The Lowndes County Board of Supervisors approved a new lease for Mississippi 16th Circuit District Attorney Scott Colom’s new office after a previous lease agreement collapsed.
Colom’s office will now move to the second floor of the McGahey building at the corner of Fifth and Main streets. Lowndes County is leasing the new space from BCAT Holdings, LLC.
The DA’s office was slated to move into the Leigh building, located on across the street from the Lowndes County Courthouse at 522 Second Ave. N. However, concerns arose at the end of September about a damaged portion of the building’s southeast wall. The damage came from the demolition of the adjacent Waters building in August.
On Oct. 3, supervisors agreed to allow the property owner, the estate of Frank Leigh, 90 days to fix the wall before amending the lease to allow the county to withhold the $2,500 monthly rent or terminate the lease and move the DA’s office elsewhere.
Board attorney Tim Hudson said the Leigh estate asked to extend the grace period to 120 days. The county refused the offer, and the lease fell through.
“The terms that we approved were rejected by the landowner, so we have now negotiated another lease for another building,” Hudson said.
The DA’s office is currently housed in the aging courthouse annex on the county courthouse’s western grounds.
Colom said he is looking forward to moving into the new office.
“I’m excited to have the move to a new office finalized, and I appreciate the board of supervisors and county administrator for their support in this process,” Colom said.
Hudson said the new lease will take effect on Nov. 1. He said the rent will remain at $2,500, the same rate as had been agreed for the Leigh building.
Lowndes County will pay monthly rent, with reimbursements coming from the three other counties in the Mississippi 16th Judicial Circuit — including Oktibbeha (33.3 percent), Clay (15 percent) and Noxubee (9 percent). Lowndes County’s share of the lease is $1,067.50, or 42.7 percent.
The county will also pay $458 per month for utilities.
Health clinic RFPs
Supervisors also opened requests for proposals for a potential shared-site health clinic during Friday’s meeting.
The County accepted proposals from four healthcare providers: Allegro, Baptist Memorial Heath Group, Medical Analysis and North Mississippi Medical Services.
In August, officials from Lowndes County, the city of Columbus and Columbus Light and Water met with representatives of Biloxi-based Medical Analysis for a question-and-answer session about the proposed clinic.
The clinic, according to Medical Analysis Vice President for Business Development Todd Garlington, could save insurance costs for the three entities by reducing claims payments.
If the deal had moved forward, the three entities would have entered an agreement with Medical Analysis to provide primary health care, as well as some other health services such as drug and alcohol screening and preventative care, for employees. The employees and their dependents could also see a nurse-practitioner at the clinic with no copay.
However, shortly after the joint meeting, supervisors elected to seek RFPs from other providers after County Administrator Ralph Billingsley said at least two — Allegro Family Clinic and Baptist Memorial — called to express concerns they didn’t get a chance to submit proposals for clinical services.
On Friday, Billingsley asked supervisors to allow for time to review the RFPs — which he noted are complicated — and come back at a later meeting to present them for consideration. Billingsley said he’ll bring the proposals back before the board at its Nov. 15 meeting.
“There are lots of moving parts in this,” Billingsley said. “There are lots of quotes on pricing different procedures, different tests, as well as running the clinic. …There’s a lot of details in these things.”
The county’s decision to wait also forced the city and CLW to wait. The clinic needs a patient base of about 500 in order to work. The city, county and CLW have about 600 employees combined.
So far, neither the city nor CLW has taken further action.
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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