“Our competition is not the city down the river. Our competition is the largest cities in the world,” Huntington Mayor Steve Williams said in his State of the City Address at City Hall on Monday, Feb. 13, after announcing new infrastructure projects and investments around the city.

Williams spent much of his speech to the City Council members boasting previous successful infrastructure investments, low unemployment rates, a rebounding economy, low crime rates and regional development before announcing 64 active projects that total nearly $514 million dollars in the city.

Among these investments, Williams announced increased budgets for the Huntington Police Department, fire department and Public Works department, the last of which will include $2.6 million to establish a 10-year street paving cycle.

The mayor also announced two new fire stations in the city, an increased $15 minimum wage for city employees, and additional investments in the Cabell County Library System, Huntington-Cabell Wayne Animal Shelter, Municipal Development Authority, Facing Hunger Foodbank and the Keith-Albee Theatre.

Williams also announced the $15.9 million broadband deployment plan that will deploy fiber optic internet to every home and business in the city and the continuation of the Hal Greer Project which will develop the highway from Washington Boulevard to Kinetic Park.

“We have a vision of creating a meaningful, measurable track record of success in developing a plan of action towards a new direction,” Williams said, “a future of unbridled opportunity, where Huntington is seen as the example of  the gateway to Appalachia at the dawn of the digital age.”