Various Fayette County offices/buildings will be closed the Friday and Monday of Labor Day weekend — Friday, Sept. 3 and Monday, Sept. 6.
Those buildings, according to the county commissioners’ office, will include: the Administrative Services Building, the Board of Elections, the Fayette County Courthouse, the Fayette County Commission on Aging, the Fayette County Building Department, the Fayette County Engineer’s Office and the Fayette County Landfill.
The reason behind the closure for Friday, Sept. 3 is to observe the Juneteenth holiday.
As previously reported and according to commissioner Dan Dean, the announcement of Juneteenth becoming a federal and state holiday came too last minute for most offices to close on June 19 this year, the date of the holiday. By observing the holiday on Friday, Sept. 3 this year, county employees will be able to have a four-day weekend as Monday, Sept. 6 is Labor Day and already a day county employees have off.
Beginning next year, June 19 will be observed as a legal county holiday.
The term “Juneteenth” is a blend of the words June and nineteenth. The holiday has also been called Juneteenth Independence Day or Freedom Day. The celebration started with the freed slaves of Galveston, Texas. Although the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in the South in 1863, it could not be enforced in many places until after the end of the Civil War in 1865.
Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and his troops arrived at Galveston on June 19, 1865, with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. That was more than two months after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia.
In other news from the commissioners’ office, two agreements were recently approved that would allow two other counties to house their prisoners in the new Fayette County Jail for a set cost.
Those counties are Gallia County and Meigs County. The financial terms are as follows: the other counties must pay $65 per day per inmate housed in the Fayette County Jail. Gallia and Meigs will be responsible for any ambulance/life squad fees and a $35 fee per hour for medical escort to and from the Adena Fayette Medical Center emergency room, as well as for all hospital care and services incident to their prisoners.
Both agreements are in place through Dec. 31, but may be modified, extended or terminated through mutual agreement.
The commissioners also authorized the use of “American Rescue Plan Act” funding, a total of $340,038, for projects through different local entities, including:
—$135,745 for The Fayette County Prevention Coalition: Pathways to Recovery
—$96,298 for the Rose Avenue Community Center After School Program
—$17,995 for Transportation
—$90,000 for Treatment and Prevention Services in the Schools
Stay with the Record-Herald weekly for more updates from the Fayette County Commissioners. The Fayette County Commissioners’ Office is located at 133 S. Main St., suite 401 in Washington Court House, and their office hours are Monday-Friday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. They can be reached at 740-335-0720. Condensed minutes from the meetings are available on the county website.
Reach journalist Jennifer Woods at 740-313-0355.
