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Lilesville has a new county commissioner, Vancine Sturdivant.

Sturdivant was selected and sworn in May 1 to replace the late Claude Spencer. The vote was 4-1 and came after the Anson County Democratic Party’s Executive Committee selected her as its candidate. Sturdivant is the chairwoman of the Democratic Party in Anson and had to recuse herself from the vote as she would normally be able to cast a ballot.

Commissioner Harold Smith voted against her selection. He objected that he wanted to nominate someone else and was not given the chance.

In other business at the county commissioners meeting Tuesday night, Dan Mace, an employee with Moseley Architects, gave a briefing on the new Emergency Services Center. The center would be single floor with construction scheduled to begin in November. Occupancy would be slated for November 2013. The center will be at the former Air National Guard Armory on Country Club Road in Wadesboro.

“You are buying low,” he said. He told the Commission costs are near the bottom right now but there are some signs of them moving upward.

The center will house EMS, 911 and the Fire Marshall/Emergency Operation Director.

The Commission received a report from Randy Gulledge, of the county’s information technology department, stating that the county’s new website should be operational in July.

A date was set for May 15 to meet with the Board of Education. There is no statutory requirement for the meeting but it has traditionally been held. There was conflict on the Commission with regard to whether or not the meeting should take place at all.

Commissioners complained that at last year’s meeting, they were “lectured” to and tried to figure out a way that Superintendent Greg Firn could be excluded from the meeting. After much debate, the Commission decided that since they were hosting the meeting they could set the agenda and restrict it to questions about the school board’s budget.

Commissioners made pains to say that they were not looking to keep money from students. An alternate date was set for May 17.

County Clerk Bonnie Huntley was appointed to be a voting member to the Tourism Development Authority.

Shirley Crawford, Todd Moore and Roy Blount were reappointed to the Anson Agricultural Advisory Board. Each will serve another term of three years.

The Commission recessed until the joint meeting with the Board of Education on May 15.