(Graphic Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection - Public Meeting- Council Meeting)

PARKERSBURG — Body or dash cameras for police, loosening restrictions on the public forum and all city workers making at least $15 an hour were among the priorities pitched by members of Parkersburg City Council during a recent Committee of the Whole meeting.

Council President Andrew Borkowski asked members ahead of the meeting to focus on specific areas regarding priorities for the upcoming fiscal year 2026-27 budget: public safety, parks and recreation, community development, stormwater and employees’ cost of living.

The administration plans to present the proposed budget to council on Feb. 24.

Council Vice President Sharon Kuhl pitched raising the salaries for the lowest paid workers to $15 an hour, according to the council clerk’s recording of the Jan. 26 meeting attended by eight of nine council members and Mayor Tom Joyce. Councilman Mike Reynolds was absent.

Kuhl said there has been talk of eventually raising the state or federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

“Why can’t we be the first to do that?” she said. “I just think that it’s time.”

Kuhl said she had not requested numbers from the Finance Department on how much the move would cost and acknowledged it may not be feasible to do it all in one year. But she said that to help offset the costs she would not support a cost-of-living increase for the city’s department heads in the upcoming fiscal year, although she praised the work they do.

“Let’s get the employees up where they need to be,” she said.

Kuhl acknowledged that would likely require other adjustments, something Joyce addressed later in the meeting.

“It’s very noble work to say … our lowest paid people are going to be making $15 an hour,” Joyce said. “You’ve got all kinds of folks that will become immediately devalued (when those rates go up). That’s just the way it is.”

Councilman Chris Rexroad said the raises could be looked at as an investment in the workforce and cited staffing issues in the Sanitation Department that prompted the city to consider and council to ultimately vote on contracting out trash service to Waste Management.

“Part of the problem that we’re having with sanitation is because of the pay, so do you proactively fix that before it spreads somewhere else?” he said.

Rexroad also said the Parkersburg Police Department should have body cams. He added that his daughter is studying criminal justice and her professors remarked on the department’s lack of the devices.

“They cautioned her against her joining our police force without body cams because it doesn’t just protect the citizens, it protects our guys and girls as well,” he said.

Councilwoman Wendy Tuck and Councilman Zak Huffman expressed their support for body cams. Councilman Rob Moore suggested dashboard cameras for cruisers as an option.

Rexroad was the first, but not the only, council member to broach removing limits on the public forum. Council voted in March to limit speakers in the public forum to addressing only items on the agenda, a move that has been criticized by a number of speakers since.

“I think we need to give people a chance to talk,” Rexroad said. “We might not like what they have to say, but I think that’s very important.”

Huffman, Moore and Tuck agreed, with Tuck saying they should also restore the council forum, which was eliminated in January 2025, so council members could address issues at the request of their constituents.

Huffman said he would like to see improvements at Quincy Park and Friendship Park in his district. Joyce said both of those facilities are subject to a lot of vandalism, noting he stopped having the Quincy Park restrooms repaired after the third time they were damaged.

“All of our public spaces get some … level of abuse,” he said. “And the reality of it is, those two parks, in particular, get absolutely, positively, a factor of 10. And that sucks. I get it.”

Multiple members agreed streets and stormwater are among the city’s top priorities. In response to a question from Joyce, they indicated they support the city’s recent practice of using materials to extend the life of pavement in addition to milling and paving.

Borkowski said he would like to see improvements made to council chambers, specifically the microphones. He and Kuhl said the council dais needs updated so members can see each other and communicate better.

“I don’t want to spend gobs of money, but if there’s any way to do it efficiently and inexpensively, to make it more of a horseshoe, that would be great,” Borkowski said.

Councilman Roger Brown expressed frustration with filming at council meetings by Michael Bowman, who said he is an independent journalist who posts content on Facebook and TikTok. Borkowski has asked Bowman not to block lines of sight between officials and speakers and not to go past the podium used by public forum speakers when filming.

“I’m going to take his phone and it’s going to hit the wall. I’ve had enough of him already,” Brown said. “He’s got to stay back or throw him out. I don’t care.”

Bowman has said his activities are protected by the First Amendment and he does not film from a static position in order to create more effective content. After Borkowski announced restrictions on where people could stand while filming, Bowman said he wanted to “stress test” the new rules, repeatedly stepping past the podium at the Jan. 13 meeting.

Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com.