Merissa Sachs
By Marty Gordon
The Christiansburg Town Council Tuesday evening elected Merissa Sachs, a Christiansburg businesswoman who has served two years on the town’s governing body, to the post of vice mayor for 2020. Sachs will serve a one-year term after the 4-1 vote Tuesday evening. New council member Johana Hicks cast the only dissenting vote.
Sachs is the owner of The Salvage Junkies and Logo Hub. Previously, she worked as an accountant for the Virginia Tech Foundation and served in the accounting departments at Hubbell Lighting and Roanoke Restaurant Service (US Foods). She attended the University of North Dakota and has a B.A. in business and accounting from Radford University. She also completed the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses entrepreneur program in 2014 at Babson College.
Outside of work, Sachs has served as the Advisory Board Secretary for the Salvation Army New River Valley for several years.
As part of the council’s first meeting of the year, the group agreed to maintain its meeting dates on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month.
The organizational meeting also included the reappointment of Mark Sisson as police chief, Michelle Stipes as the council clerk, Randy Wingfield as town manager and Valerie Tweedie as the town’s finance director.
Mayor Michael Barber handed out appointments to several town committees including Street, Finance, Emergency Services, Recreation, Central Business, Public Health and Welfare and Human Relations.
In other matters, the town council approved the donation of the Christiansburg Fire Department’s safety trailer to the Newport Volunteer Fire Department. The trailer was a part of a 2006 grant program from the Department of Fire Programs and was used for several years at schools, community functions, Wilderness Trail Days and the fall festival.
Fire Chief Billy Hanks told the council that using the trailer typically required at least four people. “The members of the department have gotten to where they just don’t have the time to set the trailer up and use it,” the chief wrote in a letter to the council.
The trailer has sat unused at the town’s recreation center for the past four years. “Our department has gotten all the good out of this trailer that we can,” Hanks said.
This past November, the Newport Fire Department borrowed the trailer and used it at their fall festival. It apparently was a huge success.
“The Giles County fire departments are some of the most underfunded in the state,” Chief Hanks said. “They rely on fundraising to supplement their budgets just to make ends meet. Montgomery County has in the past donated fire trucks and used gear to help some of these departments out.”
The council agreed unanimously to donate the trailer to the neighboring department.
The council proclaimed January 26-February 1 as School Choice Week in Christiansburg and approved a contract for $995,089 to Boxley Materials Company for the town’s annual primary paving program.
