Prior to the Tuesday evening Greenbrier County Commission meeting, a public hearing was held at 6:30 p.m. in which the commission considered approving an application for a $125,000 Small City Block grant to fund the planning and design phase for development of regional broadband linkage in Regions 1 and 4.
Region 4 encompasses Nicholas, Fayette, Greenbrier, Pocahontas and Webster counties, while Region 1 comprises Monroe, Summers, Raleigh, Mercer, Wyoming and McDowell. The regional broadband project was first proposed in 2009.
“This is brand new,” Region 4 Planning and Development Council executive director John Tuggle said, as reported in The Register-Herald. “A publicly-owned fiber system is brand new to West Virginia.”
Tuggle explained that the collaboration between the two regions’ matching grant applications would “probably” be matched by Economic Development Authority grants, yielding a total of $500,000 for the planning and design work. The hope is, Tuggle said, that the study, which is part of the planning phase, would reveal pockets of low-income populations throughout the target counties, making it more likely to be able to attract additional federal funds.
During the regular commission meeting, the grant application was approved unanimously.
In other commission business:
- Commission President Woody Hanna presented Day Report Center (GDRC) executive director Laura Legg with the Honorable Martin J. Gaughan Award for Excellence in Community Corrections in recognition of the center’s outstanding accomplishments for the second time in the six years since the award was created. In quoting from the letter from the West Virginia Division of Justice and Community Services, Hanna said, “The GDRC exceeded the national average in every domain of the Correctional Programs Checklist and was the only community corrections program in the state to score in the ‘Very High Adherence to Evidence-Based Practices’ category to date.” The letter from Marty Allen Hatfield, community corrections program specialist, went on to say, “I would like to personally congratulate you and your staff and thank you for the superior progress made in ‘starting the change’ in your participants.”
The award presentation was delayed two months while Legg was recovering from an illness.
- The commission’s certified Road Bond election results, read by County Clerk Robin Loudermilk, confirmed the total number of votes at 3,033, with 2,329 approving the bond’s passage and 704 votes against the passage.
- Hanna announced that the Greenbrier County Sheriff’s Office will hold a National Drug Take-Back Day on October 28, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., to encourage citizens to drop off unused drugs at the county courthouse where a drug drop box is located in the main lobby.
- A Special Commission meeting will be held on Monday, October 30, at 7 p.m., with the single item on the agenda to consider signing a contract for a timber company to clear the sports park of standing timber.
- Commission Clerk Kelly Banton stated the storm drainage work at the county courthouse should be completed by the end of October.
