With 1,357 positive cases of the coronavirus now being reported in Sunflower County, on Monday night, the Indianola Board of Aldermen made a decision to not make any changes to its emergency proclamation despite a recent easing up on some of the statewide restrictions regarding public gatherings.
The vote was four yeses and one abstention with Alderman Ruben Woods deciding to abstain. Woods suggested that the city leaders follow the guidelines laid out by Gov. Tate Reeves in a recent executive order.
Reeves recently issued executive order 1522, which reportedly changes the limits on group gatherings when social distancing is not possible to 10 indoors and now 50 outdoors. That same order raises the limits when social distancing is possible to no more than 20 indoors and no more than 100 outdoors.
The order further states that the maximum capacity has been increased to 75 percent for retail businesses, restaurants, gyms and seated dinners at reception halls and conference centers. In addition, gyms can be now open 24 hours a day.
Party sizes in restaurants were also addressed and are now limited to 10 people per table. The city leaders decided to leave these as they are for now.
Alderman Marvin Elder said, “To be on the safe side, it is what it is. We just had a holiday just pass last week. You got to count your days behind that holiday with people gathering and congregating.”
So, he then made the motion not to change it.
As of Tuesday, Sunflower County’s case numbers were up by 19 since Friday. And a total of 42 deaths have been reported in the county including one Parchman inmate.
According to the latest Sunflower County Emergency Management situation report, there are two new reported cases among teachers and 10 among students. Three school teacher/staff members and nine students have been quarantined. And since the start of school, five teacher/staff members and eight students have tested positive.
In other business,
An agenda item to discuss and approve pay raises for certain city employees passed on a 4-1 vote with Alderman Gary Fratesi voting no. Rosenthal said that if there were to be any pay raises given, they would have to be approved prior to approving the budget.
The pay increases were proposed for the public works department personnel. Rosenthal reportedly presented a list of names and amounts to the aldermen that reportedly resulted in a $28,828 addition to the budget.
Fratesi questioned why Rosenthal was giving raises to the public works department, insisting that they were the least efficient department in the city with the worst work performance and asked why he was denying raises to the police department.
Fratesi maintained that although the current salary for public works employees is around $9 per hour, it actually equates to $12 when factoring in benefits and perks. He again made his appeal for merit raises and not across the board increases.
In addition, Fratesi also challenged Rosenthal and the other aldermen to validate their decision to give the raises to the public works department.
"Again, I want you and the aldermen to justify how you’re going to give these people a raise and not give the police department a raise, because you're giving these people at the public works a raise for the same reason the chief asked for his people to get a raise,” Fratesi said.
Rosenthal explained that the police were given raises prior to the budget being submitted. Nonetheless, Fratesi contends that Chief Edrick Hall had asked for raises to increase the divide between certain employees.
Hall explained that the pay increases they got earlier in the year were for retention purposes to bring his officers up to where other local officers are in pay, but he still has not gotten a raise for his dispatchers or clerical staff, who were already low on the pay scale.
Alderman Ruben Woods expressed his discontent at Fratesi’s remarks about the public works department, and said he was offended and then defended the public works employees by citing that they do work that no one else wants to do.
