New Commissioner Powell Revises Social Work Month Proclamation at First Meeting

Sam Powell did not wait long to leave his mark. At his first official meeting as a newly sworn Alamance County commissioner, held Thursday, Powell edited the draft proclamation designating March as Social Work Month before it came to a vote, striking language and rewriting portions of the template text the county had received from the National Association of Social Workers.

The revision put Powell's personal imprint on a document that many governing bodies adopt wholesale from the national organization without alteration. Rather than pass the standard template language as written, Powell worked through the text and substituted his own wording in at least some sections before the board considered it for approval.

Proclamations marking Social Work Month are a common feature of local government calendars each March, and the National Association of Social Workers routinely provides ready-made language to counties and municipalities across the country to ease the process. That template approach makes edits from individual commissioners relatively uncommon at the local level.

Powell was appointed to the Alamance County Board of Commissioners to fill a vacancy and took his seat ahead of the March 19 meeting. His willingness to revise an otherwise routine ceremonial document on his first official night suggests an early signal about how he intends to approach his role on the board, including the language that goes out under the county's name, even when that language originates from a national advocacy organization.