LEWISBURG W.Va. (WVDN) – Huntington Mayor, Steve Williams, was hosted by The Greenbrier Valley Theatre, in his race to become Governor of West Virginia, hoping to out-shine GOP runner Patrick Morrisey. Moderated by Josh Baldwin and hosted by Cathy Sawyer, the evening began with commentary and question-and-answer time with Williams. Accepting his nomination for Mayor on Christmas Eve in 2012, Williams notes he was handed a dilapidated, forgotten town whose infrastructure, rising drug problems and fiscal issues were met with a head-on approach.
Williams and his wife, Mary Poindexter Williams, welcomed everyone to listen to his plans and hopes for this great state. Running on the Democratic ticket, Williams touts the capabilities of a seasoned expert in “identify and execute.” Not long ago, his city of Huntington was labeled as one of the hardest-hit drug epicenters in the nation. It took Williams quite a few years to take on this great challenge, calling his city, “The City of Solutions” among other key phrases. His adage, “Turning crisis into success” is reverberated in statistical data such as rising from one of the worst cities with drug problems, into the winner of America’s Best Communities Competition, garnering the community a $3 million award!
“We went from worst to first and are now the 17th best run city in the nation!” cheered Williams.
As a former City Council Member and Chair of Finance, investment banker and broker, Williams took on the city’s issues with a “Doggedly Determined attitude,” he said. “We need to look at what we can do better than anyone else in ‘the world’. Not just in our county, our state or even country, but the world [over]. We took that $3 million prize and leveraged that into $14,700 million in private and public investments. I have a brilliant team around me.”
“I know what our State can do. [I know what I’m capable of] and I know where I’m aiming because I am a West Virginian and I know my people. We need to expect more of ourselves [separating ourselves from the stigmatas that West Virginia carries.] Instead of looking to others to do the work, What can you do? We must seek to have standards the rest of the Nation will emulate,” said Williams. “I believe in no surprises, consistency, sticking to decisions, honesty, integrity, dignity and that we need to uplift each other and create opportunities for yourselves.”
When asked a few questions by Baldwin, the mayor was very attuned to the needs of West Virginia. “As a leader, my job is to identify where we want to be. It’s not ‘I’ but it’s ‘we’. Drawing people together, to be able to articulate that vision and build consensus around that vision. It takes all of us to make a decision, to stick to it and make changes where we need to. We can be an example to the rest of the country and the rest of the world.”
Baldwin asked, “When you took office in Huntington, you were faced with some pretty significant financial issues. How would you characterize the financial situation of the state right now and what would you do to create more opportunities?”
Williams replied, “I think the financial state of West Virginia is a mystery! We’re told there’s an $800 million dollar surplus, but we don’t fund Child Protective Services, public education, higher education, and infrastructure development. We give a lot away such as when a company wants to [come to WV to set up business] then they leave, say within a year. There’s no way to get back the money that was given to attract them [in the first place]. We need to have something in those contracts that say ‘If you leave here, we need to have that money back’. I’m proud to say that we were able to reduce taxes on manufacturing, retail and business services. In Hungtington with those tax reducations, we were able to increase our revenue to $23 million dollars! I also needed to make sure that we were fixing our sidewalks, cleaning our streets, and making sure our neighborhoods were safe by tearing down dilapidated buildings to reduce the [risk of fire damage] to the rest of the city. [We implemented] a sales tax which ended up bringing more business to the city. When I’m looking at the State, my biggest concern is fiscal responsibility. If you watch your nickels and dimes, that eventually starts adding up. I am a fiscal conservative. If we have the money to do special things, [great] but having to take our city to a four day work week in [light of that], no one will want to come here to do business. What [we did with our city] nobody dreamed could be done. But we did. We’re not going to just try to do better, we’re going to be the best.”
“Hungtinton was known as the most obese, drug addicted, unhealthy and highest amount of drug overdose cities in the Nation and now we have other states coming to look at what we’ve done and how we did that.” said Williams. “Now we’re one of the top 100 cities where someone [would want to] live and one of the top 50 cities in the nation to retire in,” said Williams.
Baldwin asked, “Do you feel your experience in finance gives you an edge in running a government?”
“It helps,” says Williams jokingly. “Inevitably because I know where to look [for opportunities and issues]. The fact of the matter is that you must understand what it is the potential markets are looking to do, then you are selling your community; you’re selling your state and show them this is how we can go about doing business and doing it credibly.”
Baldwin, “Acting as a [sort of] CEO of a company versus a career lobbyist, how would you approach seeing yourself as governor of West Virginia?”
Williams’ answer was a bit clouded when mentioning Morrisey supporting organizations that were bringing thousands of tablets into Cabell County and the city choosing to sue those organizations. The case is currently in appeal status after being denied. Ultimately the vision seemed to be “Set a vision and be doggedly determined about it.”
Baldwin “What do you think is the largest crisis facing the state right now?”
“We can’t manage our budgets properly and we need to make sure that we are providing the services that [are applied for]. What we’re doing is robbing and stealing money from taxpayers. Paid personal income taxes, business taxes, other revenues and property taxes. Look at our education system. We should be a top tier education system. Public Education is being privatized. Increased tuitions. I recognize the need for private education, public education, as well higher education. I dont think it’s the place of the Federal government to make sure we’re funding the rich and famous,” said Williams.
When asked about cannabis and equality, Williams said “[I’m all for inclusion.] Once again it’s about where we want to be and how to get there. You can go left or right, but [ultimately] the way we want to go is up. The fact is that people are discriminated against just because of who they love. I had to own the past of our City. We went to work on our LGBTQ scores as a city. Starting at a 43 out of 100 as far as inclusivity, in just five years we ended up at a score over 100! It doesn’t matter what your gender is, your religion, your color, or who you love…all that matters is that everybody is welcome here. “Open to All” with green equal marks stickers, were placed everywhere, even at chamber of commerce and churches. We have several cities who have non-discriminations laws and [we won’t allow the federal government to dictate or oppose those laws]. Let local governments make their own decisions regarding that.”
“Regarding legalizing cannabis… So we need to control the production and make sure that what is being purchased is cannabis. That it’s not laced with something [harmfu; like fentanyl]. When you start to legalize it and you’re working with a federal government on it then you start identifying other commercial uses for cannabis. I want to protect our community so that if somebody is going to to buy cannabis and consume cannabis, that they know what it’s going to entail. Imagine the revenue from [legalizing it]!” If we’re going to do something like cutting income taxes, at least we have something coming in behind it.” said Williams.
Williams wants to prioritize food security, clean drinking water and swear infrastructure and broadband in “every holler.” He supports reproductive health and funding daycares. “If you want to know what I’m going to do, look at what I’ve done,” he said. In other news outlets, when asked about abortion rights, Williams says he believes in neither a yay or nay. “I respect a woman to be able to choose what’s right for her and her family. Period.”
Williams has a credible and impressive past and has shown some significant changes to be for good, but folks in his town might say differently. When looking at Huntington’s budgets, he noticed some funds “Sitting” in retirement and municipal areas and the city had a triple ‘B’ bond rating. Williams said “We had to cut the city hours to a 4 day work week. We needed to include those funds in our fiscal reports to allow the state to match it. We now have a bond rating of a solid ‘A’. Some employees were laid off and some were simply fired. Some juggling of the city’s health insurance plan meant that many were placed on a “Medicare Advantage Plan’ which many were extremely upset about. He touts a near 50% pay raise for the city workers in his tenure.
