Highland Supervisors Defer Purchase Of New Sheriffs Dept Vehicle

Monterey, VA – The Highland County Board of Supervisors met this past Tuesday evening to consider Sheriff Herb Lightner’s request for a new police cruiser to replace a 2001 vehicle with over 120,000 miles. The Supervisors did not put money for a new police car in this year’s budget and there was some concern about finding sufficient funds at the end of the current budget year. Supervisor David Blanchard had a suggestion for the Board.

“I spoke to Herb [Lightner]; there are a couple of ideas I think that we’ll have to include some sort of funding in the budget” he says. “We could get the process started earlier of funding for a car and if we had money available within this budget then possibly we could put that into the pot for a new car and then budget in this upcoming 2012 budget the rest of that so all the monies would be in place.”

County Administrator Roberta Lambert noted that if the county missed this year’s deadline for a state contract vehicle purchase there are other options for buying a vehicle later this year. The Supervisors all voted to defer purchase of a new police vehicle until later this year. In other business, County Administrator Lambert reported to the board on the current status of a grant to help fund purchase of new, energy-efficient windows for the school.

“The County has received a potential grant award from the Appalachian Regional Commission for replacement of windows at the high school” says Lambert. “The initial budget was estimated to be $341,000.00.”

Ms. Lambert noted that the grant is still waiting for final approval.

“The ARC project list is on the [Virginia] Governor’s desk and he is going to recommend 14 awards that were under the area development funding portion of the ARC grant applications” she says. “Highland’s award would be $100,000.00 if it goes through the Governor. Then it has to go on to ARC at the federal level and be approved there.”

The grant has a one-to-one match provision, so the County will have to put up $100,000 dollars to match the amount of the grant. Supervisor Rexrode suggested that construction material costs have decreased over the past few years and it is likely that the total cost of this project will be significantly less than first thought.

He also recommended that the Supervisors and School Board have window manufacturers representatives come to the school after the grant has been approved to determine the best window design for the school building. The Supervisors then unanimously approved a motion to accept the grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission.

The next regular meeting of the Highland County Board of Supervisors will be Tuesday, March 1 at 7:30 PM in the Modular Conference Center in Monterey.

Story By

Heather Niday

Heather is our Program Director and Traffic Manager. She started with Allegheny Mountain Radio as a volunteer deejay. She then joined the AMR staff in February of 2007. Heather grew up in the Richmond, Virginia, area and now lives in Arbovale, West Virginia with her husband Chuck. Heather is a wonderful flute player, and choir director for Arbovale UMC. You can hear Heather along with Chuck on Tuesday nights from 6 to 8pm as they host two hours of jazz on Something Different.

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