Controversy among Starkville officials and the city’s citizen’s advisory committee has risen amid efforts by the city to proceed with plans for a justice complex.
Advisory committee member Dan Camp does not question the need for a new police facility. The problem, he said, is the means the city is using to create one.
The current proposal by city officials includes a 35,000-square-foot facility containing police headquarters, a municipal courtroom, an emergency operations center, offices for police and city personnel and a reception area for Starkville visitors.
If approved by the state Legislature, the city will secure a $5.6 million loan from the USDA Rural Development Authority to cover the cost of the project. As a means of repaying the loan, the city is planning to raise property taxes by around 2 mills.
Starkville Mayor Mack Rutledge said city officials have concluded that the best location for the project, taking into account cost and space, would be on the east side of the new Miss. Highway 25 overpass. That location, however, is one with which many members of the local advisory committee disagree.
“I think there’s a need for a new police station and a new justice complex,” Camp said. “I do not agree with their location.”
Camp, along with other committee members, said they would like to see the complex erected downtown to assist in the area’s conservation and allow for more convenience to the facility.
“We do not need to abandon the downtown where most cities have their municipal complex,” Camp said.
Rutledge said the decision to construct the facility near the bypass came after several city officials, including Police Chief David Lindley and city engineer Bill Webb, assessed locations in the downtown area and elsewhere in the city.
“There is no good reason, in my mind, to look at any other site as a potential location,” Rutledge said.
“There’s adequate space [at the bypass site],” he said. “It won’t require any significant acquisition costs.”
Members of the committee have also suggested that the city take a look at the excess transportation costs that will be accrued by having to transport Oktibbeha County Jail inmates and city personnel a greater distance to attend court.
“That’s not a terribly significant factor,” Rutledge said.
Rutledge said inmates frequently have to be transported from Louisville, and the location near the bypass would better serve that purpose.
Frank Howell, a Mississippi State sociology professor and member of the committee, said city officials have not sufficiently justified the means of the proposal and have failed to be forthright with the community about its planning.
“They have operated in secrecy and they have offered information only when citizens demanded it,” Howell said.
Officially, the citizens advisory committee has voted against the current proposal, but the voluntary committee has no real authority to make the decisions, Howell said. Its members can only make recommendations.
Rutledge said the controversy surrounding the justice complex is reasonable.
“It’s understandable because people have various ideas about public business,” he said. “I feel like we have very carefully planned the effort up to this time.”
Rutledge said the matter is still up for discussion but that the only way the location of the facility would change would be if the requested loan is not approved.
Originally, the loan was slated to be repaid over a 20-year period. The city is currently attempting to extend the loan to a 30-year term.
Howell said that by taking out such a large loan the city could take care of several needs instead of spending it all on a new police station. He suggested that part of the money go to the proposed city transportation system or a needed fire station.
Howell also said he was concerned about who will benefit from a justice complex of such expense at the proposed location.
“Who’s going to benefit from this is primarily the people who will be working there,” he said.
Rutledge said that having the police station located near the bypass will provide a convenient welcome center to visitors.
“It will be the first thing visitors see when they approach the city from the south,” he said.
Rutledge said the request for the loan extension to fund the project was hand-delivered to the state legislature last week. Once the loan is approved, the current planning of the facility will move forward.