Jury hires local engineering firm

By Vershal Hogan (Contact) | The Natchez Democrat

Published Tuesday, April 29, 2008

VIDALIA — The Concordia Parish Police Jury voted Monday night to contract Bryant Hammett and Associates to serve as the engineering firm for a grant project in which the jury is participating.

The grant is the Pilot Planning Program, in which the jury was given $150,000 to update or amend the parish hazard mitigation plan.

The goal is to have the plan updated so that if grant funds become available for hazard mitigation projects — such as drainage projects to prevent flooding — the jury will already have the basic planning already finished so they can apply for the grants.

“One of the problems we have had in the past is we didn’t have any plans on the shelf we could pull off when a grant became available, and they only had a certain amount of time to spend the money,” Director of Emergency Preparedness Morris White said.

The jury also voted to pass a resolution opposing legislation before the house that would have the state begin collection of local taxes.

The school board has collected the taxes for a number of years, President Melvin Ferrington said.

The Police Jury Association, the School Board Association and the Sheriff’s Association have all gone on record as being opposed to the bills, Juror Randy Temple said.

“One of the downsides of this bill is that the state will hold onto those funds for at least 30 days, whereas the school board deposits them right away,” Temple said.

In other news:

4The jury named Kathy Nunnery of Vidalia to the Kisatchie Delta Board.

4The board voted to pay $452.60 to repair a water line the public works department accidentally broke.

4The board approved transfers of $45,000 from the sales tax fund to the solid waste disposal fund, $3,400 from the public health fund to the general fund and $1,500 from the highway maintenance fund to the general fund.