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Morgantown presents two‑year strategic plan interim report emphasizing service upgrades and grant successes
Summary
Staff presented an interim strategic‑plan report highlighting community engagement wins, CDBG food assistance, demolition for housing redevelopment, pension reform, $14.78 million in grants (2024–2025), workforce recruitment improvements and infrastructure investments funded by a Safe Streets fee.
Shannon Davis, special projects coordinator, presented a two‑year interim report on the city’s strategic plan, outlining accomplishments across five strategic outcome areas and a set of priorities for 2026–2027.
On community engagement, Davis highlighted a Citizens Academy with a 95% completion rate and the 2024 hire of a community development manager, Caitlin Lewis, who now oversees several downtown initiatives including a community tool trailer. In social services, staff reported the CDBG food assistance program (June 2023–2024) delivered 5,600 food boxes and supplied 14,500 meals to over 1,500 households with state grant support and partner organizations.
Davis reviewed affordable‑housing actions (Resolution 2024-21), reporting demolition of seven condemned properties with 11 more planned and identified East End Village redevelopment work that cleared roughly 58 structures along Richwood Ave for a future mixed‑use project with an expected 300+ housing units.
Fiscal items included pension reform and a fire fee that, according to presentation material, addressed a multi‑million dollar pension shortfall; staff also reported about $14,780,000 in grant awards across 2024–2025 for infrastructure, public safety and community development projects including a planned fire station and ADA sidewalk improvements. Workforce initiatives cited streamlined background checks and onboarding, recruitment outreach, sign‑on bonuses and a 'Ride with the Recruiter' program.
On asset management and operations, the CityWorks platform was credited with receiving 3,218 service requests and resolving 2,446 (76% completion), and public‑works completion on related requests was noted at about 93% completion. The Safe Streets/community service fee was cited as increasing resurfacing funds from ~$293,000 to about $1.4 million annually, enabling more pavement and ADA sidewalk work.
Davis listed strategic opportunities for the next phase—zoning and subdivision updates, downtown restroom solutions, Morgantown Mosaic mini‑grants, municipal ID rollout, winter operations optimization and public crime data dashboards—and said a final report will be presented in 2027.
Councilors thanked staff, asked for clearer, measurable outcome language in future reporting, and offered to participate more in refining targets and the follow-up scorecard work.
