Councilman Sam Bishop was appointed vice mayor of Christiansburg by the town council at Tuesday’s meeting.
The group approved unanimously the appointment of the second-term councilman Tuesday night.
The first meeting of the New Year served as re-organization time for council as it took care of several administrative matters including vice-mayor.
Bishop was first appointed to council to fill the remaining 12-month term of Mayor Michael Barber, and was then reelected this past May.
He is a lifelong resident of Christiansburg and served 21 years in the U.S. Army, and later with the Blacksburg Police Department for 28 years. Bishop is also a life member of the Christiansburg Rescue Squad.
The vice-mayor position has been rotating through the group, and Bishop replaces Henry Showalter who served in the role last year.
The Montgomery County Christmas Store was honored by Christiansburg Town at Tuesday’s meeting. Pictured are board members: (from left) President George Jackson and Ellen Krupan, Sally Bouland, Jo Lynn Price and Terri Lynn Howard. This past year, the Christmas Store helped 1,448 households and 4,094 people in 2016. An estimated 674 of those households were from Christiansburg.
The group also agreed to keep its meetings at 7 p.m. on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month.
Council reappointed Steve Biggs as town manager, Valerie Tweedy as treasurer, Mark Sisson as police chief, Theresa Fontana as town attorney and Michelle Stipes as council clerk.
Committee appointments included the following: Water, Sewer and Solid Waste: Cord Hall and Henry Showalter; Street: Showalter and Brad Stipes; Finance: Showalter and Stipes; Emergency Services: Sam Bishop and Steve Huppert; Central Business: Bishop and Showalter and Cemetery: Huppert.
Christiansburg officials also took the opportunity to add four new members to its planning commission. They are: Catherine Garner, Mark Curtis, Ann Sandbrook and Jeananne Knies.
Garner is a planning technician for the Montgomery County Planning and GIS department and in 2014 served as a planner for the City of Salisbury, North Carolina. She holds a bachelor of arts in geography and regional planning from the University of North Carolina and a masters of historic preservation from the University of Georgia.
Curtis is a district manager for Harbison Walker International, a local manufacturer, and is a certified purchasing manager from the Institute for Supply Management.
Sandbrook is a wine analysis lab specialist for the Food Science and Technology Department at Virginia Tech and has past experience as a quality assurance assistant at the White Wave Food Company in Mount Crawford.
Kries is currently a graduate assistant at Virginia Tech and has served in a similar capacity in the past at Radford University.
In other matters, council agreed to shift money collected from hazardous material incidents to the fire department’s truck reserve fund. Approximately $16,000 has been recouped from three recent spills and accidents.