By Eloria Newell James, community@leadercall.com
September 26, 2008 09:28 am
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Lack of meeting attendance was cited as the reason the City of Laurel failed to give approval needed for a new business to locate in the city.
During a special Laurel City Council meeting Thursday, the council with a 2 to 2 vote failed to adopt a resolution authorizing the administration to commit local matching funds necessary for filing an application to the Mississippi Development Authority for Community Block Grant funds under the Katrina Supplemental Economic Development Program for a project related to improvements necessary for the location of the Hydro-Dec North America plant in the Industrial Park and also to execute the memorandum of agreement with Hydro-Dec North America.
Officials said Hydro-Dec is a transformer oil company that is locating in the Industrial Park.
Councilman George Carmichael said the special meeting was called by the city administration. However, no one from the administration attended Thursday’s meeting to address some concerns that a few of the council people had.
Carmichael and Ward Five Councilman Manuel Jones voted in favor of the resolutions. However, Council members Willie L. Evans and Felecia M. Breland voted against the issues citing their concern about the lack of attendance at the meeting.
Carmichael, Jones, Evans and Breland were the only council members present.
Other council members contacted said they were not able to attend the meeting for various reasons.
“They had reschedule it one or two times this week, and I was just not able to make it this morning,” Councilman Johnny Magee said.
“I’m out of town and will not return until Friday. I thought it was a routine matter,” Councilman Tony Wheat said. “It’s something we’ve done before. We have been working on this.
“I didn’t know there would be any lack of support,” Wheat added. “It’s purely for economic development. ... It’s a win-win situation.”
The mayor, chief administrative officer and the city attorney did not attend the meeting.
However, Woody Samples of Samples and Associates, was in attendance and attempted to answer some of the council persons’ questions.
Wanda Benson with the city’s public information office said the mayor, who was not able to attend the meeting, “whole heartedly supports this project.”
Evans said her vote was not against the project, but was out of concern.
“I’m not opposed to any of these orders. I’m reluctant to vote because it concerns me that there’s no administration or attorney present and there’s not a full council,” Evans said. “I’m just not comfortable with this right now. ... I have some questions.”
Carmichael and Jones said they supported the project because of the benefits it offers the community.
“For economic reasons, we need the new jobs to come to Laurel. The 39 to 70 jobs that are slated to come, we need every opportunity that’s available to help our city,” Jones said. “I support all new industries because they provide jobs and have to pay school taxes, and that helps our schools and our community.
“The best interest of the city is to get more jobs and to help lighten our tax burdens,” Jones added.
Samples said Hyro-Dec has already applied for its permits with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and hopes to break ground next month.
Also Tuesday, the council failed to adopt a resolution authorizing the administration to file an application to the Mississippi Development Authority for a grant under the 2006 Katrina Supplemental Community Development Block Program and execution of a grant agreement with the Mississippi Development Authority should the application be funded.
In other business Tuesday, the council did not vote on several resolutions in connection with grants the city had applied for earlier.
In August, the council approved a second contract needed for the city to receive more than $1.3 million from the state in disaster recovery grants.
Laurel has been approved for two projects under the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)/Gulf Opportunity (GO) Zone.
One project is a $1,104,300 grant for construction of a water treatment plant administrative building. The other grant project totaling $234,000 will be for the demolition/construction of a senior citizens building.
The projects are funded through Mississippi’s $5.48 billion federal Katrina recovery package, composed entirely of flexible CDBG monies, which may be used for a variety of public infrastructure purposes.
Officials said the approval of the contracts earlier this year was the first step in the process of getting the repair work done.
Thursday, the council did not adopt a resolution authorizing Mayor Melvin Mack or Chief Administrative Officer Gary Suddith to sign the request for cash forms and other project related reports and documents under the State of Mississippi Katrina Supplemental CDBG Program Projects: Project Number R-110-228-01-GZ being the renovation of the water treatment plant building #1; and Project Number R-110-228-02-GZ being the construction of the Senior Citizens Center at Daphne park.
The council also did not adopt an order Thursday approving the contract with Neel-Schaffer, Inc. for the engineering services related to the preliminary designs for the CDBG Katrina Supplemental Project for the construction of a Senior Citizens Center.
Evans asked why some of the items were included on the special meeting’s agenda.
Samples said the Katrina fund projects were being addressed at the special called meeting to “just speed up the process.” However, he said, all the matters can be taken care of at the council’s next meeting.
The mayor is planning to call another special call meeting on Wednesday following the council’s agenda setting meeting.
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