SMITHERS, WV (WOAY) – With midterm elections approaching, the race for the Fayette County Commission is well under way. Three Republicans are running in the May 12 primary election. In the coming days, Newswatch will bring you interviews with candidates in the race.
Teresa Dorsey says she is running for the Fayette County Commission to continue her career of public service. Dorsey is the city administrator for the city of Smithers and municipal judge for Montgomery and Ansted.
“I know what it means to be a public servant. It is not a award winning position. It’s one that you do because you care about the people. It’s not what I think. It’s what the people think,” she said. I have been a police officer, municipal judge, and now I’m the city administrator. I’m running for Fayette County Commission to help better our future for our kids, my kids, everybody’s kids and grandkids.”
She said her experience in local office has taught her what it means to be a public servant and that she aims to represent the people’s wishes above her own.
“I’m running on transparency. We’re a public government. The taxpayers pay for it. It’s their money, and we need to make sure that we use it responsibly in the way that they want us to use it,” she said. “We can’t have a successful future unless we all work together.”
Dorsey hopes to responsibly broaden tourism to spread more revenue to the county’s smaller municipalities.
“We need to look at what we have to offer for tourism and we need to provide it, but we need to provide it very responsibly,” she said. “Bigger populations are coming through here. What we need to do, though, as everything that comes down Route 19, we need to spread it out throughout the whole county and to these small municipalities. They have bills to pay. We need to keep our our aesthetics the way that we all want them, but yet broaden the tourism.”
Clean drinking water has also been a major issue in Fayette County, as a proposed sale of several Fayette County PSDs drags on through the regulatory system. Dorsey said she wants to solve any issues regardless of who is to blame.
“The one thing that we need at the end of the day is for people to have clean water. I don’t care how we get it. I don’t care whose fault it is. It just needs to be corrected so that the citizens can have the water and the service that they deserve.”
