State of the City

As I was listening to Mayor Kim Wolfe at the State of the City Address in Huntington it occurred to me that although the city has accomplished a lot under the current mayor, there is still work to be done.

In the beginning the mayor talked about overcoming economic times, but more importantly he talked about how the city had overcome some of the obstacles during the recession. With the $1 dollar increase in User Fee and federal funding, Huntington has been able to hire 7 additional police officers. The mayor said the the User Fee has also paved more than $800,000 worth of streets and purchased equipment for Street and Traffic Engineering divisions.

Later in the speech the mayor said that Huntington received national attention when Jamie Oliver's television show was filmed in town. The mayor said that the kitchen that Oliver has donated to the area has greatly impacted the communities health. The mayor also wanted to rid the title of "The fattest city in America" from Huntington.

The speech also included the proposed budget. Interestingly enough the proposed budget was approximately $5 million less than the budget from the 2009 fiscal year. The budget for the 2010 fiscal years has $2 million dollars worth of grants taken away from it. The second biggest cut in the budget came from police. I presume that there is a grant in place to make up the over $800,000 cut that the police will take considering the city hired seven new police officers.

Above all, I believe the mayor is directing Huntington in the right direction. That direction is infrastructure. So far the mayor has cleaned up many of the roads in the area. He is also working on the Old main corridor and downtown corridor projects. With the budget constantly changing, I will be anxious to see what new challenges the mayor will face and how he will overcome them.