Opinion
Russell County residents need to be aware that they can watch all the Russell County Board meetings on Youtube anytime. The link to this meeting is provided here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgy9xAYzvvA
The first thing about this meeting is Supervisor Nate Kiser was absent.
The second thing is the shoutout and thank you to Andrew Hensley and Tara Dye for voting no on hiring a full-time employee for the open tourism county position.
The issue is that the tourism person for the county has left the position. The lady from the Chamber of Commerce has offered to do it free or as a part-time position. It would have saved the county a complete salary and benefits if the position were left open and given to the lady at the Chamber.
Michele Vance was appointed to the Tourism Advocacy Committee by the board of supervisors. Michele addressed the board and asked the board to take no action until the supervisors could meet with the committee that Michele is on. Michele suggested to the board that they talk things over and hear from the committee before making a decision.
Later on, in the meeting Supervisor Lou Ann Wallace made a motion to hire a full-time employee for the position of Tourism Director. She completely disregarded the request to wait and talk it over with the tourism committee.
The motion passed 4-2 with Supervisor’s Hensley and T Dye voting against the motion.
I have two questions. Number one, are they ever going to do anything to attempt to cut the budget. It looks the way they are spending money another tax increase will be in the near future. Number two, have some board members made up their mind and a friend needs a job?
The board talked about solar plans and passed the law that alcohol sales can now be made on Sunday. They also voted for all emergency services and the sheriff’s office to switch communication to Starlink. This is a big positive because communication will not go down during a storm emergency.
The board also voted to buy $15,000+ for turkeys for county employees and to give to churches and food pantries to give those that cannot afford a turkey one for Thanksgiving.
I am all for buying the turkeys for anyone that cannot afford to buy one but I think the supervisors need to remember that they did not purchase the birds, the taxpayer purchased those birds.
Michele Vance in public comment brought up an issue that would help county revenues. She brought up the fact that the county could make a lot of money selling all surplus firearms and all the confiscated firearms. Sounds like a great idea.
Some supervisors claimed they had a good meeting for once. Well, you might have gotten to a good meeting if you were not worried about hurting the budget instead of saving money. The next big thing will be to see who the friend was that was needing the job as Tourism Director. Be interesting if we knew which supervisor was bringing this person forward. Andrew and Tara knew this was not right either to hire full-time or to at least wait until they talked to the tourism committee.
A good meeting? I THINK NOT!
