{"id":39127,"date":"2025-07-26T16:42:27","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T16:42:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/39127\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T16:42:27","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T16:42:27","slug":"vienna-city-council-backs-wood-county-home-consortium-news-sports-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/39127\/","title":{"rendered":"Vienna City Council backs Wood County HOME Consortium | News, Sports, Jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\t\t\t\tFrom left, Vienna City Attorney Russ Skogstad discusses the meeting agenda with Vienna Mayor Chad Emrick before Thursday evening\u2019s meeting of the Vienna City Council. Read more from the meeting online and in the weekend edition of the News and Sentinel. (Photo by Gwen Sour)<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tCity Development Projects Administrator Ryan Fluharty discusses what the budget for housing initiatives is for the fiscal year at Thursday evening\u2019s Vienna City Council meeting. (Photo by Gwen Sour)<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\tFrom left, Vienna public Works Director Craig Metz receives recognition as employee of the quarter from Mayor Chad Emrick at Thursday evening\u2019s Vienna City Council meeting. (Photo by Gwen Sour)
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From left, Vienna City Attorney Russ Skogstad discusses the meeting agenda with Vienna Mayor Chad Emrick before Thursday evening\u2019s meeting of the Vienna City Council. Read more from the meeting online and in the weekend edition of the News and Sentinel. (Photo by Gwen Sour)<\/p>\n

VIENNA \u2013 The Vienna City Council on Thursday recognized Public Works Director Craig Metz as the city\u2019s Employee of the Quarter, approved continued participation in a regional housing assistance program and heard discussion on potential changes to alcohol ordinances to support downtown revitalization.<\/p>\n

Mayor Chad Emrick presented Metz with the award during the start of the meeting, saying his work ethic, responsiveness and leadership has made a meaningful difference for the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the course of the last six months, he has very quickly answered all of my requests, answered the requests of citizens and businesses throughout Vienna,\u201d Emrick said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s going to be some times that we\u2019re going to need a bigger wrench,\u201d he added, before giving Metz a large pipe wrench adorned with a gold star as a symbol of recognition.<\/p>\n

Metz accepted the award and credited his team for his success. <\/p>\n

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City Development Projects Administrator Ryan Fluharty discusses what the budget for housing initiatives is for the fiscal year at Thursday evening\u2019s Vienna City Council meeting. (Photo by Gwen Sour)<\/p>\n

\u201cI work with a lot of great people, and they\u2019re the ones that deserve Employee or Department of the Year,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for them guys\u2026 we wouldn\u2019t get things done like we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Council also unanimously passed a resolution to authorize Vienna\u2019s continued participation in the Parkersburg-Wood County HOME Consortium, a federally funded housing initiative.<\/p>\n

Ryan Fluharty, housing coordinator for the City of Parkersburg, outlined the fiscal year 2025 budget of $412,501, which includes allocations for down payment assistance, affordable housing development, and administrative costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have allocated $40,000 to Habitat for Humanity\u2026 $181,000 [for] down payment and closing cost assistance\u2026 and $150,000 to a Low Income Housing Tax Credit project,\u201d Fluharty told council.<\/p>\n

Councilman Harry Deitzler asked whether federal budget cuts could impact the program, Fluharty responded, \u201cTrump has tried to cut funds in the past and was unsuccessful\u2026 There\u2019s no concern right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

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From left, Vienna public Works Director Craig Metz receives recognition as employee of the quarter from Mayor Chad Emrick at Thursday evening\u2019s Vienna City Council meeting. (Photo by Gwen Sour)<\/p>\n

Metz also gave an update on street paving and utility work, noting the city plans over $538,000 in asphalt paving.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no big projects on concrete, a lot of little areas, sections here and there\u2026 I call it patchwork,\u201d he said, listing projects on 31st Street, Eighth Avenue, Greenmont Hills Terrace, and others.<\/p>\n

He said 31st Street was added after walking the area and seeing it was \u201ca lot worse than I thought it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emrick commended Metz and his department for quick repair on a water main break. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe avenue looked like you could put a boat down it, there was so much water,\u201d he said. \u201cCity crews responded\u2026 and within a two-hour time period had the water shut off, had the repair done, and had water back on.\u201d<\/p>\n

During closing comments, Councilman Tony Morrison revisited a previous public concern about allowing alcoholic beverages at events held on Spencer\u2019s Landing and proposed expanding Vienna\u2019s alcohol regulations in a limited way to encourage new business.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think events like the Taste of Parkersburg would be a great addition\u2026 Those events are ticketed and they are private,\u201d Morrison said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a couple vacant buildings that are ready to be rented right there in Old Town Vienna\u2026 I think some nice restaurants there would do well. I don\u2019t want to see these places stay open till two o\u2019clock in the morning\u2026 but if you shut them down [at] 10 p.m. or something, if we adjust the ordinance to include some restrictions, I think it\u2019s something that would benefit our city.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Vienna Planning Commission will meet at 5:30 p.m. Monday to consider updates to the city\u2019s comprehensive plan. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019ll be some discussion and some votes on maybe some edits or changes\u2026 I don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to have any big changes,\u201d said Councilwoman Tami Rhodes.<\/p>\n

Council also entered an executive session to discuss real estate and personnel matters. No decisions were made.<\/p>\n

Gwen Sour can be reached at gsour@newsandsentinel.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From left, Vienna City Attorney Russ Skogstad discusses the meeting agenda with Vienna Mayor Chad Emrick before Thursday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,983,3,452,453,31862,31861],"class_list":["post-39127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-vienna-city-council-backs-wood-county-home-consortium","tag-vienna-city-council-backs-wood-county-home-consortiumnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}