Magnolia officials filled two major employee vacancies Tuesday night.
Angela Miller took over as board attorney shortly after the meeting started, once the board voted to hire her.
She succeeds Barbara Blackmon of Canton, who served with Mayor Tammy Witherspoon in the state Senate. Blackmon offered her resignation in December.
Miller’s husband Charles previously served as Magnolia’s attorney.
The board also approved the appointment of police Lt. James Davis to serve as assistant chief.
The assistant chief slot was open most of this year following Ray Reynolds’ retirement from the force. Reynolds was the police chief for years, but stepped down to assistant chief after the 2021 election.
Chief Sonya Woodall said she had been off work recovering from surgery for the previous month and called on a Davis a lot to manage the force in her absence.
Davis has been an officer for 15 years and served as a volunteer reserve officer for some years before officially joining the department, Woodall said.
“He really started at the bottom and worked his way up,” Woodall said.
“I just want to do a good job for you,” Davis said.
Both appointments were unanimous, with Alderman Darrell Pounds attending and voting by phone.
In other business, the board:
• Hired the Ferguson Group as administrator and WGK Engineers as engineers for the next community development block grant-funded phase of extending service along Quinlivan Road.
Neel-Schaffer Engineering received more points on the scoring rubric for the grant from the Mississippi Development Authority, but Alderman Joe Cornacchione’s motion to hire Neel-Schaffer died for lack of a second. WGK was then hired unanimously. The Ferguson Group was the only firm to submit qualifications for administration duties.
• Committed to pay the $20,459 of cost above project estmates for drainage improvements on McKay Road. Greenbriar Digging Service of Brookhaven won the contract for the project with a bid of $360,497.
• Approved holding the second anual Mardi Gras Ball on Feb. 11 at the Pike County Safe Room and the annual Mardi Gras parade and festival on Feb. 18 downtown.
• Renewed property insurance with EMC Insurance for $62,277.
• Noted 207 incidents responded to by police, including 10 auto accidents, 35 disturbances, 19 medical emergencies, five cases of harassment or threats and two house burglaries. Twenty-six traffic stops resulted in 26 citations.
• Noted 14 responses to incidents by the fire department. Asked about an “explosion” outside town, Chief Terrell Bell said no one had reported an explosion, and the department did not respond to such an incident.
• Approved $680 to set up a webcam for municipal court. Witherspoon said the judge, who is pregnant, intends to hold court through her pregnancy.
• Noted receipts of $52,305 and court fines collected of $997.
