By Cindy Baxley
The gavel was passed Tuesday morning to Supervisor Paul Mosley to serve as new board president for 2017. Supervisor Mickey Long will serve as vice president.
The board approved a requirement for Bell Demolition to put up a 10% performance bond ($4,765) of the total contract amount in the form of a cashier’s check to be held in lieu of the completion of the satisfactory work for the demolition of the Quitman Knitting Mills building. The Supervisors and Economic Development District authorized the demolition project in December with a projected quote of $47,650. Work is estimated to begin soon on the demolition process. The board approved the demolition because of the dilapidated condition of the 70 year old building.
Emergency Management Director Eddie Ivy advised the board that the county was lucky and did not receive much damage from the storm system that moved through the county Monday afternoon.
“We were lucky weather wise, and had maybe a total of eight trees across roads. Those roads were cleared quickly,” said Ivy.
Ivy also advised the board that the pads were down for the installation of the four generations at fire departments and hopes to have that project completed by end of January.
The Rating Bureau will be re-evaluating Beaverdam, Rolling Creek and Carmichael fire departments in the near future in hopes of obtaining a lower fire rating. Clarkdale fire district recently obtained a Class 7 rating.
The board went into executive session to discuss the retirement of Purchasing Clerk Suzanne Dennis. The board approved to advertise the job opening for two weeks in the Clarke County Tribune.
Bids were opened and approved to accept the bid from First State Bank to serve as the county depository.
The board approved the purchase of an 8 ft. wide X 20 ft. dump trailer for the Clarke County Landfill. The trailer will be purchased by U-Dump at a cost of $15,839.
Outgoing board president Troy Smith on behalf of the board of supervisors signed loan papers from Trustmark Bank for a loan at an interest rate of 1.996% for the purchase of two dump trucks for the county at a total cost of $261,742.
Laurence Buckley and Patricia Arrington updated the supervisors on the petitions to allow the citizens of Clarke County to vote to legalize the sale of beer and/or liquor. The volunteers informed the board that they are still actively working and hope to have the needed signatures soon. They had taken a break during the presidential election and holidays but the efforts are still underway.
Arrington advised that many petitions have been turned in to the circuit clerk’s office but signatures have not been verified yet. The numbers as of the last count in September is 1,137 for liquor and 1,513 for beer. There are still a lot of petitions that are awaiting verification and those numbers will increase. The amount of signatures required for the board to approve an election is: 1,500 for liquor and 2,500 for beer.
The board did not vote to reappoint department heads and moved that agenda item to the January 9th meeting.
The board voted to recess until Monday, January 9, 2017. All meetings are held at 9 a.m. in the board room located in the courthouse annex. All meetings are open to the public.
