The Lowndes County Board of Supervisors wants a few good signs.
District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks said there isn’t good signage on Airport Road, especially near the industrial park where Steel Dynamics Inc. is located.
“There’s a lot of traffic on Airport Road, and people are going into the wrong lanes,” Brooks said. “You’ve got people meeting each other at certain portions of that road. We want to get with (Mississippi Department of Transportation) and rectify that as soon as possible.”
County Administrator Jay Fisher told the board a safety manager at SDI had contacted the county and said a truck had left the plant and ended up on the wrong side of the divided highway.
“The way the road is divided at Charleigh Ford Drive and at the entrance to their facility, people go northbound in the southbound lanes of Airport Road,” Fisher said. “There was an incident where the (manager) contacted a truck by CB radio and told him he was on the wrong side of the road.”
The truck driver attributed it to poor signage, Fisher said.
District 1 Supervisor Harry Sanders said it wasn’t clear who had the authority to put signs up along Airport Road.
“When the road was built MDOT said the county had to do maintenance on it for 10 years,” Sanders explained. “That included signage. After 10 years, they turned around and said they would maintain the surface, but we were still responsible for the signage.”
President Trip Hairston said he thought MDOT was responsible for the signage. Fisher had a different take.
“We’re responsible for the maintenance of the right-of-way but not the signage,” Fisher said.
Hairston said there had been issues regarding signage out there before.
“When the 10 years expired, they were looking at the right-of-way and they said there were two signs out there, Airbus and another one, that had to be removed,” Hairston said. “We told them we would maintain the right-of-way and they would do the surface. The signage is still a question.”
Neel-Schaffer Engineer John Freeman said he thought the state would still be responsible for highway signs and suggested contacting MDOT about the signs. Freeman is acting as county engineer while Bob Calvert is out sick.
Brooks said if it took too long to work out, the county should just bite the bullet and put signs up itself.
“Reach out to MDOT and if it gets to be stagnant we’ll go ahead and do it,” Brooks said. “… Especially with all those heavy trucks out there, it could be a dangerous situation.”
Hairston asked Freeman to contact MDOT about putting up signs and report back to the board.
Trespassing policy approved
Earlier in October the board discussed the need for a usage policy at county recreation facilities. Homeless people were using the northern concession stand at the Roger Short Soccer Complex as a shelter, and the county’s lack of a policy setting out acceptable uses for the facility made it hard for law enforcement to ask them to leave.
Tuesday the board unanimously approved a policy setting those parameters.
Fisher said all county-owned parks, ball fields, community centers and recreational facilities are to be used “solely for recreational purposes, athletic contests, events approved by the Recreation Department and observation of those events.”
All other uses are considered trespassing, Fisher said.
Hairston told The Dispatch after the meeting the county is not trying to punish homeless people.
“We want to say we are compassionate about anyone who is down on their luck or homeless,” Hairston said. “We will make sure they are given contacts for the proper people who can help them with (appropriate) services.”
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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