It was a full agenda at the final meeting of the Christian Fiscal Court for 2024 Friday morning, with magistrates approving a pilot program at the Christian County Jail, agreements concerning tornado shelters and repairs to the ceiling of the Alhambra Theatre and much more.
First up, magistrates approved the budgets for fiscal year 2025 for both the Christian County Clerk’s Office and the Christian County Sheriff’s Office. Then, they moved forward with a memorandum of understanding between the Christian County Jail and Empowered Minds BHS.
Empowered Minds is a mental health service in the community founded by Ashley Boze, and Jailer Adam Smith explained Friday morning that the hope is, with this partnership, that they continue to provide aid and resources to county inmates even after they leave the jail.
The goal is to cut down on the number of ‘frequent fliers’ at the jail by aiding those individuals in building the connections and support to not re-offend, with Smith saying it would ultimately help those folks and the jail itself.
Magistrates approved the measure, and approved an agreement with Chris Spurr to move into the next step of constructing 13 tornado shelters across the county. The goal is to have a tornado shelter within quick driving distance of most county citizens with Judge-Executive Jerry Gilliam saying they hope to have real progress under way in the spring.
Magistrates also approved another agreement with Spurr to determine the process and the plan for repairing the ceiling at the historic Alhambra Theatre, with Judge Gilliam explaining there’s been some issues with the plaster.
In other action, magistrates approved several appointments to county boards and committees, along with a lease renewal between the Division of Forestry and Christian County and a deed transfer from Agri-Chem to Christian County Local Government. The land is in the Herndon community is will be the site of one of the tornado shelters.