The Starkville board of aldermen approved improvements to the water system and heard from OCEDA president Jack Wallace Tuesday night. The meeting began with a public hearing on improvements to the city’s water supply system. An engineer with Cook Coggin Engineers presented a list of major upgrades to various water wells, lines and filters in the industrial park and general upgrades to the water distribution system throughout the city. The price tag for all of the scheduled improvements, to be implemented throughout the 2003 fiscal year, is about $3.7 million.
The engineer said the improvements are needed to overcome deficiencies in the city’s water supply, provide a surplus, and “improve flow throughout the city.”
As part of the public hearing, citizens were allowed to pose questions to the engineer and the Board of Aldermen. One woman asked if the improvements would allow for water lines to be run to homes in areas recently annexed to the city.
City Engineer Bill Webb said that the upgrades would allow for 8-inch lines to be run under the new highway bypasses to the annexed areas on the north side of the city, but that it would first require approval from the Mississippi Department of Health.
Mayor Mack Rutledge said that Starkville is pumping about half of its 7 million gallon capacity on an average day. He said “these improvements are necessary by next May to prevent any deficiencies in the next dry season.”
The mayor was quick to point out that in addition to improving water flow in the city as a whole, the major upgrades in the industrial park would go a long way toward attracting new businesses to the city.
Rutledge said the bulk of the water system improvements would be paid for by two grants in the amount of $1.5 million each, with the remainder of the money to come from the city. The board voted 6-0, with Ward 2 Alderman Frank Davis absent from the meeting, to proceed with the project.
The board also voted 6-0 to spend over $1 million on improvements to another water well and filter at the industrial park site. Separate from the improvements discussed in the public hearing, these upgrades were on the list for fiscal year 2002, which ended this week.
Water supply improvements weren’t the only changes the board considered to the city’s industrial park. In another 6-0 vote, aldermen also approved the mayor’s request to pursue another $1.5 million grant for general improvements to the industrial park. Rutledge said this grant would pay for road and sewage line upgrades.
If approved, the city would be required to match the grant with its own $1.5 million. Rutledge said the money spent on water supply improvements could count toward that match and that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Authority has loans available to cover the remainder of the matching funds.
Rutledge said it is unusual for cities to apply for this type of economic development funding unless there is a prospective business considering a move to the city. Starkville, according to the mayor, does not have any “current prospects”. He said the city’s engineers encouraged him to proceed with the application and that the city of Meridian received grant funding, also without any prospects.
In keeping with the general topic of economic development, the board heard a presentation by Wallace, President of the Oktibbeha County Economic Development Authority (OCEDA), concerning that entity’s budget. Wallace was joined by Tom Buckley of the T.E. Lott Company, who audited the OCEDA budget.
Wallace and Buckley presented a budget that would have a deficit of $109,868. “This is if we funded everything on our plate,” Wallace said.
The OCEDA president listed a number of funding priorities for the authority, including renovations to the OCEDA office building, preparations for the construction of new buildings in the Research and Technology Park, and the acquisition of land for additions to the industrial park. Wallace also said the budget included money for “special projects”, to include expenses involved in attracting prospective new business leaders to Starkville.
After presenting the budget, Wallace and Buckley fended off questions from aldermen about the deficit. Wallace said he was “unsure how we’ll cover (it)”, but that this was the final year on loan payments for the Service Zone project, which means more money will be available next year. He also said OCEDA is looking to MSU for some support in the form of grant money. He said the university has always been very supportive of OCEDA.
The board took no action on the OCEDA budget. Ward 3 Alderman P.C. “Mac” McLaurin, Jr. said he could not vote on the budget without seeing a financial statement first.
Aldermen turned up the heat on Wallace when it came to the matter of OCEDA personnel. Several members of the board expressed their displeasure at the controversial way in which former OCEDA Executive Director John Rucker and Research Park Manager Audrey Scales were dismissed on Sept. 16.
The matter had originally been scheduled for a closed executive session. The meeting’s agenda was adjusted accordingly after McLaurin and Ward 6 Alderman Roy Perkins raised questions of the legality of having that discussion in private.
Ward 5 Alderman Virgil Bolin said he was “shocked” at reading of the dismissals in the local newspaper.
Alderman-at-large Vic Zitta said he did not want to discuss the matter in open session, but that he did not see any reason for the firings. He also said he thought Rucker and Scales deserve an apology. “In the middle of the stream,” Zitta said, “people who worked so hard were dismissed. Is this how OCEDA works?” he asked.
Wallace said that the OCEDA board decided to eliminate the positions, not the individuals, in order the meet the future needs of the authority. He said the board has not decided what to do about future positions.
“We need to change our staff to meet what we’re doing now. With a shared employee,” Wallace said, “why should we have additional expense? Nothing we have done was done except for the betterment of the OCEDA organization.”
The OCEDA firings were not the only controversial items brought up during the meeting. During the public comments time, a Starkville resident reminded the board of many citizens’ anger of the City Administrator position. He advised the board it would be “more prudent and honest to rescind (its) original action” on the matter and start over again next year. The board took no action.
The absence of a board attorney was noticed at Tuesday’s meeting. The board voted at its previous meeting not to renew its contract with former board attorney Bill Stark. Alderman-at-large Vic Zitta said without an attorney present he was concerned if the board was “doing everything right”.
Aldermen handled several pieces of routine business during the meeting, including expenditure requests allowing for various city officials to travel to conferences and training sessions in the coming weeks.
The next meeting of the Starkville Board of Alderman is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 15, at 5:30 p.m. in City Hall. The public is encouraged to attend.