Jeanette Wolfberg provides a summary of Columbia County Board of Supervisors Chairman Matt Murell’s State of the County address in The Columbia Paper. In his January 2 speech, Murell outlined the projects on the county's to-do list for 2018, including: Exploring the idea of a shared jail with Greene County; further work to combat the opiate crisis; and correcting the sewer issues at the county's Commerce Park in West Ghent. Murell also warned about the increased challenge of developing a balanced budget. "...The county needs to take a hard look at structural changes," he said. Among the county's 2017 accomplishments: An upgrade in the county's status by the credit rating service Moody's; the purchase of land and a building to create an emergency training center; and, paving roads, repairing bridges, and dealing with “a significant landslide” in Greenport. Read the full story in The Columbia Paper.