By John Howell Sr.

The City of Batesville received notice this month that an additional grant has been approved that will help pay for lighting at the Trussell Park Walking Trail opened earlier this year.

Missississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and (MDWFP) Parks Recreation Trails and Parks grant administrator Jean Caraway notified Batesville Mayor Jerry Autrey August 19 that the application for the $100,000 grant project had been approved. The grant will fund 80 percent of the lighting cost; the city will provide the remaining 20 percent, Autrey said.

“We can do some in-kind,” for part of the city’s portion, the mayor added.

 “Your application demonstrated local commitment and addressed the community’s need for recreational trail development,” Caraway stated in her letter.

The walking trail was funded through a $100,000 grant project, also from the MDWFP, and has attracted walkers and joggers to the paved course that winds across gentle slopes between the Trussell Park softball fields and the Batesville National Guard armory on Keating Road.

Landscaping the grounds through which the trail winds began with tree plantings shortly after the trail’s completion. The trees were purchased with funds from a $20,000 Urban Reforestation Grant through the Mississippi Park Commission.

Volunteers planted the trees throughout Trussell Park and at other locations of city-owned property.

Batesville city officials, meeting Friday, August 26, confirmed their intention to seek a Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) Non-Urban Funds grant that would pay for high-mast lighting at the intersection of Highways 6/278 and Interstate 55. Aldermen agreed that a secondary project to which the Non-Urban grants funds could be directed would be upgrading signal lights at the Highway 6/278 intersection with House-Carlson Drive.

The city has completed signal upgrades at three 6/278 intersections the year using MDOT funds and has scheduled similar traffic signal upgrades to begin later this year at the Highway 6/278 intersections with Bates Street and Eureka Street.

In other business, the mayor and aldermen weighed similarities between a request from a wireless Internet service provider to mount its antennas on city-owned towers and the franchise fee a cable service provider pays for its city privileges.

“The cable (Cable One) pays a three percent franchise fee …” and “… provides free service to both schools and to our government buildings based on the contract they have,” Ward 4 Alderman Eddie Nabors said.

Complete Computers is seeking a go-ahead to place its antenna on Fire Station Number 2 to expedite wireless Internet service, the mayor said. In return for the city’s permission to mount the antenna, Complete Computers will agree to provide certain wireless Internet service to city entities at no cost, he added.

“This is sort of a similar thing; I don’t know how similar,” Nabors said. “If we’re providing the means for them to gain that many customers, then maybe we’re entitled to a franchise fee on that.”

Aldermen spent almost 15 minutes discussing the Internet service provider’s request, the pending contract renewal with Cable One and a request for extension of cable service to an area east of the city before agreeing to meet 30 minutes earlier for further discussion at their September 6 meeting. The meeting will begin at 1:30 p.m.

In other business:

•Aldermen agreed to an across-the-board raise for city employees that will amount to an increase of about 1.25 percent.

“We’d like to do more,” Alderman-at-Large Teddy Morrow said after hearing CPA Bill Crawford describe options of how to best distribute among employees the $135,000 allocated in the proposed budget for raises.

“At least we did something,” Ward 2 Alderman Ted Stewart said.

•Aldermen agreed to notify a city employee that he would be the subject of a termination hearing. The employee took off from his city job because of a work-related injury and filed for Worker’s Compensation.

“We’ve discovered now that he went back to work for his old employer,” assistant City Attorney Colmon Mitchell said. “He’s abandoned his job is what it amounts to.”

•Aldermen voted to discuss in executive sessions a tort claims notice that the city has received from an attorney and a personnel matter in the police department.