A backlog of surplus property could be headed for an online auction this month if city council members approve the move Tuesday.
The online auction platform GovDeals presented its services during a council work session Thursday at City Hall as a way for the city to offload the items, which range from decommissioned vehicles to work equipment to old computers. In all, the items would make up 88 listings on the auction website.
“Everything is sold as-is, where-is, at no cost to you,” Justin Riechers, GovDeals account manager for Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana, told the council.
Auctions run for 10 to 14 days, Riechers said. Buyers can pay by wire transfer or personal check. Once buyers pick up their items, GovDeals remits payment to the city.
Jammie Garrett, city chief operations officer, said the company charges fees to buyers and does not require a fee or a percentage of the sale from the city.
Much of the surplus comes from the police or public works departments, Mayor Keith Gaskin said. Some items have spent years in storage and “were just forgotten about.”
“I like it,” Gaskin told The Dispatch after the meeting, referring to the online auction. “… We should not have this much (surplus) property.”
The city has held a surplus auction “every three or four years” at the fairgrounds, Human Resources Director Pat Mitchell said. That required the city to hire an auctioneer and bring all the equipment – and bidders – to a centralized location.
Once the council finalizes the surplus property list and approves it for online auction, Mitchell said the city will advertise, post notice on its website and open the portal for prospective bidders to open an account.
Garrett told the council she hopes the auction could begin by mid-to-late November.
Dial-A-Bus
Roughly six weeks since the council voted to demolish the Dial-A-Bus building by the end of the year, the program is still struggling to find a new operations location.
Dial-A-Bus is a free public transportation program for seniors through the Lowndes County Council on Aging that has operated in the city-owned building at 161 Maple St. for years.
The building sustained significant roof damage during two January storms, and the city voted in September to use $15,000 in insurance settlement money to demolish it rather than incur more significant costs to renovate it.
That put LCCOA in a bind and brought its board treasurer Bob Crigler to Thursday’s work session seeking some sort of stay on demolition.
“We need 800 square feet, two offices and a restroom,” Crigler said during the meeting.
Both the city and county are trying to help Dial-A-Bus find a new home, though city officials said Thursday that efforts to move the program in with the Salvation Army or United Way failed.
There don’t appear to be any city-owned properties that fit the bill, though Gaskin said the city “can’t gift them space” since it isn’t a city agency. He noted the group has been using the current building rent free, something he planned to address even before the storms damaged the building.
“Because they are such a vital organization to the community – they’ve been doing a lot of good work for a long time, we wanted to help them find a place to relocate,” Gaskin said. “It’s just been more difficult than anticipated.”
The council agreed to revisit the issue in December to see the status of the program’s relocation efforts and not demolish the building in the meantime.
Crigler told The Dispatch the group probably needs more time than that.
“If we don’t have a place, we’re out of business,” he said. “… We need two months’ notice, at least, before they tear it down just to give us time to move.”
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 34 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
