A short, quiet county commission meeting was held Wednesday, the morning after Tuesday’s general election. Greenbrier County County Commission President Mike McClung offered his thanks to those county citizens for “standing with him for Greenbrier.” McClung retained his seat on the commission with 6,257 votes, beating out both Democrat candidate Brad Tuckwiller, who garnered 5,155 votes, and Independent candidate Donna Campbell Nickell, who captured 2,315 votes. There were also 15 write-in votes offered for county commissioner.
County Clerk Robin Loudermilk, who ran unopposed and was also a winner in the election, stated the Greenbrier County Clerk’s office was hampered in conducting ballot counts Tuesday night when a computer’s hard drive crashed. Election officials were forced to wait until another computer from another county was found, delivered and updated with Greenbrier County data so the count could continue. Commissioner Lowell Rose said they didn’t finish processing the election results until after 4 a.m. Wednesday morning.
In other business:
• Service Manager Ashley Butler with the Greenbrier County Health Department provided a quarterly update for the commission, in which she detailed the June flood relief efforts of the health department. She said by Wednesday, June 22, the department knew a storm was coming and made preparations with an order of 200 units of the tetanus vaccine. Once the storm arrived, they realized they were under-prepared.
“We knew a storm was coming, but the storm we got wasn’t what we expected,” she said.
The department quickly reached out to the Rainelle Medical Center for supplies and more tetanus units. They also received aid from the Robert C. Byrd Clinic and the Greenbrier Physicians Clinic. The Pocahontas County medical administrator arrived with supplies and stayed to offer a hand as well. The nurses administered between 1,300 and 1,500 tetanus vaccine shots to flood victims with the support and assistance of several medical clinics across the county and beyond. Butler said shelters were inspected, food supplies administered and water samples were taken. FEMA reimbursed the health department for employee overtime hours and for supplies with $10,000, she said.
• The commission approved a contract renewal with Courthouse Sentinel Managed Services and the net-defense internet security contract for fiscal year 2016-2017, tabled at the previous meeting, will provide the county with more stringent security and added services to the old jail, the sheriff’s office, the prosecutor’s office and the Day Report Center.
• Prosecuting Attorney Patrick Via received approval to hire a new Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) grant employee, Tessa Nicole Mitchell, to serve for one year in the prosecutor’s office to assist with processing crime victim compensation and victim assistance programs. Via said he had submitted her resume for the commission to review and that a background check has been satisfactorily completed.
