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Fetters announces plans for four more years

Brooks Fetters.
Photo provided.

Huntington Mayor Brooks Fetters has announced that he plans to seek a second term in office.

An additional term would be spent in continuing to implement the city’s comprehensive plan,  a guideline developed by a group of Huntington residents that has served as the framework for his first three years in office, Fetters says.

“We have made great progress in implementing the comprehensive plan for our city over the past three years, but there is so much more than we all dream of doing to make our city all it can be,” Fetters said in remarks prepared for his official announcement on Friday, Nov. 21, at Nick’s Kitchen.

Fetters, a Republican and a former member of the Huntington Common Council, won his party’s nomination in a seven-man primary race in 2011. He went on to defeat Democrat Tony Hiles in that fall’s general election and took office in January of 2012.

Prior to being elected mayor, Myers was a funeral director and general manager of Myers Funeral Homes of Huntington and Markle.
Fetters is the first member of either party to announce his intention to run in the May 2015 primary.

Fetters says he is focused on economic development, operational eff- iciencies and neighborhood enhancement and notes that progress is being made in each of the three areas.

The local unemployment rate at the end of September was just 4.6 percent, he said, down from 14.6 percent at the height of the recession in 2009. Many industries have come to Huntington or expanded operations already in place in the city over the past three years, he says, and property tax rates for city residents have declined from $2.32 in 2012 to an estimated $2.15 for 2015.

Also during that time, Fetters says, the number of city employees has been reduced from 156 to 130, the number of department heads has been cut from 11 to seven and the number of vehicles the city owns is down from 143 to 120. The city has acquired automated equipment and implemented more efficient procedures, he notes, allowing the same level of services to be delivered by a smaller workforce.

Improvements to the wastewater treatment plant and sewers throughout the city, set to be complete by the end of this year, bring the city into compliance with a court order handed down in 2008 that the city comply with the Federal Clean Water Act, Fetters says.

The city has contributed to the improvement of neighborhoods by enforcing city ordinances regarding blight and eyesores, Fetters notes. In addition to homes, the city also plans to demolish the H.K. Porter facility, Lehman building and the U.B./Odd Fellows block, he said. Cleanup of city gateways and recreational areas, construction of trails and improvements to streets and sidewalks also contribute to the city’s improvement, he says.