By John Howell

City officials will ask the Panola Partnership and the Panola County Board of Supervisors to consider sending a joint delegation to Washington to lobby Congress on city projects.

“It’s best to go up there,” Alderman Ted Stewart said, following a recent conversation he had with Congressman Bennie Thompson.

“He said when you go up there, it’s just a difference,” Stewart said. 

“I think it needs to be a coordinated effort,” Alderman Eddie Nabors said.

The discussion came during the March 4 First Tuesday city board meeting where Mayor Jerry Autrey was absent due to illness and Vice Mayor Teddy Morrow presided. Aldermen Stewart, Eddie Nabors, Stan Harrison and Bill Dugger were all also present.

Tony Hill appeared at the meeting with questions about variations for the water and sewer bill at his 215 Hickory Lane home. Hill cited monthly billing cycle variations from $60 to $200 and up to 40 days usage in some billing cycles.

Alderman Dugger said that the variations in the number of days in the billing cycle had been caused by the city-wide installation of automated water meters.

“I’m trying to figure out what kind of cycle we’re on,” Hill told city officials. He said that the irregular billing cycles had proved hard to budget.

“This is not something planned or intended; it’s a big deal,” Dugger said, referring to the city-wide water project. “It’s growing pains, going to a new system.”

“So in the time frame of getting this thing balanced out, what do y’all think?” Hill asked.

“We’re down to about 100 meters in finishing out,” City Engineer Blake Mendrop said. “I would say in a month to two months, we should be on a pretty good cycle.”

Morrow said that once the automated readings have been implemented, all billing should be on 29 to 31 day cycles.

Later in the meeting Mendrop requested a change order to the Delta Water contract for the automated meter reader installation, allowing an additional 12 days to complete the project.

“That gives us a couple of more weeks to finish up,” the engineer, citing winter weather delays, said.

In other business during the First Tuesday meeting:

• Aldermen approved Batesville Fire Chief Tim Taylor’s request to hire Jason Sanders as a full-time fire fighter. The decision came during an executive session near the end of the meeting that also included discussion of a personnel matter in a city department. The public was excluded from the meeting for over an hour;

• Architectural designer Angela Clanton told city officials that work was to begin Monday, March 10, on the wall of the Will Polk and Company building at Eureka Street and the Square. Clanton has worked with Batesville Main Street and the city on downtown projects including the redesign of the Wilbourne Building. She has proposed a small city park for the city-owned space adjacent to the Polk Building;

• Batesville Civic Center Director Roy Hyde reported that the Feb. 29 Bill Lipscomb Memorial Rodeo had attracted its largest crowd at its 10th anniversary performance. Hyde said that “right at 3,000 people” had attended. “It was very smooth,” Hyde said.

The BCC director also read a lengthy list of private events scheduled for the center during March;

• Following the recommendation of Police Chief Tony Jones, aldermen voted to declare three police vehicles as surplus property. They voted to donate one surplus vehicle each to the Panola County Sheriff’s Dept., and to the towns of Courtland and Pope;

• Alderman Nabors requested that the city engineer determine the additional cost of adding a walking/biking corridor alongside the connector road under construction between Pine Lodge Road and Medical Center Drive. 

“The dirt work on the frontage road is wide enough to allow for a walking trail,” Nabors said.

“Anything you build nowadays needs some pedestrian access to it if it’s going to go,” he said. “We’ll look at it costwise;”

Engineer Mendrop said that work to clear the route for the frontage road had not been significantly slowed by winter weather. The construction has been jointly under taken by the city and county; 

• Aldermen voted to again seek bids for a new concession stand and restroom facility at Trussell Park. The facility was planned in 2010 and let for bids, but aldermen delayed when bids came in higher than estimates.