As Wheeling’s new mayor, Dennis Magruder, holds his first State of the City address today it is important to acknowledge the new mayor’s unprecedented weaknesses. This is a part of healthy governance and not an attack (which we acknowledge this administration is sensitive to). It’s not even about Magruder as much as it is about the mayor of Wheeling. Indeed, lack of objective criticism might well indicate a complacency that could cost our city greatly at this critical inflection point. And instead, by accurately acknowledging, balancing, and compensating for one person’s weaknesses (we all have them), we hope that as a city we can respond to them, hone our relevant efforts, and build the necessary coalitions. Instead of succumbing to this mayor’s particular weaknesses, we hope that together with Magruder we can find strength as the Friendly City to continue the terrific and critical progress of this moment.

Firstly, Magruder is the oldest mayor in Wheeling’s history. As much as we might wish this didn’t matter, in a year in which President Joe Biden was removed from the losing presidential ticket largely for this reason, this matters. Taking office at 76, Magruder will be older during the last two years of his mayoral term than Biden, who took office at 78, was during his first two presidential years. In the more local context, Wheeling’s mayor has been the public face of one of our highest priority issues, turning around our declining population, largely by retaining and attracting young people. At 76-80, Magruder will attempt this task while being a decade older than West Virginia’s average male life expectancy, 68.1 years.

Second and perhaps most significantly, Magruder is the lowest vote getter of any mayor in Wheeling history. At under 2,700 votes, Magruder received closer to half of the votes previous mayor Glenn Elliott received when first elected, and less votes than both Mayor Elliott’s 2016 & 2020 losing challengers. More significantly still, more people voted against Magruder in the 2024 mayoral election than voted for him. More than twice as many. No doubt this is because 2024 was a six-candidate race, but for Magruder, one has to ask, “Why did so many other candidates join the race to provide alternatives?” And, “why did the overwhelming majority of Wheeling voters choose those alternatives?”

Lastly is the substance of continuing Wheeling’s revitalization, and simply put, just coat-tailing on the last administration’s accomplishments, while great PR, is regression. Costly regression. The ribbon cuttings, grand openings, photo-ops, etc. look and are great. However, these are not the work of Magruder and the current administration, they are the work of the prior eight (and more) years of forward-thinking, popular, youthful, proactive, visionary administrations. The list is long and worth making:

Heritage Port Splash Pad, Street Scape, Market Street Parking Garage, Wheeling Visitor’s Center, the Allen’s Waterfront Hotel, WVU Cancer Center, Wheeling Creek/Ohio River Park, Fitzsimmons Suspension Bridge Park, Centre Market Rehab, and more. Even Clay School and East Wheeling Park had funding procured years ago.

These are all projects of the last administration, and the credit going to the Magruder administration wouldn’t be the worst part. The worst part would be if while taking credit for the last administration’s work, the current administration doesn’t continue the real work of developing new projects to keep this momentum going

For instance, the current administration had one small job to do before the grand opening of the Market Street parking garage: find a main floor tenant. That is, they had to attract one business, a handful of jobs, create one non-vacant-storefront; and they had a brand new, built-to-suite, 300-built-in-customers, $13 Million incentive package to offer that tenant! And they opened the Market Street Garage with another vacant storefront on Market Street …

Indeed, even the State of the City address, usually held in July, begs the question, “Is the Magruder administration up for the task?” Magruder, who missed two of his first four city council meetings, explained in July, “I just need a few more months to get my feet on the ground.” Can Magruder rise above these weaknesses, build effective coalitions, reach his opposition, channel the vibrancy of “the new Wheeling;” or will they define his tenure as Wheeling’s mayor?

J. Arnold Roxby resides in South Wheeling.