At Monday night's Indianola Board of Aldermen meeting, the city lawmakers voted unanimously to approve a proposal by city worker Braden Little to establish a “trash division” within the city’s public works department.
Based on the proposal, the city would utilize Department of Correction detainees from the Greenwood Restitution Center to help clean up the city.
Little formulated the idea after listening to a presentation by Jeff McManus, director of landscaping services at the University of Mississippi, that was held at the Indianola Capps Center two weeks ago. Public Works Director Robert Spurlock presented the information to the board members as Little stood by to help answer questions.
The workers will be tasked with keeping trash off of the city streets in the downtown area, the major thoroughfares as well as the main entrances to the city. They will be on the job Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., and may also be called out to work some weekends and special events. The city will pay $7.75 per hour, per worker and the money the participants earn will be paid directly to the DOC and used to pay off the fines that the individuals owe. Rosenthal said any costs or fees that would normally be paid to city workers will be the responsibility of the DOC. "As you can see through the handout, what Mr. Braden has proposed in all will save us $50,000 a year by doing it this way."
Spurlock told the members that the trash division will be a separate section from the other city public work sub-departments that are currently responsible for the infrastructure, maintenance and water and sewage areas.
The Department of Corrections will deliver the workers to the city each morning; however, Spurlock said starting off, the city may have to be responsible for transporting the individuals, but the contract calls for the DOC to be responsible for daily transporting.
Alderman Marvin Elder asked about applications for the individuals and if there was a system in place to address tracking and accountability for the men and possibly women who will be participating in the program and Little assured him that one was in place.
Rosenthal clarified that the city is not hiring the individuals and that they will be under the auspices of the Department of Corrections. "So we don't pick and choose, they do. We're hiring the Department of Corrections, not the individual, they are responsible for the individual," Rosenthal said.
He added, "If we get an individual (that) Mr. Braden feels like does not perform then he will contact the Department of Corrections and they'll take that person back and give us a different one."
Alderman Ruben Woods asked about the prisoners that the city was supposed to get for free and Little explained that due to all of the chaos going on with the state prison system, those workers are currently on hold.
Alderman Gary Fratesi then asked if Little would need any special training since he will be the one handling the restitution workers and Rosenthal assured him that Little had already been trained and pre-qualified for the task. "I want to compliment Braden, he attended the meeting at the Capps Center and left completely enthused," Rosenthal said.
All of the members commended Little for taking the initiative.
In other business,
Spurlock presented a proposal that would revise some entries in the city's handbook and set a point system that he hopes will address the absenteeism, attendance and punctuality issues he is currently experiencing in his department.
However, after a brief discussion and a concern raised by Elder about moving forward without proper legal counsel the matter was tabled so they can discuss it further and recommend other changes.
Fratesi asserted that he was in support of the measure and made a motion to move forward with it, but the motion failed 2 to 3 upon a second from Alderman Darrell Simpson.
Fratesi emphasized that Spurlock is in charge of the majority of the city's personnel and implied that the department head’s request was a simple one and necessary. He said, "You put a man in charge and then when he comes and asks for help you won't give it to him, and you go against him every time."
The other city leaders indicated that they were not against Spurlock's plan, so Rosenthal suggested that Spurlock place it on the next agenda and that the aldermen should take time to review it.
Additionally,
Elder requested an update on the city audit being done by Kaiser-Brown CPA firm and Rosenthal said that all of the information that was requested by the firm has finally been submitted, so it is being worked on.
The aldermen voted to contract with South Delta Planning and Development for administrative services with regard to the Mississippi Home project. "As Mr. Lauderdale mentioned the last time, we were on hold waiting for money to be released. We have gone to the next step. We did have four approved candidates, we have three that we're working on title work to see if we can correct, if not we will be looking for more applicants," said Rosenthal.
He said that out of 25 applicants only eight were drawn that might qualify, one of the eight ended up not being able to participate and three are tentatively disqualified due to liens on their properties.
Woods mentioned that in times past the board has had input in the selection process, but they were overlooked during this current selection. Rosenthal stated that the request for applicants was properly advertised and reminded them that this is a 2018 project that they are just now getting around to awarding due to certain issues.
Rosenthal said, “We don't pick, that's what the administrator does." He said the first three items on the checklist eliminated three fourths of the applicants. Brock then asked the mayor to present them with the names of the selected so that they would have knowledge of who's being considered.
The aldermen also voted to void 2019 tax receipts and reissue corrected ones for three citizens who were erroneously charged adjudication fees. "I had made the board aware previously that there were some errors that were carried forward from 2017 and 2018. And these are three that I've run past the state auditor that they are true mistakes and not intentional and they said that it would be no problem with making the changes."
Rosenthal explained how the process is supposed to work indicating that the adjudication fees are put in a separate file and merged with the taxes and that each year the adjudication fee file is supposed to be wiped clean, but in 2017 after the new charges were added, the file was not wiped clean and subsequent year charges were compounded.
He explained that the charges on there for 2019 were erroneously carried forward from 2017 and 2018. He said the assessments could only be removed through a board order.
Rosenthal said new tax bills will be mailed out minus the assessments and any amounts that had already been paid would be refunded.
Brock asked, "With these errors, is it possible you could have more and who will be checking?" Rosenthal stated that he is attempting to go through the tax receipts one by one.
"I'm only doing the ones that I feel confident are truly in error and not intentional and getting approval before I recommend them to the board, so we will continue and I will say that there probably will be some others," Rosenthal said.
Elder objected to the mayor's use of the word "intentional." He said, "Let's just assume everything is an error, because when you leave that word out here… intentional." Rosenthal responded that he was only using terminology put forward by the state auditor and Elder replied, "Well, the state auditor needs to be before us saying that, not you."
