The City of Indianola is putting its eggs in one basket, and that is public works.
Indianola Mayor Ken Featherstone appeared before the Sunflower County Board of Supervisors this past Monday, requesting authorization to amend the Congressional Appropriation Budget.
Dr. Adrian Brown of Brown & Associates Inc. spoke to the board alongside Featherstone about the appropriation.
Brown said, “The request before you this morning is the city is seeking to make a change and is considering purchasing $510,000, I think of public works equipment, for public works. It should have the cost estimates in your files. They are also requesting, which was a part of their original request, funds to replace the roof at City Hall and funds to replace the floor at City Hall, which was in their original request, in conjunction with the administrative fees that was in their original request. This request for you all today is to consider authorizing the city of Indianola to make the necessary changes to their budget and subsequently you all will be authorizing the next item on your agenda the authorization of Brown & Associates to complete the budgetary request to HUD for those respective changes.”
The board asked Brown to specify what were the new items Indianola would be including within the request.
Brown said, “Well, the other items were in the initial request. In essence what the city of Indianola is seeking to do is take the majority of their money and put it towards public works vehicles. They had some budgeted in the original request but I think they want to purchase a street sweeper and a boom truck. Those pieces of equipment may be a couple hundred thousand dollars apiece, and I think they want to purchase a Ford heavy duty truck, a couple of heavy-duty trucks.”
The original allocation was announced in February 2023 by Congressman Bennie Thompson as a $2 million grant to the county for municipal projects.
Indianola’s share of that grant is $700,000.
“Originally, what the city of Indianola requested I think the idea and concept initially was to request money for different departments. They had varieties of city divisions and now because of the state of our city streets and the state of the deplorable condition that the equipment is in they are asking to simplify this process for the county to just make one big overall purchase for the equipment and the flooring and the roof,” Brown said.
The board approved the request from the City of Indianola to amend the budget for the Congressional Appropriation.
Also on Monday,Thelma Green with the Delta Advantage Center presented a request to the county seeking a partnership so that the center may receive a grant from Dick’s Sporting Goods and another entity.
Board Attorney Johnny McWilliams said, “The statutes that I am aware authorize a county to create and operate a park system. We never have, but you have an authority to do that. That contemplates the ownership of the recreational facility. We don’t own it. Delta Advantage Center owns it. And I don’t know of any authority to donate to them other than that $18,000 that was authorized by the Mississippi Legislature and that is the extent of your authority to me for making any donations. But I don’t think you're authorized to subsidize a private facility.”
The county gives Delta Advantage Center $18,000 a year for the yearly appropriation.
Sunflower County District 1 Supervisor Glenn Donald said, “They are not asking for donations. They are filing for a grant to get money and they just want Sunflower County to partner with them so that they can provide a place for recreation for the entire county. They want to provide they are not asking for anything; they just want the agency they are getting the money from to know that they are providing a place for county constituents to be able to come to their indoor building during the summer and winter.”
Green said, “We are not requesting that Sunflower County pay for everything. We have to have partners in this to receive the grant. It doesn’t mean every time we have an event, we expect Sunflower County to pay for it. That’s not our expectation. If there is money involved, we will accept that but you don’t have to give us something every month. We are not asking for that.”
One of the requests Delta Advantage Center made was for the sheriff to patrol the facility from time to time. The board told Green that they couldn’t obligate the sheriff to patrol the area.
“One of the stipulations of the grant is a match and that match could be done through services. If the police are out patrolling and include this in it because of the event, that would be a match to what we have to bring to the table. The service is them coming around is part of our match.” Green said.
The board was concerned about the insurance coverage of the facility and if any accidents may occur on the property if Delta Advantage has liability.
“As part of the grant we must have liability insurance on the property. Somewhere, somehow, we need to start changes or we are going to lose another generation of children to violence. So, what we want to do is with partners be able to provide a safe environment. We have some materials we are working with people for flooring. They want to know that not only are you supporting us in words, but you are an active part of our support team.” Green said.
The board approved to write Delta Advantage Center a letter of support.
