As procedure each year the Geary County Commission re-organizes and Monday Commissioner Larry Hicks was named the new Commission Chairman.

Hicks said that 2014 will be a challenging year like every year is in government,”I’m looking forward to it and I hope that we will be able to give the type of direction and leadership on be half of tax payers and voters in this county that they deserve.”

Commissioner Florence Whitebread was appointed as Vice Chair and out going Commission Chairman, Ben Bennett was appointed Secretary.

Each Commissioner was re-appointed to the various boards that they serve on as well.

Whitebread will continue to serve on the Animal Shelter board where she plans to continue to push for building upgrades, “The building needs a lot of work done to it.”

“There’s just a number of issues that we need to address out there,” Whitebread said. “It’s a matter of funding what we can do with what we’ve got. There’s a lot of goals but whether we can fund them or not is the big problem.”

Hicks was re-appointed to the Economic Development Board and he said his main focus will be on assessing what would be the right business’s for the area. “The end results would be that we will be able to create not only new business’s but new job opportunities. New job opportunities and new business’s would mean an opportunity for us to have a lower tax base at some point.”

Commissioner Bennett will re-assume his position on the Flint Hills Regional Council Board, which he chairs.

The FHRC is continuing to focus on regional transportation. One project is a Regional Transit Authority in order to gain federal grant money. “We then can run through and provide those grants to organizations such as aTa Bus, to keep funding that and keep that in motion.”