After a year of meeting on Saturdays, the Russell County Board of Supervisors will consider moving its meetings back to Mondays.
The board approved meeting at 9 a.m. on the first Saturday of the month last January, but county officials found it difficult to get school and court employees as well as state and federal officials, who normally don’t work on Saturdays, to turn out for the meeting, County Administrator Lonzo Lester said Friday.
“I think we were the only board in the state meeting on Saturdays, out of 95 counties,” he said.
If approved, the board’s regular meeting will be held at 6 p.m. on the first Monday of the month.
Monday’s meeting is the board’s annual organizational meeting, which means members will choose a chair and vice chair to serve for the year. Steve Breeding is the current chair, and David Eaton serves as vice chair.
The board will also vote on a performance agreement for Simmons Equipment Co., a specialty mining equipment manufacturer that is expanding into two buildings in Lebanon. The company, which is based in Tazewell County, has said the expansion will result in 75 new jobs.
The agreement is between Simmons, the county and the Virginia Economic Development Partnership Authority (VEDP). The county has been awarded a $270,000 grant from the Commonwealth’s Development Opportunity Fund through VEDP, which it will use to induce the company to lease the properties and invest in the expansion. Simmons will invest about $8.5 million in the project, the agreement states.
The agreement would make sure the company follows through with the investment and creation of jobs or it could be required to pay back the money, according to Lester.
The meeting will be held at the county’s governmental center in Lebanon. You can view the agenda here.
