Paying the bills and taking care of routine business took up most of the time during Friday’s meeting of the Wood County Commissioners Court, but the county bosses strayed from their mundane duties to pass a proclamation to declare October Domestic Violence Awareness Month in Wood County.

They also held a public hearing on a plat revision for the Holly Lake Ranch Subdivision, and approved a road permit for transporting of logs over Pct. 4 county roads.

It took the court just over half an hour to conduct all their formal business Friday as the commissioners moved quickly through as 15-item agenda.

During the routine business chores, the court approved hiring of 10 part-time personnel to work in the general election and granted a raise to one county employee, as well as approved the county payroll, line-item transfers and budget amendments, paying the county’s bills, approving constable reports and approving the treasurer’s report.

In the Holly Lakes Ranch Subdivision, there was a request for a revision to combine Lots 79, 80 and 81 in Section VI into one large lot. This request encountered no opposition and was unanimously approved.

L&L Logging of Ore City sought a permit to move overweight equipment or loads over roads of the Wood County road system. The permit was requested so that the company may haul timber over County Road 3588 and 3990 between October 10 and November 10. Pct. 4 Commissioner Russell Acker had no objection to this permit and the court gave it unanimous approval.

The Wood County Industrial Commission had two members to its board of directors approved by the court on Friday. The okay for J.R. Simpson’s re-nomination to that board as a representative from Yantis, and the appointment of Marcella Smith as a representative from Alba got unanimous approval from the court.

Pct. 1 Commissioner Virgil Holland and his wife Debra received the approval via resolution appointing them to serve six year terms on the board of directors of the East Texas Housing Finance Corporation as representatives of Wood County.

Near the bottom of the agenda Friday was an item calling for the approval of a resolution for the Indigent Defense Grant Program for 2017, which received unanimous approval. That little item can be a big item for the county at times because it provides grant money for use in defense of indigent defense services which the county must provide for certain individuals. Statewide for the year starting Nov. 1, 2016, $24,000,000 has been budgeted for this program and each county in Texas will receive $5,000 automatically.

However, there are formulas based on population and previous years’ expenses for indigent defense which can make many more funds available to the county. The only two catches to the program are that a county cannot receive more funds than it did the year before and any funds granted and not spent must be returned to the Texas Indigent Defense Commission.