Supervisors place priority on security
The Marshall County Board of Supervisors, in its first meeting of the new year, approved measures to staff the sheriff’s department.
Sheriff Kenny Dickerson said he needs eight more personnel to staff the new jail and about four new deputies to cover the county when the new substation opens in the Chickasaw Trail Industrial Park.
The sheriff’s department will have to add deputies and patrol cars with all the industry and housing projects being built in the industrial north, he said.
“We don’t have enough people to go around and we are going to have to get competitive (with salaries),” said Dickerson.
He attended a conference of sheriffs recently and learned from Sheriff Joey East in Lafayette County that starting salaries in that county begin out at $58,000 a year.
“Some of our 20- and 30-year people make about that,” Dickerson said. “It is hard to hire and is hard to get jail employees.”
District 3 supervisor Keith Taylor made a motion to go ahead and hire officers and people to staff the new jail.” “The safety and well being of citizens is top priority,” Taylor said. “Let them go ahead and hire jailers.” District 5 supervisor Ronnie O’Neil Bennett made a motion to hire staff for the new jail positions.
Dickerson said the new jail will operate on eight-hour shifts and will require two times the employees it is taking to run the old jail.
He said he had suggested the new jail be annexed to the old jail, but was not heard.
District 2 supervisor Johnny Walker remarked that the new year began with an inmate meal situation.
Ostensibly, the price of inmate meals has gone up.
Taylor lended full support to the sheriff’s request.
“The sheriff has always been real conservative (with his budget),” Taylor said. “We’ve got that new jail and I think we could staff it.”
“We need some new vehicles now,” the sheriff said.
Many of the patrol cars in the fleet already have very high mileage, he said.
The board approved the motion to hire new personnel and provide vehicles for new deputy positions as needed.
In other business covered in the supervisor’s reports, District 1 supervisor Charles Terry said there is a complaint from a resident living in Shady Lane Farms Subdivision involving people firing weapons. The established ordinance requires a person to have five or more acres in order to discharge a firearm in a platted subdivision.
The complainant said the person has two lots of about three acres each that adjoin and believes there is a legal right to discharge a firearm in Shady Lane Farms Subdivision.
He asked the board for permission to send a letter to the property owner reminding the person that two three-acre lots does not meet the requirement of the ordinance.
The board approved Terry’s request for the letter.
District 4 supervisor George Zinn III agreed that the county’s firearms ordinance is difficult to enforce.
“I hope the board would buckle down,” he said. “Shooting in subdivisions needs to be eliminated entirely. A person needs a 25acre mini-farm to shoot. Five acres is really not sufficient.”
Walker said he has a neighbor discharging firearms as close as 300 yards from his eight-acre property. The neighbor discharging the firearm has two acres, he said.
“We’ve got to come up with a way to address this,” Zinn said.
“I’d like to know if it’s spelled out (in the ordinance),” Taylor said.
“We talked about putting buffers (berms) and nobody’s doing it,” Zinn said.
Bennett brought up the topic of a county-owned food pantry, which he said his constituents said there is a need for when he was campaigning.
“I’ve had many people talk to me about that,” he said.
Taylor said it could be put in as a line-item on the county’s request for Local and Private bills at the Legislature in Jackson.
Zinn said a food pantry was started at the old cannery building at the Chulahoma Community Center, but someone found a statue that a food pantry could not be operated out of a countyowned facility.
Terry said a lot of consideration needs to go into it.
“But, in the statue, the county is not supposed to support a pantry,” Terry said. “Think about all the details that goes along with a food pantry.”
Bennett said he thinks there is a need for it and made a motion to look into the matter, Walker seconded the motion and it was approved by a vote of 5-0.
Taylor then suggested a line item be put in the county’s request for Local and Private legislation to hold a leadership program. He said Rep. Bill Kinkade and Sen. Neil Whaley said Local and Private legislation would be needed to establish Leadership Marshall.
Terry made a motion and Bennett seconded to request a Local and Private bill to support the program.
Taylor said the leadership program is a networking venture to teach people how each governing body operates.
The board unanimously approved the request for a Local and Private bill to support a leadership program.
Moving on, Taylor said he supports a Local and Private request that the county be allowed to contribute to the animal rescue, `From Abandoned To Adored,’ operated by local contributors.
He said the rescue group helps reduce the population of abandoned or ferral pets.
“Every year we have been kicking it (the proposal to support) down the road,” Taylor said.
The rescue does not accept vicious dogs. The sheriff’s department operates a kennel for vicious dogs.
“She’s for sure not going to take any vicious animals,” said board attorney Amanda Whaley Smith.
“We need to do the legal part,” Taylor said.
Zinn said the board of supervisors did not budget for supporting the rescue group.
Smith said Anita Barnett, who is point leader on the project, did appear before the board in October of 2022 to request financial support.
“She didn’t want a contract where she can’t turn down anything (acceptance of an animal),” Taylor said. “This is coming out of their pocket.”
The county does have an animal control officer. Taylor said the rescue group does not euthanize, but rather adopts them out.
Terry said he gets calls about viscous dogs all the time but the county cannot pick up a dog unless it is viscous.
Smith said she thinks Barnett asked for $100,000 a year to help operate the rescue and it costs about $6,000 per animal in veterinary expense to assure the animal is adoptable.
Taylor said he is willing to donate $75,000 out of his budget in District 3 to the rescue group.
Farley Ridge subdivision resident Tracey Talley said a spay-neuter clinic is needed for people who take in pets but don’t have the money to pay for surgery.
With discussion ended, the board approved a motion to seek Local and Private legislation to support From Abandoned To Adored.
Zinn raised the issue of people being allowed to place a mobile homes near expensive homes. He reminded the board that the topic of limiting mobile homes in the county because they don’t bring in big tax dollars like expensive houses has been discussed by the board already.
Mobile homes lose their tax value once they get about 10 years old, he said.
He said his constituents had asked the matter be brought before the board.
Smith said in 2021 the board passed an ordinance that does not permit mobile homes over eight years old to be moved into the county.
Susie Hill, with the chancery clerk’s office, said the discussion limiting the age of mobile homes was discussed and made it into the board minutes but did not make it into an ordinance.