I’ve attended a bunch of commissioners meetings over the years, but Tuesday morning’s was special.
Why, because for the first time in many years, Gary Darlage and Steve Gill, weren’t sitting behind the table.
Both those men dedicated years of their lives to public service.
Did they do a perfect job? No, in fact, there were times when I thought they both made mistakes.
Public service, however, is never an easy job for a lot of reasons. In fact, it’s generally a thankless job, and the pay isn’t that great either. Both generally tried to look out for the interests of every Jackson County resident and not just themselves or some special interest group.
So I want to thank both Darlage and Gill for their public service.
I think the next four years will be interesting.
The new members, Republican Jerrry Hounshel and Democrat John Schafstall, are no strangers to politics or public service for that matter so I expect the work of the board will continue as normal. And yes, they will make mistakes and decisions that are not always the most popular.
Hounshel, who replaces Darlage, served the county for years as a police officer and as sheriff. Schafstall, who replaced Gill, also served a stint as commissioner back in the 1990s.
I think both tend to speak their minds, just in different ways. Hounshel, who lived in Virginia before moving to Vallonia as a child, is soft-spoken and rarely gets rile. He does, however, has his views on how government should work.
Schafstall is not as soft spoken as Hounshel, but he gets his point across as well.
In the middle of those two will sit Republican Monte Striegel who seems to be strong when it comes to supporting the people who put him into office and expect him to do his job.
It looks like it could be a good four years.
P.S. By the way, I also think the commissioners’ decision to hold one of their two monthly meetings at night is a good one. Sure it will mess with my schedule, but I think that our public officials need to be more accessible to the people they serve. I hope this experiment works out.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.