The Newton County Board of Commissioners (BOC) approved the county’s new representatives on the Joint Development Authority (JDA) of Jasper, Morgan, Walton and Newton Counties at its meeting Tuesday night.

The county’s new representatives to the JDA are BOC Chairman Marcello Banes and developer Jerry Silvio. Banes assumes the elected BOC member’s role on the Authority. He replaces Levie Maddox, who lost a bid to become the Republican nominee for BOC chairman in May 2016 and is no longer a member of the commission.

Silvio, the president of Silvio Development Company, becomes the county’s citizen representative on the authority. He replaces Denny Dobbs, whose term expired Dec. 31.

According to its website, the JDA was formed with the goal of creating an industrial area to attract industry to the region. According to JDA attorney Andrea Gray, each county has two representatives appointed by its BOC. The representatives serve four-year terms. One representative must be a member of the BOC. The other representative must be a non-elected citizen who is a taxpayer in the county.

The BOC also ratified the appointment of Nicole Cross as Newton County Finance Director at the meeting. Cross was named to the position by County Manager Lloyd Kerr Feb. 16. She had been serving as the county’s interim finance director since Sept. 2016.