Andy McKenzie is Wheeling’s new Mayor!

Andy McKenzie is Wheeling's new Mayor! Even though Sparchane's term expired it is still great to see someone new come in that might actually make a difference. Even if Nick Sparchane's term did not expire I would almost guarantee McKenzie would still have won. The City of Wheeling needed a new mayor more than ever, someone who really cares about the city and wants to make it a better place.

Although Sparchane did make some improvements, the development of the Highlands has essentially rendered the city of Wheeling dead and that will be the legacy Sparchane leaves behind, not to mention a lot of "speculation" as to just how beneficial some of his "deals" were. You can read more about that in my post Senator McKenzie Versus the Sparchane "Family". With the election of McKenzie into the Mayor's office I am hoping to see many improvements to the City. One of the first things on his agenda has got to be the Wheeling Tunnels, followed closely by keeping businesses in Wheeling.

With the exodus of businesses to the Highlands a plan has got to be put in place to keep them here in Wheeling. The Mayor and City Council need to look hard into incentives and tax breaks for area business to stay as well as to attract new businesses. Wheeling can be a great place, but a lot of work will need to be done to make it attractive. Wheeling is in a great location as far as the Ohio River and major highways are concerned. The city needs to leverage the City's location as a benefit especially to companies that do any kind of import/export. Tourism certainly needs to be looked at in much more detail as well.

The City of Wheeling along with The Wheeling Island Race Track should be attracting thousands more visitors alone. In my opinion the traffic to the Track should be much higher. The City needs to attract more tourists that spend more time here. The track is great but it does not bring in visitors who stay for more than a day. We need tourist and Gamblers to come in to town for several days at a time, stay at hotels in Wheeling, including the Hotel at the track. We need these visitors to stay 2 or 3 days and spend their money at local restaurants and gift shops, most importantly we need to convince the people coming to Wheeling that it is a GREAT place to live and work. Use the tourism traffic to increase our population. It's a two pronged attack, convince business on one front and convince people on another. While the tourist attractions are great, that alone will certainly not sway someone to want live here. The jobs have to be here as well.

Wheeling is dying a slow painful death and if someone does not bandage the wounds soon, there will not be much left to salvage. What McKenzie really needs to do is create a committee that will look into how to draw traffic from the Highlands. I am not saying steal the traffic, but use the Highlands to gain more traffic to Wheeling. The Highlands is growing in leaps and bounds and it is no wonder why Wheeling businesses want to move there, they want to go where the traffic is; not to mention the cost of dong business outside the city limits is just good business sense. Good business sense is what Wheeling needs and I hope McKenzie brings that to the Mayor's Office.

Congratulation Mr. McKenzie and good luck.