County considers community events board

Tentative approval was given during a Columbia County Community and Emergency Services Committee meeting Thursday to create a county community events board.

"The board is meant to act as oversight for events in Columbia County and for county funds used for these events," Community and Leisure Services Director Barry Smith explained to commissioners Ron Cross and Lee Anderson, both of whom sit on the CES committee.

Smith proposed that event board members include a media professional, a member of the Columbia County Chamber of Commerce, three at-large members and two employees of Community and Leisure Services.

"We're trying to set up an advisory board that, in this case, will oversee the Memorial Day celebration and other things," said former Columbia County Board of Commissioners Chairman Jim Whitehead, who initially proposed the event-board concept.

Current Board of Commissioners Chairman Ron Cross favors the idea but stipulated that the events committee establish subcommittees for each event.

The item was placed on the consent agenda for the next commissioners' meeting March 16 at the Columbia County Government Complex.

In other meeting news, Emergency Services Director Pam Tucker announced that the county will be equipped with east Georgia's only emergency mobile command vehicle by August. Last year, her office received a $448,000 federal homeland security grant, approved by the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, to purchase and equip the vehicle.

A 40-foot recreational vehicle will be converted into a communications center for use in emergency situations, such as a tornado, when several emergency divisions are acting in concert.

A proposal to name April as Confederate History Month in Columbia County will be further debated at the next meeting of the full board. Cross asked that Smith research what the state and other Georgia counties do to memorialize the month when the Civil War ended, and present the findings to the commissioners March 16.