Odds and ends from last Tuesday’s Batesville city board meeting:

• Voted to lease four backhoes from Stribling Equipment of Greenwood. City street superintendent Teddy Austin recommended leasing because service for the machines comes as part of the lease plan. They voted to pay $10,407.60 annually for each of three machines without “thumb,” one with thumb for $11,008.56;

• Voted to help the J. P. Hudson Memorial Park Association underwrite bids for state Dizzy Dean softball and baseball tournaments.

“We’re competing against other cities that are not non-profit parks,” said Hudson Park spokesman Thad Campbell, who visited the meeting along with David Aven.

The city recoups a portion of its expenditures through sales tax collections on food, beverage and lodging during the days that Hudson hosts the tournaments;

•  Agreed to authorize a check for the city’s annual support for the Boys and Girls Clubs of North Mississippi — $25,000;

• Scheduled for the First Tuesday meeting date, Feb. 4, at a time to be determined, discussion of an ordinance establishing a city historic district;

• Agreed that an easement for a main gas line behind and under property on the southwest side of the downtown Square gives the city sufficient authority to clean the property above the line without accepting ownership of the property as a donation;

• Approved Fire Chief Tim Taylor’s request to appoint him as grant administrator for an $11,000 Homeland Security Grant for equipment purchases;

• Heard Chief Taylor’s report that Engines 8 and 10 will be temporarily sidelined for repairs during coming weeks, pressing the department’s large ladder truck into more frequent service during their absence.