The Vance County Board of Commissioners elected Sean Alston to chair the 7-member board and Carolyn Faines was elected as vice-chair at the regular monthly meeting Monday night.
In other action, the commissioners added June 19 – Juneteenth – to the list of county-observed holidays and approved dates for its regular monthly meetings, which will remain the first Monday of each month, the exception being Mar. 10, 2025.
The chair and vice-chair elections took place just after the newly elected and re-elected commissioners were sworn in for their four-year terms.
Faines bested challenger William Heitman in the only contested race in the Nov. 5 election to retain her District 1 seat. Commissioners Yolanda Feimster and Leo Kelly ran unopposed for their seats in Districts 6 and 5, respectively.
And newcomer Valencia Perry, who beat Archie Taylor in the March 2024 primary, was sworn in to the District 2 seat.
In an interview back in February as part of WIZS’s election coverage, Perry said her focus is on education, school funding, mental health services and the county jail. A Vance County native, Perry has a background in accounting and is an ordained minister.
As a commissioner, she said she will be “a fresh set of eyes” to help make “long-needed change in Vance County.”
Her work on the Vance County Housing Authority Board helped her realize just how critical financial responsibility is, she said at the time. “I had a chance to help people move forward and not stay stuck,” she said. “We’ve done a lot of great things and I feel good about it,” she said of her work with the housing authority.
Another need she sees in the county is a diversion center for those in crisis because of mental health or substance abuse issues. “It is so important,” Perry said, that people have “somewhere they can be safely cared for by professionals who know what to do.”
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