PARKERSBURG — For more than 50 years, Parkersburg has operated under the strong mayor form of government, with an elected chief executive and a city council with legislative and budget-setting authority.

Prior to 1970, a five-member board, consisting of a mayor and four at-large councilmen, managed the city under the commission form.

“Each commissioner ran a department of the city,” said John Reed, who served from 1982-85 and 2017-20 on Parkersburg City Council. “There was a lot of trading done. There was nobody really in charge because different people were in charge of different departments.”

Reed learned about the commission days by talking to former city officials. He was in eighth grade when the new charter was being developed. His civics teacher at Hamilton Junior High School, Steve Nicely, made the process a regular topic, and Reed and his classmates attended some meetings of the board that formulated the charter.

“It got me really interested in city government,” Reed said.

Former Parkersburg City Councilwoman Sherry Dugan’s father, Bill Ruehl, was one of the 11 people elected to the charter board.

“He believed in the strong mayor form of government,” said Dugan, who was also a two-time mayoral candidate and longtime member of the city’s Municipal Planning Commission. “It’s based on our federal system. That’s what he was going after, is making sure there (were) checks and balances.”

The mayor can veto legislation approved by council, which can override a veto with a two-thirds majority vote.

Tom Joyce served two terms on council and was elected mayor in 2016. Now in his second term, he said he believes the strong mayor system has served the city well, though he acknowledges it’s the only system in which he’s worked.

“Council sets the budget. They appropriate funds,” Joyce said. “And I’ve been very fortunate to have now two city councils that are largely supportive of the things I’m supportive of,” he said, pointing to an emphasis on infrastructure and essential services.

“I think in the end, there has to be someone responsible for running the day-to-day operations of the city,” he said.

Reed agrees.

“Now we have someone that’s directly accountable to the citizens,” he said. “And you can’t pass the buck.”

In a 2015 interview, former West Virginia Delegate Gene Haynes described being a member of Parkersburg City Council under the commission form from 1956-59.

“We met as a legislative body once a week. We were administrators the rest of the week,” said Haynes, who passed away in 2020. “I had my own budget, but it had to be approved by the other people.”

Under that format, the mayor was in charge of police and other areas, while councilmen got their choice of which department — water works and sewage, finance, streets and public works and public safety — based on who got the most votes in the election, Haynes said.

Haynes would eventually support the shift to the strong mayor form.

“The one advantage to the commission form of government that I saw was that the councilman ran his department,” he said. “The people who elect you can come in and sit down and talk to you, and if you’re right, that councilman can” address the issue.

On the other hand, “you would have five different people trying to run the government, and with the strong mayor, he’s the boss,” he said. “You get more streamlined, and the mayor could do the planning.”

Reed said having a strong mayor allows things to be accomplished more quickly.

“Now that can be good and bad,” he said. “If you’re doing something the public wants, it gets done quicker.

“(But) if a strong mayor continues to do things the public doesn’t want, he’s not going to get re-elected,” Reed said.

Reed said he prefers that direct accountability to the electorate versus the city manager system some cities use.

“He just has to make sure that five city councilmen like him,” he said of the manager system.

Dugan and Joyce both mentioned the salary a city manager would draw, likely six figures for a city the size of Parkersburg.

“It’s not a cost savings,” Joyce said.

The mayor still has to work with members of council, Dugan said. When she served on council in the early ’90s, Mayor Helen Albright would often meet with council members three at a time, to ensure there wasn’t a quorum and open meetings laws were followed, to gauge their interest on proposals.

“And sometimes she got things she was asking for and sometimes she didn’t,” Dugan said.

Joyce pointed to accomplishments of his administration that have required the support of council, including the recertification of the floodwall by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which required significant funding allocations; addressing growing pension obligations by closing the existing police and fire plans to new hires and raising fees to put additional money toward them; and increasing the amount of paving and stormwater repairs.

“It is a big job. It takes a lot of time. But it’s still the best job I’ve ever had,” Joyce said. “I don’t ever dread getting up and going to work.”