Departments seek new fire ratings

Cayce is likely to be the first rural fire department to get approved as a graded fire district, according to Harry Willis, assistant chief and president of the board of directors.

The five-mile road radius for the graded district has been drawn and the paperwork and testing have been done to bring all of Cayce within a five road mile radius of the station to a grade 9 and hopefully to a grade 8, he said. That will mean that homes and businesses will get better insurance rates if Cayce meets all the required measures. Insurance rates are improved as the grades are lowered below 10.

Marshall County Emergency Management Director Hugh Hollowell said the county has set a goal to get all the rural fire departments graded but started with Cayce. Barton will be next to try to get a new fire rating. All rural departments in the county are graded at 10, the lowest rating on the scale at present.

Cayce will consist of a graded district and a legal district as well with all structures within the five mile radius graded as a nine or eight and areas outside the five mile radius remaining as a 10 in the rest of the legal district boundaries, Willis said.

Board attorney Tacey Clark Locke thanked Willis for all the work he did to get the project to the finishing line.

Emergency medical responders and fire departments will get medical supplies and equipment from a state Emergency Medical Service Grant. The board of supervisors approved applying for the grant this week.

The county is also seeking a Homeland Security Grant that will be used to purchase a satellite phone link to the state system. The phone can be used as a radio, a telephone and is mobile so it can be used in any disaster situation where land line services and towers are disrupted by catastrophic events, he said.

appointed Carol Seldon to the RLF Review Committee of Northeast Mississippi Planning and Development District. She is eligible to serve a three-year term.
discussed the necessity of setting up the books for a special taxing district for the Holly Springs Commons TIF district with Ronnie Johnson, tax assessor, and Betty Byrd, tax collector.
approved tax exempt status for the 2007 year for the Miller Building recently acquired by the county for use as a courtroom.
authorized a load of gravel for the Marshall County Humane Society kennel area, pending determination of the legality of it. The board approved spreading of some gravel around sewer manholes on some unpaved streets in Potts Camp at the request of Mayor Jimmie Collins. County administrator Larry Hall said it would take about an hour of grader work and two or three loads of limestone to patch up erosion in those streets.
signed paperwork for a home program grant.
heard that Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality has sent the county’s waste management plan back for corrections and changes.
discussed final changes in a contract with Irv Priest to develop a county Web site.
approved a refund of money to Spirit of Life Church for taxes that were sold on the property and gave the church tax-exempt status.
approved the claims docket for mid-March for a report total of $180,391.
authorized an extension to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks for the completion of the walking track around Duck Pond.
discussed a seatbelt policy requirement by Mississippi Public Employees’ Workmen Compensation Service. The policy is an enforcement tool for state law that requires public employees to wear seatbelts when operating equipment.
motioned to require a hauler to pay for road damage. The road was newly paved by the county.
heard an appeal to the board from L.H. Hopper who wants to continue living in a travel trailer in order to help care for a relative. The board tabled the matter for a week.
heard a request from Chad Pope with Strawberry Plains Audubon for tax exempt status on 720 acres of undivided property. The remaining Audubon acreage is already tax exempt.

Pope said Audubon has paid nearly $30,000 in taxes on the 720 acres since 1998. A title search has shown no living heirs to the Laura White family who had one-fifth undivided interest in the acreage in 1911.

Tax Assessor Ronnie Johnson said the attorney general’s office had said the matter of tax exempt status on the four-fifths interest Audubon holds would be up to the state tax commission. Rural Dickerson with the tax commission had advised him that the matter of tax exemption on that four-fifths undivided interest was left to the discretion of the board of supervisors.

Supervisors requested the board attorney get something in writing from the AG and tax commission offices.

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