The Lowndes County Board of Supervisors Friday unanimously passed a motion to assist the City of Columbus with some paving projects.
The motion was made by District 2 Supervisor Bill Brigham on a recommendation made by District 1 Supervisor and Board President Harry Sanders.
“I recently had a meeting with Mayor Robert Smith, and we were talking about paving,” Sanders said. “He asked me if the county would help with the paving of some parking lots. I told him as long as we wouldn’t have any costs involved, we could probably help them. We needed them to take down a building in Burn’s Bottom and they did that for us. We will do this at (Road Manager) Ronnie Burn’s convenience. We will only supply the labor and some equipment. They will provide the asphalt and haul the asphalt.”
The board voted to assist with the paving of the Hitching Lot parking lot and the Trotter Convention Center parking lot.
The county also entered into an interlocal agreement with the city regarding the Metro Narcotics Unit.
“The city signed theirs a few weeks ago,” County Administrator Ralph Billingsley said. “The old one is between Sheriff Butch Howard and (Columbus Police Department) Chief Joe St. John. The old one requires both entities to provide four agents, while this one only calls for three.”
Jeff Smith, who was sitting in for Board Attorney Tim Hudson, said the agreement will now go to the Attorney General’s office for approval.
Billingsley also recommended the board pass a budget amendment at the request of Columbus-Lowndes Recreation Authority Executive Director Roger Short.
“When we approved this year’s budget, we did not approve Roger Short’s increase in his operations budget,” Billingsley said. “We need to amend the budget by $29,233 to take care of this.”
The board also heard a report from Fire Administrator Sammy Fondren regarding new fire stations for the county.
“The board has approved us to begin work on new stations in Districts 1 and 2,” Fondren said. “In District 3, we need to replace the Rural Hill station. The building is antiquated and it is rotting. We need to tear it down and build a new metal building. The chief said he could have it done for under $100,000.”
Sanders suggested the board temporarily hold off on the request.
“I don’t think we need to give them permission to tear it down, we need to give them permission to advertise they want to tear down the building,” said Sanders. “We are slowly but surely getting there when it comes to having our fire station replaced. We have three new ones, but we can’t build them all at one time.”
The board next will meet Monday, July 2.
Jeff Clark was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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