Star City Group Plans to Make Town a Better Place: Community Development Committee Holds Its First Meeting Tuesday

By Eric Bowen, The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.

Feb. 22–Enhancing the city’s appearance, paying off the Tugboat Depot debt and maintaining a separate identity for Star City were all among the top priorities of the city’s new Community Development Committee on Tuesday. The committee met for the first time to brainstorm ideas for how to make Star City a better place to live. Committee co-chairman Jerry Boyle said he hopes the group will be able to spur the city toward more beautiful environs. Though he lives just across the border in Morgantown, Boyle said he spends more time in Star City than in his own neighborhood. “It has a lot of potential,” Boyle said. “I see it as a family community.” The Community Development Committee came out of Star City’s visioning process that has been ongoing since last spring, said Brad Allamong, executive director of the Community Visions Foundation. The Foundation facilitated Star City’s visioning process and is helping establish the committees to implement the vision. The committee has a broad mission ranging from looking after the city’s environment and physical beauty to traffic patterns and historic preservation. The committee will work with two other committees in the visioning process: code enforcement and zoning, and economic development, Allamong said. The committees will work to implement the overall vision by focusing on specific projects that can add to the city’s appeal. Some of the ideas that came out of the meeting Tuesday were paving dirt streets, and encouraging businesses along University Avenue to fix up their properties. Other committee members talked about larger issues, such as a walkway over Monongahela Boulevard and expanding the park atmosphere of the rail trail to the rest of the city. Angela Obringer of Star City said she would like to see improvements to the area around the rail-trail. She also wants to commemorate Star City’s historic character, such as its background in glassmaking. Obringer said she was glad to be part of the community development committee because she wanted to be part of shaping Star City’s future. She said that while she wants to celebrate its past, she’s not afraid of changing it for the better. “When I look out my front porch, it’s so beautiful,” Obringer said. “I want it to stay that way, but I want there to be economic development.” Allamong said the tasks identified by the committee are all issues that Star City will have to tackle as it moves forward. The Community Visions Foundation does not dictate what it is the community wants or how it achieves those goals. Eventually the Visions Foundation will step back to let the process go forward with local leadership. But Allamong said that the Visions Foundation likely will continue to help out where it’s needed. “I don’t think we’ll ever be out of Star City,” he said. “What happens in Star City benefits all of this area.”

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