Board approves purchase of new garbage trucks

By Rupert Howell
Supervisors bought and sold garbage trucks, heard a request for additional funding from the Boys and Girls Club directors and approved match funding for the Sardis Lake Road overlay during Monday’s Second District meeting in Batesville.
Tri-State Mac was the apparent low and only bidder for trucks to be replaced in the Panola County Sanitation Department. The three trucks were advertised ranging from $222,000 to $194,000, depending on its use.
High bids to purchase those trucks being replaced average approximately half or more of the purchase for the new trucks.
Boys and Girls Clubs of Northwest Mississippi is seeking additional county funding and that organization’s directors were met with praise by supervisors and the county’s sheriff.
Percy Bruce, Kay Wolfe, Dennis Hoskins, Father Don Chancellor each spoke before the supervisor board seeking approval for additional funding as did Latisha Price who is director of the facility in Batesville located at Eureka Street and Hwy. 51.
Sheriff Dennis Darby, as well as others present, endorsed the facility being used to train, tutor and entertain children.
Bruce invited all to witness new directors being installed on the following day.
Supervisors did not commit to additional funds but took the request under advisement until budget discussions which will continue this Monday at 9 a.m. at the Batesville Courthouse.
The Sardis Lake Road overlay will proceed with board president Kelly Morris stating, “It’s a project we’ve been working on for years and years. I’m for moving on, we’ve got the money.”
That road is located in the board president’s district. Morris is in a runoff election for his District Four post August 25 with Democratic Challenger Donald Phelps. The winner of that race will face a slate full of independent candidates as well as a Republican in November.
The county had originally agreed to pay $130,000 in matching funds for the Sardis Lake Road project. That amount was reduced when additional funding was located but a spike in the bid amount over the estimate forced the county to come up with $150,000 in local funds to proceed with the $741,244 project.
Supervisors also accepted the lower bid of Marchbanks Construction of Water Valley in the amount of $32,418 to replace the roof at the Cliff Finch County Office Building located on Eureka Street in Batesville.