Eubanks resigns from Parkersburg City Council
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PARKERSBURG -- The resignation of District 9's representative was announced Tuesday during a brief Parkersburg City Council meeting.
Councilman Ray Eubanks resigned, effective at the close of the meeting, according to a letter submitted to Mayor Tom Joyce and read during the meeting by council President Sharon Kuhl.
"It has been one of the joys of my life to serve on the City Council of Parkersburg," Eubanks wrote. "I had committed to serve until the end of the term, but my higher authority has asked me to come and follow Him, and like Peter, James and John, I must do so immediately."
Eubanks, who works for Highmark West Virginia and is a pastor, was appointed to the District 9 seat in July 2022, following the resignation of Councilman Austin Richards, who was elected in 2020 but moved out of the district.
Asked after the meeting about his decision to step down, Eubanks said he enjoyed being on council but he had received "an assignment from (God) to build a congregation that shows the love of the Lord Jesus."
Kuhl said there will be a resolution declaring the seat vacant on council's Nov. 28 agenda. Eubanks is a Republican, so after the vacancy is declared, the party's executive committee will have 10 days to nominate three potential replacements. Joyce will then have five days to appoint one of them.
During the public forum, area resident Charles Roberts thanked Eubanks for his service, including "standing up to the library and the school libraries" over books with what Roberts called "pornographic" material. Some residents have criticized the Parkersburg & Wood County Public Library for not placing books with questioned material in an area where children cannot access them, and Eubanks has spoken in favor of council censuring the library over the matter.
During the 11-minute meeting, council approved Joyce's appointments of Curtis Shriver and Matthew Moore to the Mid-Ohio Valley Transit Authority and Emmalene Westbrook to the Juliana Architectural Review Board on 7-0 votes, with Councilmen Bob Mercer and Zach Stanley absent. Another 7-0 vote approved a resolution amending the budget to reflect a $255,000 appropriation in the capital reserve budget for stormwater work on Camden Avenue. The appropriation was approved by council in a revision for the end of fiscal year 2023 but inadvertently omitted from the carryover revision adopted last month for the new fiscal year, according to a memo accompanying the agenda.
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Staff reporter Clara Noelle contributed to this story.