The board of supervisors met Tuesday morning for the first meeting in July.
Fire Coordinator Eddie Ivy discussed the need for placing a fire truck north of the Highway 11 bridge project in Pachuta to assist in fire calls in the Pachuta Fire District on a temporary basis. A portion of Highway 11 in Pachuta is closed for a state bridge replacement project and Ivy stated that because some fire department members lived north of the bridge closure, placing a truck temporarily on the north side of the bridge could assist in the event of a fire call. Board members did not have a problem with that but also urged that Stonewall and Enterprise help assist with fire calls during the temporary road closure.
The board met with Jeff Arrington about a proposed horse arena project to be located in the Industrial Park on Highway 145 and Highway 18W. Arrington approached the board in June with the request to lease approximately 40 acres to be used to construct a horse arena to bring in events such as barrel racing, team roping, penning and trail riding. The supervisors are awaiting an opinion from the Attorney General’s office before approving the request. The opinion is to ensure they can legally lease county land to be used for recreational purposes.
In other business, the board approved the hiring of Michael Taylor, Jimmy Grambling and Carlos Brooks to work with the road department.
• Approved tax exemption requests for BTH, Dart Container and Pine Belt Processing
• Approved the low bid from Trustmark bank at 1.89% to finance the new vehicles purchased for the sheriff’s department
• Tabled a discussion regarding jail sanitation inspections until the board can meet with Sheriff Todd Kemp. The state is requiring that counties pay the $500 cost to the State Board of Health for conducting required inspections of county jails that house state inmates. The board took no action until they can discuss the matter with Sheriff Kemp. The State Board of Health paid for the inspections, but because of state budget cuts, that cost is being imposed on local county government.
The board accepted a grant in the amount of $23,372 (Emergency Compliance Grant) from Mississippi Emergency Management Agency
• Tabled a request to closeout and approve final payment of $15,176.22 to the contractor for the courthouse roof project and $1,975 to David Henderson, who served as the engineer for the project. The county received a $100,000 grant to repair the courthouse roof. The total cost was $303,524.45 with out of pocket expense of the county at $203,524.
The board recessed until Monday, July 11th. All meetings are open to the public and held in the board room located in the courthouse annex.
