MORGANTOWN — Ron Bane served on Morgantown City Council for 16 years, from 2001 to 2017.
Starting in 2005, he also served on the board of directors for the Morgantown Utility Board. His time with MUB ended in 2019.
Bane’s parallel roles with the city and MUB have become relevant of late as the city explores amendments to city code that would reserve one of MUB’s five board seats for a member of city council and add the city manager as a non-voting sixth board member.
The city says it wants to strengthen communication and cooperation between itself and its utility board.
MUB has come out strongly in opposition and says the city is being misleading when it points to Bane as precedent.
Bane is among a handful of former council members, including Tom Bloom, Ron Justice, Jim Manilla, Frank Salucci and Wes Nugent, who have come out against the changes.
“I just happened to be appointed and wanted to be appointed because I had an engineering background and I was interested in it, but they’re making it sound like, ‘Well, it happened before. It’s no big deal.’ Well it is a big deal,” Bane said. “No position should be designated specifically for a council member.”
MUB Spokesman Chris Dale also addressed the issues.
“He was not appointed because he was on city council but rather because he applied for a board position as a community member,” Dale said. “Any suggestion that a member of city council sat on MUB’s board as a representative of city council, and/or for a purpose proposed by city council, is not accurate.”
Currently, the MUB Board is comprised of five members, all of whom are appointed by Morgantown City Council and no more than two of whom can live outside city limits. As Bane’s situation demonstrates, there’s nothing preventing a council member from applying for and being appointed to the utility board.
During his public remarks as part of the Oct. 4 council meeting, Bloom, speaking as a former council member and current president of the Monongalia County Commission, offered a county proposal through which city council would appoint two members, the county commission would appoint two members and the Morgantown Area Partnership would appoint one.
Bloom said the commission feels its proposal is fair considering MUB now has more customers in the county than the city.
Asked if MUB is agreeable to the county plan, Dale deferred the matter to the board of directors, which meets at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the utility’s Green Bag Road office. The proposed changes to Article 169 is an agenda item.
Morgantown City Council voted 4-3 to table the issue on first reading during its Oct. 4 meeting.
