Commissioners hold first meeting of the New Year

Houston County Commissioners held their first meeting of the New Year in the early morning of January 5 at the Houston County Superior Court, in Perry.

The agenda was light, which Commissioner Board Chairman Tommy Stalnaker made note of in his final comments when addressing new board members, Mark Byrd and Dan Perdue, joking, “This was a rather light meeting. It was not planned that way. If it had been planned, it would have been planned long, with some controversy with it, but we were not able to plan that.”

This being their first meeting, Stalnaker also addressed Byrd and Perdue in appreciation. “I’ve got an awful lot of confidence and a lot of respect for both of you, and obviously, the citizens of this county have a higher opinion of you. They’ve given you the opportunity to serve them, and I know you’re going to do a great job; both of you are going to do a great job. We’re glad to have you aboard and look forward to your contributions over the coming months and the coming years.” Vice Chairman Gail Robinson and board member, H. Jay Walker III, both expressed similar words of confidence.

When it came time for their comments, Perdue and Byrd both expressed their gratitude.

Perdue spoke first, stating, “It is an honor to be here at this first meeting of the new term. Of all the training that Commissioner Byrd and I have done over the last couple of months and over the past year getting ready for this, the phrase that sticks out in mind is, ‘these positions are public trust,’ and that is something that I think of frequently in performing these duties. I hope that we live up to the seats that we are filling, that have been served so well by Commissioner Thomson and Commissioner McMichael, and I hope that we live up to that public trust.”

Byrd spoke directly after. “Commissioner Perdue is right, it is an honor to be here in service to the citizens of Houston County. I am extremely thankful to the opportunity afforded to serve in this capacity by the citizens.” Byrd spoke briefly about the short time each of them spent in training and the large amount of information that had to learn in that time. Byrd went on to say, “Some of our takeaways were similar, one being that we have a lot of good things going on in Houston County. We have a lot of things to be proud of in Houston County: a stable local economy in large part due to Robins Air Force Base and the Diverse Industry Base and small business. We have cooperation that exists within the county government and within the county and city governments, and that is something that you can see very quickly does not exist everywhere throughout the state of Georgia—something to be thankful for. We have a very financially healthy and efficient county government, in large part due to commissioners, staff and employees of Houston County, which is another thing to be proud of.”

Items on the agenda were limited to brief approvals and bills in new business. Shortly after commissioners’ comments, the meeting was adjourned.

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