Partnership Move?

Published 12:00 am Friday, March 22, 2013

City leaders reject Partnership move

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By John Howell Sr.

Batesville’s mayor and aldermen want the Panola Partnership to find a site for an office building nearer the center of the city than the location they requested east of Interstate 55.

The city’s elected officials at their Tuesday meeting discussed a response to Panola Partnership whose representative, William Pride, asked the city to donate land near the Batesville Civic Center for a new Partnership building. Pride had made the request at the March 5 meeting.

“That’s too valuable … to be just putting a Partnership out there,” Alderman Ted Stewart said.

A statement in a proposed draft of the city’s response to the Partnership placed the value of the land requested at $400,000. Stewart stated a higher estimate, from $500,000 to $600,000.

“I don’t want to give the land up,” Alderman Stan Harrison said. “ … I don’t want to move it all the way out there. To me it sends maybe the wrong message to everybody else in the community about what’s going on. I think it should be somewhere between here and there, but not there.”

“I’m saying you’re going to take something from the businesses if you do that now, as it is,” Alderman Bill Dugger said.

Mayor Jerry Autrey said that he thinks the Batesville Main Street office should remain on the downtown Square.

Harrison said that the local and national Main Street organizations want the Main Street offices to remain in downtown areas.

The mayor and aldermen also discussed the coalition of counties that Pride mentioned during the March 5 presentation.

“It needs to be a lot of discussion on that,” Mayor Jerry Autrey said. The letter of response to the Partnership questioned the organization and financial support of a proposed coalition. “The county and the city and the Partnership all need to be involved in this,” he said.

“My concern is the City of Batesville first, and the county,” Alderman Ted Stewart said. “Our thing is to take care of our own home first.”

“I’m all for counties working together as units,” Alderman Eddie Nabors said. “That’s how Tupelo got Toyota was pulling a coalition of counties together, but whether or not it’s going to have a physical presence, something that’s going to be housed in a facility, to me that’s different from just an organizational approach,” Nabors continued.

“I wouldn’t be against it,” the mayor said, alluding to a coalition of counties, “but I’d like to know how it works.”

Another inquiry in the letter that was adopted by a 4-0 vote, included a question about Partnership recruitment priorities.

“The city believes that retail recruitment should have as much emphasis as industrial,” the letter states.

Alderman Bill Dugger asked that the letter include a response during an appearance at a board meeting or in writing.

The Panola Partnership is a county-wide economic development organization that receives funding from the county and the City of Batesville. 

Other support comes from membership dues. In November, 2012, the Southern Mississippi Electric Power Association agreed to pay the Partnership approximately $3.7 million after purchase of the power plant formerly owned by LSP Energy from bankruptcy court. 

During ten years of operation, LSP Energy paid the Partnership approximately $30,000 monthly as part of an economic development agreement made with the Panola Industrial Development Authority. 

The lump sum payment was made in lieu of further monthly payments. Panola County supervisors agreed to accept the one-time payment but stipulated that the funds could only be used for economic development.