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PARKERSBURG -- The Wood County Commission set its meeting dates and who serves on what committee during the first meeting of the new year on Thursday.
Commissioners Blair Couch, Jimmy Colombo and Robert Tebay unanimously agreed on meeting times and more for how they will meet and conduct business in 2024.
The commission agreed its meeting times will remain at 9:30 a.m. on Mondays and Thursdays. They will handle probate cases on the third Thursday of the month with the Wood County prosecutor present if possible.
Officials have highlighted how often they meet and how accessible to the public they are as a commission. They have said they meet more than any other commission in the state, twice a week.
Couch will remain as president with Colombo as President Pro Tem. Colombo said with the Wood County Resiliency Center expected to be finished later this year, the commission needed to retain its current leadership to see the project through.
"I have always believed in finishing projects and seeing things through," Colombo said. "Of the three of us, (Couch) has had more onsite experience down there.
"I think that should be the way to finish it."
The agenda for meetings will be posted outside the doors of the courthouse, in the Office of the County Administrator and on the county's website at woodcountywv.com.
The commission also made its committee assignments.
The commission decided not to assign anyone to the Wood County Solid Waste Authority as the board already has two former county commissioners on it, Rick Modesitt and Wayne Dunn.
All three commissioners will serve on the Wood County Commission on Crime, Delinquency and Corrections as well as the Local Emergency Planning Committee.
Couch will serve on the Wood County Parks and Recreation Commission (Mountwood Park), the Parkersburg-Wood County Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Health Department of the Mid-Ohio Valley, the Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Council, Downtown PKB, the Community Corrections/Day Report Center Board and the Wood County Fire Service Board.
Tebay will serve on the Wood County Airport Authority, Wood County Development Authority, the West Virginia University Extension Board and the Workforce Investment Board.
Colombo will be the commission's representative on the Wood County Recreation Commission, the Wood County Planning Commission, the Enhanced 911 Communications Advisory Board and the Wood-Wirt Interstate Planning Board.
The commission will also make appointments to a number of boards and committees in the coming year. The commission is requesting a representative from these organizations to deliver meeting minutes and give an update on what the boards and committees are doing.
These include the Mid-Ohio Valley Board of Health, the Parkersburg/Wood County Visitors and Convention Bureau (quarterly), the Wood County Building Commission, the Wood County Parks and Recreation Commission (quarterly), the Wood County Solid Waste Authority (quarterly) and the Wood County Development Authority.
In other business, the commission swore in Dawn Miller as the new office manager/legal assistant for the Wood County Prosecutor's Office.
Next Thursday, the commission will be discussing what they are planning to do with over $800,000 in opioid settlement money the county has received.
Wood County Clerk Joe Gonzales said $858,909.89 was deposited in a local bank in an interest bearing account.
"That should generate a good amount of money," County Administrator Marty Seufer said.
Couch has been contacted by people around the community interested in how the money will be spent.
Colombo said they needed to get a list together of people and organizations who have asked for a portion of these funds and see who they might be able to allot money to and discuss what the commission might be able to do.
Ideas included paying the county's jail bill, funding a new prosecutor and a new Wood County Sheriff's Deputy for a three-year period and seeing how each office might be able to make the positions permanent through their regular funding. Wood County Prosecutor Pat Lefebure said there is a grant he applied for that he now thinks he will not be able to get and this money could fill that. Programs like the Teen Drug Court, the Adult Drug Court, the Day Report Center could all have use for this funding.
"We will see," Couch said.
Brett Dunlap can be reached at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com