With a new year and a new board of supervisors, McComb selectmen are taking another run at getting their choice for a joint appointment to the airport board approved and seated.
The city board voted unanimously to resubmit Ed Silence for appointment to the board to replace Walt Holifield. The seat is one of two that has been open most of the past year, after both Holifield and Steve Rials resigned.
The previous board of supervisors refused to concur in the city board’s decision to replace Holifield, a pilot and engineer who asked to be reappointed to the airport board, with Silence, a teacher at McComb’s Business & Technology Complex.
The city contended that there had been a “gentleman’s agreement” between the city and county boards that they would alternate making the joint appointment, with the non-appointing board rubber-stamping the other’s choice.
The board of supervisors disagreed, however, and rather than litigate the matter, the city held the joint appointment until the new board of supervisors was seated.
Mayor Quordiniah Lockley said a joint appointment to the hospital board is due this year, and he suggested the city and county board attorneys get together to work out new language governing the appointments in their interlocal agreements.
The unanimous vote came after Selectmen Michael Cameron and Ted Tullos refused to support Silence’s nomination last year, preferring to continue supporting Holifield until he submitted his resignation.
In another matter, board members split on a proposal to pay travel costs for Selectman Devante Johnson to the National League of Cities Congressional Conference in Washington, D.C., in March.
Lockley said Johnson didn’t have enough money left in his travel allocation to cover the whole cost of the trip, and Selectman Ronnie Brock moved that Johnson be allowed to make the trip with the remaining needed funds to come from Selectman Shawn Williams’ travel budget.
“He’s run out of (travel) money in five months?” Cameron asked. “That goes too far, to me.”
Lockley said he agreed that board members should live within their budgets, but Williams said the trip should have benefits for Johnson and the city.
“I would do this for any selectman,” Williams said. “He’s going to training, and I hope he’ll keep getting better and bring new ideas to the city.”
Brock’s motion passed 4-2, with Cameron and Tullos opposed.
The board also split in sending a proclamation for School Choice week down to defeat.
Lockley said he presented the proclamation because the city hosts private schools like Parklane Academy and Jubilee Performing Arts Center, as well as homeschoolers.
Selectman Donovan Hill objected, however.
“The object of this (movement) is to send money from public schools to private schools,” Hill said, tying school choice to drives in many states to create voucher programs that use tax dollars to send children to private schools, which, he said, “were started to keep them separate from us.”
Johnson noted that the state has not supported its public schools by fully funding the funding formula. Until the Mississippi Adequate Education Program is fully funded, “I can’t support this,” he said.
The motion to support the proclamation died 4-2, with Cameron and Tullos in support.
In other business, the board:
• Named First Bank the city’s depository.
• Tabled consideration of a 2.3% water rate hike and an increase in reconnection fees.
• Approved an above-ground vault in Old Greenwood North Cemetery.
• Paid the Pike County Sheriff’s Department $9,180 for housing city inmates in December.
• Made a $323,759 payment to First National Bank on bonds that financed development of Anna Drive.
• Paid a $181,951 premium to the Mississippi Municipal Liability Plan.
• Paid M3A Architecture $19,040 for work developing plans for the Martin Luther King Recreation Center.
• Approved $6,476 in matching funds for a grant funding drainage improvements at the city-county airport.
• Renewed a contract with Little Dixie Yard Works for landscaping services.
• Approved a change order allowing Griner Drilling Service extra time to relocate a generator to the site of a new water well.
• Accepted a $253,260 bid from Great Southern Recreation to build splash pads in East McComb and Algiers parks. The projects are funded by hotel and motel tax proceeds.
• Raised adoption fees at the city animal shelter to $70 for dogs and $50 for cats, and authorized microchipping service for the public for $15.
• Accepted final payment of $853,207 from the state Department of Environmental Quality to cover costs of the Northwest Interceptor sewer upgrade project.
• Renewed a contract with GrantWatch for $1,500 that allows city officials to search for grants the city might qualify for.
• Took no action on a personnel matter discussed in executive session.
