The Starkville board of Aldermen on Tuesday authorized Starkville Utilities Department to issue up to $22 million in revenue bonds to fund major electric and water system projects.
Starkville Utilities’ requests are for up to $12 million for electric projects and up to $10 million for water and sewer projects. Aldermen approved the bonds 6-1, with Ward 6’s Roy A. Perkins opposing. Perkins said after the meeting he was concerned the bonds might lead to future rate increases.
Department General Manager Terry Kemp said the bonds for the electric department are primarily meant to build a new substation. He said the new station — planned for Azalea Lane — will replace the one on Industrial Park Road, which is the oldest in the city’s system.
“The majority will be the station,” Kemp said. “But in addition to that, there’s quite a bit of transition line associated with this.”
Kemp said the station will also come with a new delivery point from the Tennessee Valley Authority, which should provide better reliability.
“It will improve our capacity and through this entire project, should eliminate some of our operational problems that we have when we’re actually switching,” he said. “Currently, because of the way the station is configured, there’s a phase separation, which means in some situations we have to take a momentary interruption. We want to eliminate that going forward because that is a problem for some of our customers.”
Kemp said the substation and associated work should take about three years to complete.
The water and sewage projects, Kemp said, are focused on the city’s sewage lagoon on Sand Road, which is nearly at capacity.
Kemp said SUD looked at three options. One was to drain the lagoon and move the material to another location. Another called for raising the sides of the lagoon to increase its capacity, which he noted would include some sort of reinforcing work due to the lagoon’s age. Both of those options, he said, would only delay the problem as the lagoon would refill in the future.
Ultimately, he said, SUD chose a method that will relieve pressure on the lagoon’s capacity going forward.
“Basically, we’ll pull the sludge into a drier and treat it, and put it in bins,” he said. “Then it can be used for fertilizer. It’s a much more sustainable type process that goes on and on.”
Kemp said the associated upgrades to the water treatment plant are expected to take 18 months to two years.
SUD initiated the process for issuing the revenue bonds with the board approvals on Tuesday. Kemp said bond payments will come from SUD’s revenue, and neither will count against the city’s borrowing limit or put any exposure on the city.
“They’re not obligated to pay for them through taxes or anything else,” he said. “They come through the enterprise funds.”
Mayor Lynn Spruill, speaking after the meeting, said both the electric and water system improvements are important for the city moving forward. She noted the substation will help as the city moves forward by improving the amount of power it can offer, and the lagoon work is a necessary project.
“It’s very important that we do that to keep our infrastructure operating at peak as we grow, which we certainly are continuing to do,” she said. “…We are handling the things that need to be handled in a timely fashion. That, I think, is going to be the hallmark of this particular board and its administration.”
Lime
The city also approved an agreement with Lime, a bike-sharing company to provide bicycles for use in the city.
The matter was approved as part of Tuesday’s consent agenda, which means it included with other housekeeping matters without an individual vote.
Lime allows users to use its bikes in conjunction with an app. The bikes will be placed at 22 deployment points along Main Street, University Drive and Russell Street, and can be ridden anywhere. Using the bikes costs $1 to unlock and 15 cents per minute, while students who use the app with a .edu email address get a discounted rate of 50 cents per half hour.
Lime bikes are already in use at Mississippi State University, and Ward 1 Alderman Ben Carver said he tried them over the weekend and likes the concept.
“I used it a couple of times this weekend,” he said. “It’s one of those things that I look at from all sides, but I don’t really see any negatives with this.”
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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