SCBC name Ivester Chairperson for 2021

The Stephens County Board of Commissioners has selected its Chair and Vice-Chair to serve throughout 2021.

On Tuesday, during its special called meeting, Commissioner James Addison nominated Commissioner Michelle Ivester to serve as Chairman of the Board.

“First, I’d like to say ‘thank you, Dennis’ this has been a tough year, with phone calls and meetings. But we all survived. With that being said, this next year, isn’t going to be any easier, it’s going to be a tough year too, and we need our Chairperson to be there, to be at all the meetings, and I know its difficult for some of us to be at all of the meetings. But I would like to nominate Michelle Ivester to be our next Chairperson,” he said.

Current Vice-Chair Debbie Whitlock spoke out against the nomination, saying that normally, the Commission selects the Chairman in a rotation and that she was the one who should serve next.

“As a rule, we generally rotate Chair and this year it is my turn to be Chair. I didn’t even find out I wasn’t being nominated until this morning, an hour before the meeting, so I was a little taken aback…I understand that my fellow commissioners are concerned, because my son is very sick, I have a six-year-old that I am raising, I have a very busy practice and sometimes it makes it very difficult to be everywhere I need to be. You know, these were some of the same issues that were brought up the last time prior to nominating me as Chair, where I felt I did a good job as Chair,” she said.

Commissioner Dean Scarborough explained that the rotation the commission normally follows is not policy.

“I will add that this is not an automatic thing that happens, and in your time that you’ve served, it has not always been followed. Of course, in the 12 years that I’ve served it definitely hasn’t been fulfilled as an automatic rotation. But even in the time that you’ve served, it’s often has not been automatic, Dennis has served two times in a row one time. It may be a practice in the last couple of years, but it’s not always practiced, and it’s not a policy,” he said.

Despite Whitlock’s complaint, Addison made a motion for Ivester to serve as Chair and Scarborough seconded that motion.

The motion was approved unanimously.

Then, the Commission selected its Vice-Chair to serve in 2021.

Ivester nominated Addison to serve as Vice-Chair.

A motion was made by Ivester with Addison seconding the motion.

The motion was approved unanimously.