At its regular meeting Tuesday, the Greenbrier County Commission approved Draw Request #21 for the GigReady Broadband Project, the county’s ongoing broadband expansion initiative aimed at providing nearly 170 miles of new high-speed fiber across the county.
Attending via Zoom, Amanda Smarr, Region 4 project specialist, informed the commission that the draw request in the amount of $27,600 pertained to two invoices from Thomson & Litton, the engineering firm working on the project, for $12,600 and $15,000. Greenbrier County is responsible for $6,900 of the total draw request.
– known as draw requests – → — known as draw requests —
The commission also approved a request from the project contractor to be able to work weekends. Commissioner Woody Hanna asked for clarification whether the contractor was asking for additional money for working weekends, and after Smarr informed the commissioners the contractor was not seeking additional funding, the commission voted unanimously to approve the request.
Additionally, the commissioners voted unanimously to sign resolutions and approve grant acceptance paperwork for the Community Corrections Grant for $263,000 and the Justice Reinvestment grant for $71,735.
Deputy Billy Mitchell, Jr. spoke at the meeting on behalf of the Greenbrier County Sheriff’s Department and asked the commission to vote to allow the department to apply for a Homeland Security Grant to purchase three ballistic shields for the SWAT team. Mitchell stated that although the grant proposal would identify the shields as for SWAT team members, the equipment would be available to any law enforcement officials in the county for use. The commission voted unanimously to approve the grant application.
In addition to the approval of several administrative items on the agenda that included employment status changes for two county employees, the commission also considered approval of a letter of engagement with Claytor Enterprises LLC to prepare financial statements for the county for fiscal year 2026, as the firm did the previous year, and the commission voted unanimously to approve the letter.
Prior to the commission’s adjournment of the meeting, Commission President Lowell Rose announced future meetings which included two sessions of the Hotel Occupancy Public Hearing, which will be held Sept. 2 at 11 a.m. and Sept. 3 at 6 p.m. in the commission’s reading room, and the two sessions of the Zoning Ordinance Public Hearings, which will be held Sept. 14 at noon and Sept. 15 at 6 p.m.
