Bell Takes Over As Commission Chair

Stephens County Commissioners select their chair and vice-chair for the year ahead.

Tuesday, county commissioners met and unanimously elected Dennis Bell to serve as Chairman of the Stephens County Commission in 2015.

Bell served as Vice-Chair in 2014 and says he looks forward to serving as chairman in the year ahead.

He said he has four main goals that he wants to work on and see accomplished in the next year.

“The main goal is to try to reduce the millage rate,” said Bell. “The second one is to start working on these roads to get them back up to par to where they should be. The third one is to try to get some more jobs in there. The fourth one is to get fire stations built before July 1.”

The fire stations Bell refers to are sub-stations planned for a number of fire departments in the county that will be built with SPLOST funds and when completed, are planned to be located in areas where they would help lower the ISO ratings of residents in areas of the county that are not currently close to a fire station.

Lower ISO ratings result in lower rates on homeowner’s insurance.

Meanwhile, county commissioners also selected a Vice-Chairman for 2015.

Commissioner Stanley London first nominated Commissioner Debbie Whitlock to serve in that role.

However, Whitlock cited numerous job and family obligations that could prevent her from filling that vice-chair role, so she declined.

Commissioners than unanimously chose Dean Scarborough, who served as Chairman in 2014, to serve as Vice-Chairman in 2015.

County commissioners also handled a number of re-appointments for the year ahead, making no changes, and also assigned commissioners to various boards on which the county is represented.