“On that note, I am going to make a motion to elect Commissioner Cheryl Musgrave as president of the Vanderburgh County Board of Commissioners for 2023,” said District 1 Commissioner Ben Shoulders.
His motion passed, making District 3 Commissioner Cheryl Musgrave the president of the three-person County Commission.
“The role is to, first of all, run the meetings, to set the agenda, and to basically coordinate the efforts of the commission,” she said.
Musgrave will serve a one-year term. Jeff Hatfield was the president previously and he did not seek reelection. Newcomer Justin Elpers was elected vice president.
Musgrave said she’s adjusting one part of the commission's leadership paradigm. This year, commissioners will also be the county point person for each board on which they serve.
“So everybody has a role this year. And everybody knows what their assignments are. And the staff know who to call when a matter arises,” Musgrave said.
Examples include Elpers on the Highway Department, Shoulders on the Evansville Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy Committee and Musgrave on Vanderburgh County Redevelopment Commission.
Each serves on at least four county boards aside from the Solid Waste Board and Drainage Board.
“So it's just like traffic management, and a little bit of leadership as well,” Musgrave said.
The commission also made dozens of appointments to the various county boards such as the Electrical Examiners Board and the Greenway Advisory Board.
Musgrave said the first project they tackled was helping kick off the potential redesign of Petersburgh Road to make it safer for students.
“And as you know, Petersburg road has had one new school built on it already. And the school corp. was talking about building another one across the street.”
