Going into 2024 Jefferson County District 2 Commissioner Sheila Tyson is focused on bringing accessible housing to her district (in the southwest part of the county) and lowering the county’s annual sewer rate increase for ratepayers, she told the Lede in her Q&A this week.

Later next year, Tyson also said she would be revisiting some of her priority budget items that didn’t make the cut for this fiscal year (FY ‘24).

Looking back on 2023, what work are you most proud of?

If I had to pick one of the many things my office has been working on during 2023 it would have to be the $3 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grant funding the county provided to fund organizations within the National Civil Rights Monument District and the Historic Fourth Avenue Black Business District.

They just renovated Sixteenth Street [Baptist Church] and they’re going to add a 5000 square foot addition to the back of their building to be used as a classroom and training space. And it will go along with the renovations that they’ve already done to their parsonage and to a museum that they have in the fellowship hall. The parsonage is finished. They completed it, you can go over there and look and take pictures of it. It’s like a $1.7 million project and the county gave $900,000 to that project.