MORGANTOWN — Granville Mayor Patty Lewis and Star City Mayor Sharon Doyle said Wednesday they were caught off guard by public comments from Morgantown Deputy Mayor Brian Butcher regarding support for a community cold weather shelter.
Both said they learned of the remarks when contacted for comment by the press, and both characterized the remarks as “inappropriate.”
Speaking at the end of Tuesday’s Morgantown City Council meeting, Butcher lamented the fact that Morgantown is, once again, seemingly alone in the effort to pull together details of a winter warming shelter.
Butcher pointed out that this is an unfortunate annual occurrence that typically falls to the same handful of people to address.
“I continue to be frustrated by the idea and the fact that Morgantown as a city and us as city officials seem to be the only people who care about this happening. There’s no other municipalities located around us that seem to care at all that the people who are sleeping on the streets in their municipalities are freezing to death,” Butcher said. “That drives people to use the only services that are available – the ones that we fund.”
Butcher conceded that the surrounding municipalities are working with fewer resources, and noted participation doesn’t necessarily have to be strictly financial.
“It’s ridiculous that we’re expected to bear the brunt of this. That we’re expected to be the only ones planning this. That we’re the only ones putting our labor in this,” he said.
Lewis said she was “blindsided” by the comments and reached out to the Morgantown City Manager Jamie Miller’s office on Wednesday.
“I’m not sure what the city of Morgantown is looking for from us. We don’t have vacant buildings and we don’t have the services that they have in the city of Morgantown. I don’t know really how to even respond to this,” Lewis said. “We’re a different environment and we don’t have the same issues, and I’m not sure why they called us out that way without even having a discussion. I called [Westover Mayor Bob Lucci] and Mayor Doyle and said, ‘Did we miss something here?’ I just thought it was totally uncalled for.”
Doyle had a similar response.
“This was the first I’ve heard of it. We don’t have facilities that can be used as warming shelters, and we don’t have all these nonprofit agencies giving out all these products. We just don’t have that. I don’t know what they expect from Star City, and to put us out there like that, I just feel it was very inappropriate on Brian’s part,” she said, later adding, “We don’t have the amenities everybody else has. We do what we can do to survive as a town. So, to ask us to help fix a problem that was created in the city of Morgantown, I think it’s a little unfair to pass that judgment.”
As for progress towards a shelter this winter, Morgantown Mayor Danielle Trumble said it currently appears that Catholic Charities West Virginia is once again willing to operate it.
The question is where.
CCWV Executive Director Mark Phillips has indicated it won’t be at Hazel’s House of Hope, which is where it’s been housed in recent years.
While there has been some funding allocated for a cold-weather shelter – $40,000 from the city and $20,000 from the county – Butcher said engagement is needed as well as money.
“I appreciate the county putting money into it, but this is not a problem that ended the last time you put money in this. It’s not a problem that ends from you just throwing money at it and saying, ‘We’re done.’”
Butcher went on to say that emergency winter shelters are lifesaving infrastructure much like fire departments and should be considered and supported accordingly.
“While I appreciate Councilman Butcher’s passion for this subject matter, I think that the county has always shown itself to be part of conversations regarding matters affecting all of the residents of our county,” Monongalia County Commissioner Tom Bloom said.
Lucci did not wish to comment for this report.
