By John Howell
The Batesville Fire Department plans a July dedication for the Broome-Florence Training Facility that has been completed on Panola Avenue. Fire Chief Tim Taylor announced the dedication on a day to be determined during the June 7 meeting of the board of mayor and aldermen.
Using a bequeath from the late Elizabeth Florence, the fire department has fashioned from six shipping containers a multi-story tower with exterior and interior stairwells. The fire department will use a seventh container for storage of props that are used to make training simulation as realistic as possible, Taylor said.
Florence left $50,000 to BFD in honor of her late brother and former fire chief Dave Broome.
During an executive session that lasted one hour, aldermen hired six new employees, assistant City Attorney Colmon Mitchell said when aldermen re-opened the meeting to adjourn. John Stewart and Jonathan Jackson were hired as part-time employees at the Batesville Civic Center, Sherry Nix as a Batesville Police Department dispatcher and Joshua Goodnite to work in the city’s anti-litter program.
Mitchell said the city officials also discussed fee policies for using the Batesville Civic Center. Mitchell, responding to a question from The Panolian, said that the closed-door consideration of civic center fees was appropriate because amounts charged to specific organizations were discussed. The mayor and aldermen talked about which organizations would receive reduced-fee use of the facility, he said
City officials have followed a policy of allowing reduced-rate use of BCC by schools and non-profit organizations but restricted the number of reduced-fee uses allowed annually.
The executive session came at the end of a meeting already lengthened by a 1 p.m. start. Certified Public Accountant Bill Crawford of Will Polk and Associates presented a proposed amendment to the city budget to allow for increases or decreases in revenues or expenses that are at variance with the annual city budget adopted last September.
Using figures provided by Batesville City Clerk Susan Berryhill, Crawford met with the mayor and aldermen at the earlier time to bring the budget into compliance with state law that prohibits a municipality from ending its fiscal year in arrears. Crawford said that the biggest adjustment in the amendment came from less-than-anticipated revenue from city gas department sales due to less need for heating last fall and winter.
The amendment was approved by unanimous vote.
All aldermen — Bill Dugger, Stan Harrison, Ted Stewart, Eddie Nabors and Teddy Morrow were in attendance as was Mayor Jerry Autrey.
In other business during the June 7 meeting:
• Aldermen voted to hold public hearings in July on zoning and code variance requests. The public will have an opportunity to comment on a conditional use request from McCullar peach sales and for a zoning variance from Wake, LLC. A hearing on a zoning ordinance amendment will also be held;
• Cleanup hearings will be held in July for 203 Brinkley Lane and 208 King Street;
• Aldermen approved a request by attorney Al Welshans on behalf of TG Missouri for ad valorem tax exemption. TG Missouri owns the Toyoda Gosei facility in the W. M. Harmon Industrial Park and continues expansion to meet demand for auto component production shipped to the Toyota facility at Blue Springs near Tupelo. The company has also recently added a product line for Honda, Welshans said;
• A ad valorem tax exemption was also approved for GE Aviation during the June 7 meeting.