From staff reports
Long awaited relief on two fronts arrived Monday morning, January 5 as Attala County supervisors dispense with two properties, agreeing to sell one and demolish another.
Receiving a single bid in both cases, county board quickly sold the former RSVP property in Kosciusko then accepted a bid from Cain Inc. to demolish the old jail building.
Capital Investors, owners of property adjacent the center site, according to Scott Pickle, board counsel, made the sole offer to buy the block building and small lot for $7,320.
In addition, Caine submitted a bid of $22,500 to clear away the old jail off Adams Street, leaving supervisors to take care of only two items, disposal of various items inside the old lock-up and making sure utilities had been disconnected before demolition began.
Both decisions, said Pickle, were welcome relief for the county. “Gentlemen, you did a good day’s work at this meeting with the jail demolition. I’ve been here for multiple boards talking about that and now you’re making it happen.”
Sale of the RSVP building had been hanging in similar fashion he offered. “They’ve kicked it around for multiple years.”
The building on W Adams Street was in need of a new roof, which board members said was too large an investment in the decrepit building.
The old jail has sat unused since Attala County and Kosciusko contracted with the Leake County Regional Correction facility in Carthage to house their inmates.
Sheriff Curtis Pope was detailed to dispose of as many of the jail’s contents, most of which he said were of little to no value. Discussion turned quickly to finding a home for those items of any value, with the additional task of disposing of as many as four defunct patrol units for the Attala County Sheriff’s Office.
Business Monday also included appointment of key county officials, from board attorney to county engineer, and an update on a pair of bridge projects in the county; no changes were made in the list of appointees. The board elected District 4’s Willie Perteet as president of the panel and Brad Whittington as vice president.
County Engineer Christian Gardner said the board could expect to bids Tuesday, April 17, on two local bridge program projects, on Road 4204 north of Sallis on Road 3226 west of Highway 43 and north of Kosciusko.
He said later the project on Road 4204 was expected to cost approximately $1 million, while the Road 3226 bridge was expected to cost in the neighborhood of $750,000.
Otherwise, he said, the projects were nearly identical, entailing spans of about 100 feet and built with pre-case concrete components.
In other matters before the board:
• Danny Townsend, emergency management director, informed the board a new funding formula for emergency 911 calls services would take effect in February and county officials should expect to receive a new contract shortly.
Instead of the services being funded with a statewide surcharge on telephone bills, he said, the state would send monthly payments via PayPal.
The first such payment he said, would come in March, and would be higher than the county had seen with the old system, though 30 percent had to be placed in a separate account to fund equipment updates and purchases. Even with that set-aside the available funds would increase.
• Townsend also advised there were some residential developments popping up about the county which were creating new problems for road identifications and emergency services.
He said speculators were purchasing large tracts of land, subdividing them into lots, selling the lots and making the lot owners responsible for maintenance of roads.
“They’ve got roads pushed all out in there,” he said, none of which met county standards, which would create issues when residents called on the county to accept the roads.
Meanwhile, dispatching emergency services would be hamstrung since the roads had no names and because they could not carry the weight of either fire trucks of ambulances.
The county could also wind up in a pinch if residents of the subdivisions requested school bus turnarounds on roads that did not meet county standards and could not be accepted for county maintenance.
“I think that’s something you seriously need to look at,” Pickle said. “It’s kind of the wild west right now.”
