By Peggy Mackenzie
At the outset of Tuesday morning’s Greenbrier County Commission meeting, a lengthy list of elected officials, department heads, and other budgeted entities offered their presentations for budget request funding for the 2015-2016 fiscal year. Most asked for the same budgeted amount as they had the previous year, with little or no change.
Pam West, manager of the Greenbrier Valley Farmers Market, presented a grant request to help with the reimbursement of $700 for a portable toilet on the site of the market grounds along Arbuckle Lane. She was told to go through county arts and rec director Roy Grimes.
Having the portable toilet on the market site has been a welcome relief to the public, she said. At times, it gets more business than the market. The Greenbrier Valley Farmers Market leases the lot seven months out of the year.
With West still at the podium, Commissioner Lowell Rose announced that the county may have plans for the lot leased by the market.
He said the commission is seeking more parking space for vehicles stored on the adjacent county parking lot, and may require taking some of the area used by the market to meet that need.
He also noted that insurance expenses may affect the market, as an outside (non-county) entity, when using the county’s property. He told West that there would not be an immediate need for the market to move from the site, but that likely the shift would occur in the middle of the selling season.
The commission will be holding working session for the purpose of budget preparations in the following weeks, commission president Mike McClung said, which will be announced and publicized.
