Council postpones gym work decision

By Vershal Hogan (Contact) | The Natchez Democrat

Published Wednesday, March 26, 2008

FERRIDAY — The Ferriday Town Council voted to postpone a decision about work on the Florida Street gym until council members could prioritize work items on the project.

The vote was passed at a specially-called meeting Tuesday night.

The town had previously released a bid to make indoor and roof repairs to the gym, and only one company, D.C. Lamarr, made a bid on the project.

The Lamarr bid was for $54,000, and the town plans to pay for the repairs in part with a $35,000 grant.

At the council’s March 11 meeting, a final decision about the bid was tabled until the recreation committee had time to look over the bid and make a recommendation to the council.

Alderman Glen Henderson asked if the town could not just do some of the minor work on the list of repairs itself and then reassess the situation regarding the major repairs.

“I would repair the floor first,” Henderson said. “In the colder months, it sweats, and kids can slip on the condensation.”

Alderman Johnny Brown said he was concerned some repairs that need to be made are not on the list, which was compiled some time ago.

“I can’t say that that’s what we really need or not,” Brown said.

Mayor Gene Allen recommended the concerned board members go to the property and come up with a list of repairs they think need to be made.

Brown said he would like to do that, but that adding things to the list would change the overall cost of the project and affect likely affect the bid.

Allen said the council could still reject the bid — which has not been awarded to the single bidder at this point — at its next meeting after they have made their assessment of the gym.

The council also voted to send a letter to Union-Pacific Railroad asking them to donate or sell to the land at a fair market price 12.82 acres the company owns that surround town-owned land.

“We would not be able to expand any projects we had on our property because we don’t own the land around it,” Allen said.

The council was also slated to discuss the lease of the town’s property on which the North Oxidation Pond is located, but decided not to when they discovered the legal steps they would have to take to lease the land would surpass the value of the lease.

Two individuals had expressed interest in leasing the property for hunting, Allen said.

For the town to do so, however, the Department of Environmental Quality would first have to declare the site clear, and the cost of getting that done would offset any real profit the town would have made.

“The site is clean, but that is just a step we would have had to take,” Allen said. “We already lease the old town dump.”