Beaufort County is looking for a few, good volunteers to represent the county’s residents on some 35 boards and commissions that help direct the business of the county and the region.
To help in that search, the county has posted an application for citizen service-volunteer form on the county’s website at www.co.beaufort.nc.us that will help the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners identify potential appointees to those panels under the board’s purview.
“Hopefully this process will involve more citizens in Beaufort County Government activities and this will be a great accomplishment,” said County Manager Randell K. Woodruff, in a statement to the Daily News about the form. “Citizen engagement will only strengthen and enhance the quality of our work.”
The one-page form asks potential volunteers for their names and townships in which they live and asks them to identify the boards or commissions on which they are interested in serving as well as education or interests that might be helpful to a board or commission.
It also notes that members of boards and commissions are expected to attend at least 75 percent of board or commission meetings.
Each month, the county commissioners generally are asked to make a series of appointments and, occasionally, those appointments are delayed while the commissioners search for someone willing to serve.
The boards and commissions to which county leaders routinely make appointments cover a variety of issues including agriculture, beverage control, crime, education, health, housing, planning, social services and work-force training.
Those include boards overseeing the county’s volunteer agricultural districts, the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, the county’s criminal justice partnership board, the Beaufort County Community College Board of Trustees, the Beaufort County Board of Health, a board that oversees public housing, various planning and adjustment boards, the county’s social services board and the Region Q Workforce Preparedness Board, among others.
A link to the volunteer service application is as follows: www.co.beaufort.nc.us/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2012/01/01-09-2012citizenserviceapptform.pdf.