Huntington City Council member encourages community involvement

By Nate Harrah, Marshall University

Most people know who they are going to vote for president when they show up to polls on Election Day. But as people get further and further down the ballot, the names become less and less known. However, voting for local elections are just as important as voting for the president.

Ally Layman has been a lifelong resident of Huntington and serves as the District 9 Huntington City Council member. She also serves as chair of the Public Works committee and is a member of the Economic and Community Development, Public Safety and Planning and Zoning committees. 

City council members meet at 7:30 p.m. on the second and fourth Monday of each month at City Hall where they vote on city laws and policies based off of the city council agenda. 

“We have an agenda that comes before us, so the mayor comes to us with ideas, our chair of city council adds it to our council agenda,” Layman told Student News Live reporter Holly Belmont. “It then goes to a sub-committee, for instance, I’m the chair for public works so if it has something to do with infrastructure, it comes to my committee first. After that, it then goes to a first reading and then a second reading. Once it goes through the second reading then we get to vote on it.”

Layman not only encourages attending city council meetings but also to be motivated in becoming active within the city council meetings.

“So, really anyone can get involved, but the thing is getting involved,” Layman said. “Our council meetings are open to the public, and we would love to see more come. There’s often times where we have public meetings that no one comes to speak out. Things are then brought to resolution or ordinance and sometimes people are upset about it.” 

“I think Huntington is great with its transparency,” Layman said. “We have a great communications director with Bryan Chambers. He posts things on social media and has the  agenda posted on our city website.”

Layman encourages people of the Huntington community to reach out and ask questions.

“We are working for everyone in the community, and I want to do a good job. So, I want to know what everybody thinks about what we are going to be doing to move Huntington in a forward direction.” 

The city council has 11 members, one from each of the nine municipal election districts and two members elected at-large. 

Layman won re-election to serve until 2028. City council members of Huntington can serve up to three consecutive terms.