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At Monday evening’s Dallas County Commission meeting, the commission approved to designate a portion of the County’s funds from International Paper toward equipment for the Dallas County Road Department.

In 2018, IP agreed to pay Dallas County a sum of $250,000 per year in exchange for a 20-year, $10 million tax abatement.

Dallas County Commissioner Roy Moore proposed $585,000 of the money paid to the County from IP be used for: an asphalt zipper, which would cost $220,000; an excavator, which would cost $265,000; and an asphalt storage tank, which would cost $100,000 dollars.

Moore said the next group of county commissioners will be able to use the remaining funds from IP to designate to road projects of their choosing.

After the commission voted to approve the motion, Moore expressed his thanks to IP for their cooperation with Dallas County.

“You k now they didn’t have to do this, but they did,” said Moore. “We should thank them for their efforts and their continued investment in Dallas County.”

Dallas County Commissioner Larry Nickles said the equipment would go a long way in helping Dallas County repair its many roads.

“This is a proven technique,” he said.

Elsewhere in the meeting, Dallas County Attorney John Kelly read a resolution of the Dallas County Commission honoring the life of George Floyd, an unarmed African-American man who was killed at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis on May 25.

“Now, therefore, let us, the members of the Dallas County Commission, and on behalf of the citizens of Selma and Dallas County, Alabama, resolve: That George Floyd did not die in vain, That, through his sacrifice, the Nation will now achieve the ideals of its founders, that all men are created equal, that they are truly endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, and that foremost among them is life, and let us further resolve: that while George Floyd’s earthly life is over, he is now reunited with his mother and enfolded within the loving arms of God; and that God’s love will bring Justice to George Floyd’s family and His Peace to a troubled nation,” read Kelly.