Jackson Progress-Argus

Roger McDaniel

In a flurry of appointments traditionally made at the first of the year, the Butts County Board of Commissioners re-elected District V Commissioner Roger McDaniel to be its chairman for another year.

The position comes not only with the responsibility of signing official county papers, but also leading commission meetings and keeping the proceedings on track.

McDaniel, a Georgia Power employee who is in his first term as commissioner, gets the reins of the Board of Commissioners for the second year in a row, after the election by fellow board members Monday night.

“It’s been a privilege this past year -- 2011 -- serving as chairman,” McDaniel said. “You couldn’t ask for a greater Board of Commissioners to work with. True, we never agree on everything there is out there, but the thing is, we can agree to disagree and not be disagreeable in conducting our business.

“One thing is for sure: I have no doubt this board and staff has the best interest of Butts County at heart in the decisions we make and our actions on a daily basis,” he added.

McDaniel took office in 2009 and will face re-election this year. He previously served as vice chairman of the board in 2010.

The Board of Commissioners also elected J. Keith Douglas, the commissioner for District 4, as vice chairman.

Both votes were unanimous.

Douglas was elected in a special election in 2009, and was re-elected to a full term in 2010 without opposition. Douglas works for the Georgia Department of Corrections and represents one of two districts with heavy minority populations.

In other action Monday night, the Board of Commissioners re-appointed Jessica E. Reynolds as county clerk, and Michael A. O’Quinn as county attorney.

Allen Byars, chairman of the Butts County Planning and Zoning Commission, was re-appointed to the panel for a five-year term, and Alton Stewart was tapped for three years on the Board of Zoning Appeals.

Banking transition

The Board of Commissioners also on Monday night voted to move its money to another banking institution.

Interim County Administrator J. Michael Brewer said that under former County Administrator Alan E. White, proposals for handling the county’s day-to-day banking business had been solicited from three institutions, and that United Bank had been deemed the most responsive.

He said the transition of the county’s 32 different accounts from the current institution, Hamilton State Bank, to United Bank, would begin this month and wrap up by the start of the next fiscal year, in July.

The county is required either by law or by conditions of grants to keep certain funds in separate accounts.

Brewer said the county’s accounts had been at Hamilton, formerly McIntosh State Bank, since at least the early 2000s.