Speeding motorists who have been using Airport Road as a drag strip will soon find a few bumps in the road.
On Monday during the Sunflower County Board of Supervisors’ meeting, the county lawmakers voted 4-1 to re-install speed bumps on the stretch of road to deter the illegal activity.
District 1 Supervisor Glenn Donald voted no, citing past occurrences where residents and truck drivers have complained about speed bumps on the path that connects U.S. Highway 82 with MS 448.
Donald said, "I'm just going to vote no on it because I've had too many people that goes to that airport to dump their grain and that Airport Road is a main road for 18-wheelers so they don't have to turn on 448 there by the Double Quick. They can't hardly make that turn; so they come all of the way to Airport Road.”
Donald said in the past people have packed the county boardroom out in protest of speed bumps. "So, I'm not going to bring no confusion about it, I'm just have to vote no on it," he said.
District 3 Supervisor Ben Gaston emphasized that the new speed deterrents would be the proper kind. He said they had installed some asphalt speed bumps before, but were told they were not the right ones.
Gaston said he brought the matter up because of complaints from residents about the drag racing.
"We had that complaint about nine months ago, and T.J. (Fairley) went out and put down some homemade asphalt speed bumps. Since that's a state-aid road, Ron (Cassada) said we can't do that,” Gaston said, “They specify a speed bump that you have to use on a state-aid road. So we took up those homemade asphalt speed bumps and that was about the time we were transitioning with Fred (Washington) and I suspect it just got dropped because I had talked to Fred about getting them."
Gaston said he had already talked to Fairley and they were going to order the ones they needed and get them installed.
In other business,
County residents are still complaining because their garbage is not being picked up on a regular basis and in some cases not at all. A new garbage pickup schedule for county residents was approved on Monday and is slated to take effect on November 22. It appears on Page A7 of this paper.
County Administrator/Chancery Clerk Gloria McIntosh presented the schedule to the county leaders on Monday and announced her intent to publish it in the Enterprise-Tocsin newspaper. She said the new schedule was derived through collaboration with the solid waste department manager and the road department manager.
McIntosh said, "The only time they (sanitation crew) will have to make an adjustment is when they are out for a holiday." She said due to the Thanksgiving holiday and the workers being off on Thursday and Friday of that week, they will have to work on the following Saturday to make it up.
The board members then discussed some unacceptable work ethics of the solid waste collection employees, including leaving early, leaving without permission and refusing to work overtime, and decided to set a policy to prevent future abuse.
After a discussion, Attorney Johnny McWilliams proposed the following measures. "Workers in the residential solid waste collection department of Sunflower County are considered to be essential employees and are required to work a full day and overtime, if requested by the supervisor of the solid waste department. All employees are required to fulfill all hours of all shifts unless released by the supervisor,” McWilliams said.
President Riley Rice had also asked about holidays and with regards to that, McWilliams said, “The employees are expected to work overtime if necessary or a later date to complete pickup from solid waste collections within the county." The policy passed unanimously.
Additionally, Veterans Services Officer Ola Kirk provided the members with an update on her recent activities, outlined some future plans and made requests for assistance, which included reviewing those areas of the courthouse that are not Americans with Disabilities Act compliant and bringing them up to code.
They also voted to make a budget amendment to include an item that she needed.
