From staff reports
Attala County supervisors weighed pressing concerns and eyed long term issues, both stemming from matters linked to emergency preparedness.
At the request of Emergency Management Director Danny Townsend, the county board issued a county-wide, immediate burn ban due to tinder conditions.
In other matters, supervisors detailed Scott Pickle, board counsel, work up an ordinance to deal with housing developments being sited in the county.
Townsend requested the 30-day ban on outdoer fires, extending until April 16, because recent arid weather had left brush and woods susceptible to wildfire.
“I know we got a rain last night, but with this wind,” he said in the Monday, March 16, meeting, “it’s not going to be a substantial amount.”
The conditions, he said, “has been running our fire departments and the forestry commission ragged.”
Under the ban no outdoor fires will be allowed, save operations by the Mississippi Forestry Commission, Townsend said.
He then shifted attention to sudden surge of housing developments in the county with new residents asking for road addresses for mail delivery and for access to emergency services.
New residents along County Road 214 were pressing for addresses, he said, but the new “road” was inadequate for emergency purposes and had no name.
“If they build a house up there,” he said, “they’re going to want an ambulance to come in there.”
“Not if they don’t have address,” countered Pickle.
While that sounded simple, he said he had already looked at paperwork on the situation and found it daunting. “It’s like ‘Oh my gosh.’”
The matter had come before the Attala County board in February, and since then he had begun studying ways to address the situation.
Those efforts included studying ordinances used by the City of Madison; their code, he said, was voluminous, but he had hopes for something less ornate.
“Folks,” he said of the Attala County issues, “some from in state and some from out of state,” are involved in the developments.
The process, he said, begin with developers purchasing large plots of rural property, ranging roughly between 40 and 140 acres, fronting on a public road.
The developers then, he said, “push in one long road,” then break the overall parcel into lots which they open for individuals to site homes.
The problems begin to crop up, as they did in the board meeting, over assignment of addresses to the new homes.
Occupants of the home, Pickle said typically don’t have deeds to the properties, just lease agreements where payment of rent can eventually lead up to ownership. He compared it to a lease-purchase agreement.
Without full ownership, occupants gaining addresses is problematical.
Addresses, he said, can’t be issued “until and unless we (the county) accept that as a public road.”
For that to happen the access that has been dozed has to be upgraded to county road construction standards, he said, until then “it’s just a private drive.”
For the county to accept roads for maintenance, he said, they have to be properly ditched, crowned, graveled and more, to a point where emergency vehicles, especially ambulances and fire trucks can travel safely.
“These roads are not,” the attorney said, “good enough for them to get down in there.”
There were other potential problems, he offered, including occupants of homes in the developments, whether built on site or manufactured homes, cannot claim homestead exemption.
He also expressed concerns about utilities, especially service from rural water associations.
A community water association, Pickle said, could accommodate addition of “maybe two or three homes,” but addition of 20 or 30 customers could beyond a rural system’s capabilities.
