Starkville will move forward with an annexation study, after the measure gained approval from the board of aldermen Tuesday.
Oxford-based planning firm Slaughter and Associates will carry out the study. Consultant Mike Slaughter, with the firm, presented to most of the board at a Friday afternoon work session.
The board voted 4-2 on the proposal, with Ward 1 Alderman Ben Carver and Ward 6 Alderman Roy A. Perkins opposing. Ward 7 Alderman Henry Vaughn was absent from Tuesday’s meeting.
Mayor Lynn Spruill brought the matter before the board. She said she hopes to see the city grow east, to take in high-growth areas that already receive city services such as water and sewage.
“I make no bones about it; one of the things I’d like to see us do is go east and capture the Ford place (Starkville Ford) — they’re very close to our city limits and that’s one of the things that was (a reason to annex), because they’re receiving city services,” she said. “They’re receiving the benefits of being in an urban area without paying the taxes of being in an urban area.”
Spruill said expanding east could also bring into the city limits new developments such as The Retreat apartments, on the west side of Mississippi State, and the developments south of campus along Blackjack Road.
At a question from Carver, Spruill said the city is “absolutely” considering Mississippi State University’s campus for potential annexation, and said city attorney Chris Latimer has spoken to university counsel about it.
“This is an exploratory opportunity,” Spruill said. “I see no reason to rule that out as a possibility, but it is certainly not something where we would go against their wishes. It would be a friendly effort, on our part.”
Slaughter, at Friday’s work session, said his firm conducts studies in two phases. The first would cost $6,000 to $8,000, and the second phase would cost $5,000 to $7,000.
Carver, after Tuesday’s meeting, said he was opposed to the study, and to annexation, because he still believes the city hasn’t met its obligations from its last annexation in 1998.
“Unless something’s changed in the last couple of months, I don’t believe we’ve fulfilled our obligations on the annexation from 19-and-a-half years ago,” he said. “I know there’s a lot of sewage that we need to provide to the citizens that have been paying those taxes for 19-and-a-half years.”
The 1998 annexation added most of what is now north Starkville, as well as chunks of land to the west and south.
Ward 3 Alderman David Little said the study is just a study, and not a guarantee that the city will move forward with an annexation. Should the city decide to do that, though, he said it needs to choose carefully where to expand.
“It’s going to have to make sense to me,” he said. “We’re going to have to be able to afford it. I’m totally against a land grab — I think everybody sitting here is against a land grab. We tried that back in ’98, trying to reach out to the bypass and cover that area of potential growth.”
Spruill previously told The Dispatch the sewer not available in the areas annexed in 1998 either are undeveloped or don’t meet the feasibility criteria for installation.
Police station
In other business, aldermen voted 4-2, with Carver and Perkins opposed, to authorize Spruill to sign a certificate of substantial completion for the renovation of the Starkville Police Department’s downtown police station.
The project $5.4 million renovation project has been largely complete since the summer. However, the city delayed a formal dedication ceremony, originally scheduled for late June, when it learned of standing water in the building’s basement.
The city has since hired engineer Clyde Pritchard’s firm to resolve the issue.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Spruill said that Latimer indicated the certificate of substantial completion is a separate issue from addressing the basement. Officials have said in the past the basement is an unoccupied portion of the building that serves as a crawl space for mechanical infrastructure.
Spruill said at the meeting she wanted to move the police, which has been scattered across the city since the renovation began last year.
The department’s headquarters and administration is housed at City Hall, while reporting and dispatch functions moved to the Starkville Sportsplex annex. Its investigations department is utilizing previously rented and newly leased office space at Synergetics, and other staff and operations occupy South Park Plaza commercial space on Louisville Street.
“It is time, in my opinion, for the police department to go into a perfectly functional, and absolutely beautiful building as far as I’m concerned,” Spruill said. “The work that will be done in the basement in order to make mitigate the water issue is not going to impede the ability of the police department to use this building.”
Thomas Allen, an engineer with Pritchard Engineering, said the firm has devised a plan to install a trench drains along the basement floor to allow the water to drain out to a sump pump, which will remove it from the basement.
A move-in date for the police department wasn’t announced at Tuesday’s meeting.
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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