginning of COVID, so around March is when we started the discussions, and then we put it on hold for a little bit before we got back to discussing," Healy said prior to the meeting.
Discussions among committee members led to two potential floor plans being drafted, one aligned with the entrance of Sixth and Jefferson, the other with the entrance centered along Jefferson Avenue. The committee would go on to approve the floor plan with the entrance on the corner at a meeting earlier this month.
"That allows the architect to begin the final tweaking of the floor plan and begin the exterior design process," Healy had said last week, pending the city's vote Tuesday night.
Questions regarding the overall budget for the project and a proposed finishing date were not returned late Tuesday evening. At the Dec. 1 meeting, a contract for $60,605 was awarded to Reclaim Co., the only company to submit a bid, to demolish two properties on Jefferson Avenue where the building is expected to go.
In other business, council voted to reaffirm David Wood as mayor, with Judy Hunt continuing to serve as vice-mayor. Both council members have served in that capacity since 2020 began. Hunt was unanimously voted to her position, with Remke again dissenting in a 6-1 vote for Wood. No other nominations for mayor or vice-mayor were offered from among council.
Remke explained that he voted the way he did to express his distaste for the mayoral voting process, which involves council selecting the mayor from among their ranks in a largely ceremonial role involving the operation of meetings.
"I'd like to not vote on this, but I'd like to say that the citizens of Moundsville should be the ones voting on the mayor situation," Remke said. "I know we've talked about this in the past, but many, many, many, many citizens do not understand, (they feel that they) don't have a voice in picking the mayor, and I really feel that should be done. ... It's the people asking this, who do not know, and they think they should be the ones (to pick the mayor).
"With our form of government, which has a city manager who operates city business daily, all the mayor is, in the city of Moundsville, is the person that runs the meetings. They have no more other responsibilities or authority over any other councilperson. It would take a restructuring of our city manager to (change) that."