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January 6, 2009

New County Commission meets for first time

Daniel McDonald

The new Baldwin County Commission came together Tuesday night for its first formal meeting as a governing body.

As the second order of business in the new year, commissioners elected District 5 Commissioner James “Bubba” Williams to chair the board and District 4 Commissioner Faye Smith as vice chair.

“I’m humbled and honored and feel a large responsibility, given the state of the economy and the way things are with local industry,” Williams said about being elected to chair the board in 2009. “I want to emphasize again that I think we have a very well-qualified board that I think will work very well together.”

Williams was elected chair on an unanimous vote following the second motion on the issue. District 1 Commis-sioner Emily Davis abstained from the vote as she made an earlier motion to elect Smith chair.

“I’ve known Faye for the last 26 years and in her capacity as former state Senator, former president of the Georgia Association of Educators and a member of the Georgia Federation of Democratic Women, I feel that she has the experience to be chair,” Davis said about her abstention from voting on the matter.

Davis said she feels that a board that has a majority of democratic women should be chaired by a democratic woman.

County Attorney David Waddell was reappointed for 2009 at a retainer of $5,000 each month, plus the customary rate of compensation for handling any claims against the county, litigation, real estate acquisitions, title examinations and bond issues.

County Manager Joan Minton and County Clerk Cindy Cunningham were also reappointed.

The Commission also unanimously approved the lease of a new custom midmount 70-foot single axle aerial platform firetruck for 60 months at a rate of 3.45 percent from BanCorpSouth. The total bid price of $685,244.27 will be repaid out of sales tax collections through the 2005 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax which will run until March 2012.

Assistant County Manager Ralph McMullen closed the meeting by providing commissioners and those residents in the audience with a county overview and update recapping the county’s achievements in 2008 and the ongoing projects of 2009 and beyond.

Of note are the completion of the Sinclair Water Authority microfiltration plant, which McMullen said is now providing the majority of the county’s water; the near completion of the new county jail, which Minton said will be accepting inmates at the beginning of March; and the near completion of the new county airport terminal building.

About 20 people attended the first meeting of the new Baldwin County Commission.

But Commissioner Davis said after the meeting she hopes that more people will begin to take an avid interest in county government and attending commission meetings.

At the end of Tuesday’s meeting, she said she would like to see if it is possible to provide residents with a way of addressing the Commission without scheduling a time to comment ahead of the Commission’s bi-monthly meetings. She said giving residents the opportunity to voice their opinions without having to make arrangements ahead of time could improve resident

participation.

Commissioner Williams said county officials will look into that possibility.

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