Selectmen OK advertising bond intent
By Timothy Woerner | Enterprise-Journal
Posted: 07/25/08 - 12:58:47 pm CDT
By a 4-1 vote, McComb’s city board approved a resolution Tuesday to declare the city’s intent to borrow $9.5 million for city street and parks projects.
The vote authorizes printing a public notification as required by law and simply follows a 4-2 vote in favor of the bond at the last city board meeting.
Selectmen Danny Esch and Wade Lamb objected in that initial vote. With Esch absent and recovering from a heart attack suffered after that meeting, Lamb was the lone dissenter Tuesday.
An expected discussion of the financing of the bond did not occur at the meeting, though Mayor Zach Patterson took questions and mentioned possible figures during his post-board meeting chat: $710,000 per year at 4 percent interest on a 20-year bond, $633,000 per year at 4.5 percent on a 25-year bond or about $500,000 per year at 5 percent on a 30-year bond.
Patterson said he expects drawings from the recreation department of what proposed park improvements would look like — similar to an artist’s rendering of the city’s future wastewater treatment facility that appeared on mailings to McComb citizens.
“My job is to show you how those things are affordable,” Patterson said. “I’ll do that.”
The board also stood pat on two other contentious issues before them Tuesday, voting 3-2 against rescinding the hire of IMS Engineers, and unanimously tabling a proposal to put a police substation on Middleton Street near Community Parks Apartments that followed a public forum on security there last week.
Selectmen Melvin Joe Johnson, E.C. Nobles and Robert Earl Smith voted against rescinding IMS’s hire after Selectman Bob Maddox’s request that the vote be reconsidered.
“Nothing against IMS,” Maddox said Tuesday. “I just believe that’s an expense we don’t have to incur.”
“Instead of rescinding it, why don’t you let them present what they have to offer?” Johnson responded. “I’d hate to see this go down the same route as the sports park.”
Patterson has promoted IMS as an oversight consultant for the wastewater treatment facility and has said he won’t sign any contract with IMS until he can return to the board with IMS’s proposed expenditures.
The police substation proposal, meanwhile, was delayed by board members expressing concerns about staffing — though the degree to which that affected support for the proposal varied.
“I don’t think this will work,” Lamb offered. “You’re looking at putting a substation next to private property. ... And if you put substations everywhere, you’ve got to have people to staff them.”
Johnson, meanwhile, asked whether there was a way the management of Community Parks could hire more security.
“They agreed to step up staffing and do some other security measures there,” Patterson responded. “But on the other hand, if you attended the (public forum), I also said Mr. Lamb that there are some things that we can do. I cannot turn to that company that owns the complex and say ‘Well, I need you to handle the problem of crime in this city.’ ... I believe it’s very important that there’s a police presence.”“Before it is staffed, how would you mandate officers are there?” Smith asked.
“Depends on what this board wants,” responded McComb Police Chief Billie Hughes. “We’re six people short now. It’s going to be hard to press 24 hours a day. ... You’re reading the same proposal as me. They won’t be able to stay there constantly because they’re going to have to back up other people around town.”
Smith said he was for the proposal but wanted to make sure the substation wasn’t there without manpower.
Patterson, meanwhile, cautioned that some details of the proposal needed to be discussed in executive session to avoid exposing details of police operation — leading to Nobles asking if the topic could be tabled until the more detailed conversation could take place.
The board meeting opened with a test of one of Patterson’s readings of the city charter that has differed from the city’s operation under previous mayors. With Nobles and Johnson briefly running late, Patterson opened the meeting with himself, Lamb, Maddox and Smith present.
Patterson has contended that a provision of the city charter describing a quorum as a majority of city board members includes the mayor as a participant.
City Attorney John H. “Bubber” White said he’d asked the Attorney General’s office for an opinion on the matter in April in case it arose with former selectman David Myers’ seat open prior to Nobles’ election, but White was unavailable today to say whether he’d received a response.
The meeting closed with an executive session to discuss personnel issues related to the fire department for the second consecutive meeting, but Patterson said discussion was again tabled, and no action was taken.
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