KINGWOOD — The first order of business at the first meeting of the Preston County Commission in 2022 was electing one of its members to serve as president for the year.
Commission President Samantha Stone said she was excited to serve in the role again. Her first time doing so was in 2020. Commissioner Don Smith served as president in 2021.
“The role of president truly isn’t much different, as we all three have to lead, share in the same responsibilities, but conducting the meeting … signing off on the bills and things like that, but just representing the commission when we go someplace when we do something, you know, oftentimes, that’s the president that is taking the lead,” Stone said.
Commissioner Dave Price nominated Stone for the position despite it being his turn in the rotation the commission established a couple of years ago.
“I’m not trying to slack,” Price said. “But since I am not planning to seek reelection in the coming election, I wanted to have people who were going to be working on projects to kind of lead the way.”
Price said after 20 years it was time to hang it up. A lot has changed in the county since Price started serving on the commission. There was no county annex, no 911 center and barely an animal shelter.
“A lot of things take place that you don’t think about until you start pondering what all happened in the last 20 years,” Price said.
Stone was sworn in by county clerk Linda Huggins.
Other yearly business included assigning commissioners to various committees and setting the time for the regular meetings.
Meetings will continue to be held on Tuesdays, however, they will start at 9:30 a.m., 30 minutes later than in 2021.
Stone said her reason for proposing the change is because there have been several instances where commissioners attend early morning meetings causing either a rescheduled commission meeting or a commissioner rushing to make it on time.
“I think in the best interest of being timely and not holding people up, I think 9:30 is probably a really good option to go with,” Stone said.
The meeting procedures were unchanged as were the commissioner’s board and committee assignments.
