Commission plans Monday night meeting
By Steve Herring
Published in News on September 16, 2012 1:50 AM
DUDLEY -- Wayne County commissioners Monday night will hold their second and final scheduled evening meeting.
There is no set agenda for the meeting, which will start at 6 p.m. at the Southern Wayne High School cafeteria.
The first meeting, held Aug. 27 in Pikeville, attracted about two dozen people -- seven of whom spoke. The audience included three commissioner candidates, a former school board candidate and several Republican Party officials.
There was no agenda for that meeting, which lasted just over an hour, other than a time for comments from the public and commissioners.
The same format will be followed at Monday's session.
Commissioners normally hold their meetings on the first and third Tuesday mornings of the month. However, over the past several months, the board's two Republican members, Steve Keen and Ray Mayo, as well as a few others, have attempted to convince the board to switch to evening sessions.
The Democrats on the board continue to successfully stymie such a change. But they were the ones who in March voted 5-2 to hold two or three evening meetings in different areas of the county. Mayo and Keen voted no.
The vote followed a 5-2 defeat of Mayo's motion that all board meetings start at 6:30 p.m.
Mayo said he was concerned about holding the meetings in different areas of the county instead of the commissioners' meeting room, where people might normally expect the board to meet.
Keen said he was concerned that meeting in other locations could mean no radio and television coverage.