The Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors’ organizational meeting Tuesday, Jan. 14, featured, among other actions, the election of a new board chair and vice chair and the adoption of board bylaws that included some changes to the annually updated rotation for chair and vice chair.

The board bylaws, included within the board meeting packet, noted that commencing with the organizational meeting held in January of 2020, the following would be the rotation based upon the members in office as of January 2020:

2020: Chair 301 Leigh District Supervisor Jerry R. Townsend and Vice Chair 601 Prospect District Supervisor J. David Emert

2021: Chair 601 Prospect District Supervisor J. David Emert and Vice Chair 401 Hampden District Supervisor Dr. Odessa Pride

2022: Chair 401 Hampden District Supervisor Dr. Odessa Pride and Vice Chair 501 Buffalo District Supervisor Llew Gilliam Jr.

2023: Chair 501 Buffalo District Supervisor Llew Gilliam Jr. and Vice Chair 101 Farmville District Supervisor Beverly M. Booth

2024: Chair 101 Farmville District Supervisor Beverly M. Booth and Vice Chair 201 Lockett District Supervisor Robert M. “Bobby” Jones

Prince Edward County Administrator Wade Bartlett drew attention to this projection of the rotation, highlighting what it denotes for 2020, specifically referencing the vice chair position.

“If you’d looked at last year’s, it would have said 501, but because of the stipulation that a board member must have served a year to be vice chair, that required us to move 501 down because Mr. Gilliam would not have had a year, so we just moved David up,” he said.

Gilliam was appointed to the board in February 2019 to replace C.R. “Bob” Timmons Jr., who announced at the board’s Jan. 8, 2019 organizational meeting that he would be resigning effective Jan. 31, 2019.

Continuing his breakdown of the new projected rotation, Bartlett said, “Then after that, I just then moved 401, which is Dr. Pride, (she) would then serve as vice chair next year, and then I put 501. And the reason I did that — it’s a little out of order — is, that would be the last district (that) would serve as vice chair, then chairman. And then after that, we start all over again. Because if you put 501 down at the end, it would be many years before that district would have had a chair. And this way, that would be our eighth year — which is in 2023 — that we started this, and every district would have had one member as a chair.”

Bartlett added, “It’s a little different than what you had seen, but I felt that that was fair.”

Townsend called for a motion adopting the board bylaws, and he noted that the vote in favor was unanimous.

The bylaws also noted the board chair and vice chair for previous years:

2016: Chair 101 Farmville District Supervisor Howard F. Simpson and Vice Chair 201 Lockett District Supervisor Robert M. “Bobby” Jones

2017: Chair 201 Lockett District Supervisor Robert M. “Bobby” Jones and Vice Chair 801 Farmville District Supervisor Pattie Cooper-Jones

2018: Chair 801 Farmville District Supervisor Pattie Cooper-Jones and Vice Chair 701 Farmville District Supervisor Jim Wilck

2019: Chair 701 Farmville District Supervisor Jim Wilck and Vice Chair 301 Leigh District Supervisor Jerry R. Townsend