VIDALIA — After years of being idle, five Vidalia committees were restored Tuesday night.

The five entities revived are the Board of Adjustment, Riverfront Authority, the Planning Commission, the Riverfront Development Committee and the Port Commission.

Mayor Buz Craft and Alderwoman Sabrina Doré announced at the November meeting that town code requires functioning committees, but discovered all the board member’s terms had expired as the committees had not been active for years.

Craft said he reached out to former members of the commissions to ask if they were willing to continue to serve. Craft said people also contacted town hall to volunteer to serve.

Now that the names have been approved, Craft said he wants to make sure the volunteers receive training to do the job, determine responsibilities and get meetings scheduled as soon as possible.

“I think this will be a very good start,” Craft said. “I think we will have good working committees made up of people who want to do the job. We have a lot of things going on, and this will be critical.”

Town Manager Bill Murray said different committees and commissions would have different terms to serve — as many as seven years. Murray said he would dig into the law and see if the term schedules are set by state law or if the town decided years ago the best practice would be to give as many as seven years.

During the first appointments, Murray said the terms would be staggered so each would be scheduled to go off at a different time. Murray said the town would determine who would be staggered later.

Serving are:

• Board of Adjustment: Melvin Demby, Patricia Anderson, Joey Ainsworth and Kathy Banks.
• Riverfront Authority: Pat Biglane, Danny Grayson, Malcolm Barlow, Renard Chatman and Bobby Shell.
• Planning Commission: Pat Galloway, Ray Ainsworth, Dr. Brenda Moore, Cassandra Lynch and Mary Ann Carter.
• Riverfront Development Committee: Corinne Randazzo, Randy Hoggatt, Trippy Shields, Art Verdel and Georgia Allen.
• Vidalia Port Commission: Steve Weeks, Freddie Marks, David Yates, Brannon Arthur, Catherine Cartwright, Richard Young and Randy Maxwell.