With McComb Selectman Michael Cameron absent, Selectman Donovan Hill took advantage of the 3-2 advantage afforded to him Tuesday night and pushed through a $200,000 budget amendment for parks in the Algiers and Baertown neighborhoods.
He stipulated the money should come from hotel and motel tax revenues, and was supported along racial lines by selectmen Albert Eubanks and Ronnie Brock.
The item was added to the agenda on a 3-1 vote, with Selectman Ted Tullos opposing and Selectman Tommy McKenzie abstaining.
City finance director Janice Dillon, asked about the money currently available in the hotel and motel tax fund, said about $80,000 is on hand. The city already approved last month a contract for $337,000 for lighting improvements at ballfields at the McComb Sports Complex, which is also to be paid off using hotel tax proceeds.
Mayor Whitney Rawlings said the city would have to borrow money to pay for the projects and pay back the loans with hotel tax funds, which Dillon said have recently been coming at $17,000 to $18,000 a month.
“Is there any reason this can’t come from the general fund?” Hill asked.
Rawlings said with the city’s budget set for the year, “it would create a shortfall in the general fund.”
Board attorney Wayne Dowdy, monitoring the meeting by phone, said state law prohibits large expenditures that would encumber the next board within a certain amount of time before a new term starts.
He could not remember the timeframe, but Brock suggested it might be 90 days, and Dowdy said that “sounds right.”
Hill moved an amendment to specify that the hotel tax revenues would be split evenly between the lighting project and the parks.
The amendment passed 3-1, with McKenzie again abstaining. The motion by Hill to borrow money for the parks and repay it with hotel tax funds passed 3-1, with Tullos opposed and McKenzie abstaining.
After an executive session on an unrelated matter, Hill offered another motion to create an account to hold the funds to be borrowed for the parks, McKenzie joined Tullos in voting no, but the motion passed 3-2.
In other business, the board:
• Approved paying claims of $1,369,646.
• Received a privilege license report of $4,008, rental property fees of $2,752, a capital improvements report of $48,540, and a municipal court revenue report of $33,742.
• Accepted a $100 donation to the McComb Animal Shelter.
• Paid paving bills to Barriere Construction for $339,093 and Dickerson & Bowen for $338,980.
• Rejected a bid from Little Dixie Yard Works for mowing and landscaping. City administrator Kelvin Butler said he felt the bid, the only one received, was too high.
