By Gary Lee Stuber
The first monthly meeting of the Clay County Commission was held on Tuesday, Nov. 12 at 8 a.m. The time and date were not typical. The meeting is usually held the second Monday of every month at 10 a.m., but because of the Veterans’ Day Monday federal holiday the meeting was rescheduled for Tuesday. And because of the State Mandated Election Canvas was to begin at 10 a.m., they held the meeting at 8 a.m. Two Commissioners were present: Joyce Johnson and David Schoolcraft. Connie Kinder was not present and may have been teaching that morning. She lost her seat on the Commission the week before to Duane Legg but will remain on the commission for the rest of the year. Duane Legg was present for the meeting as well, and sat in the back of the room.
The meeting also set a record for being short. The meeting lasted less than ten minutes. They took care of routine business: approving bills, purchase orders, budget revisions, waivers of final settlements, and wills and estate resolutions. They approved a grant for firewall protection for the Assessor’s Office.
They also gave a public report of an emergency meeting held by the Commission on Election Day. The County Prosecutor suddenly resigned to accept a better position in Charleston and Attorney Wayne King was sworn in to become interim Prosecutor until his own term would begin.
County Clerk Shelia Stone also gave a public report on how the Election Vote Canvas would be done. All precincts would be listed on small sheets of paper and put into a hat and one drawn out so that the precinct canvassed would be completely random. Then all those ballots for that selected Precinct would be hand counted. That includes any early vote ballots that would be separated from all Early Voting, and Absentee Vote ballots as well. At the end of the count, if it matches the previously reported tally, then the canvas was over. All ballots would be certified. If the count was off, then all ballots for all precincts would need to be hand counted. Fortunately. the tally was right and the ballots were certified.
The Clay County Commission announced that the bid opening for the Judicial Annex will be held at the Clay County Commission at 1 p.m. on Nov. 14. The bid opening for the Big Otter Waterline Extension will be held at the Clay County PSD office at 1 p.m. on Nov. 14. The Commission noted that these were bid openings only and that no bid would be awarded at that time.
The next meeting of the Clay County Commission will be held at 5 p.m. on Nov 25.
