Citizens ask questions at county meeting

Two persons, Antjuan Lester and Johnnie Houston, grilled the Marshall County Board of Supervisors about county business at the May 6 meeting.

Both individuals ran for elected offices in last year’s elections and lost. Lester ran for sheriff and Houston ran for the office of Chancery Clerk. They were not on the

agenda but were substituting for Rodney Lowe, president of the Marshall County Chapter of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), whose name was on the agenda as item 10.

Lester said he was representing the NAACP and had received several calls about dirt being removed from county right of way. He asked how many feet of county right-of-way does the county maintain.

Ken Jones, now responsible for keeping track of development in the industrial north portion of the county, said all the roads are different. Some are maintained by the state as State Aid roads and some are maintained by subdivisions as subdivision roads, and some are maintained by the county as county roads.

Lester asked how many are State Aid maintained and specifically the right-of-way widths.

Jones said State Aid roads are 40 feet wide. County roads are maintained 20 feet from the center line.

Lester narrowed his questions to Quinn Road in District 3, where he said a lot of road work is going on. The county could be straightening the road, he said he was told.

The citizens are concerned if the county owns the property where dirt is being moved (or mined).

District 3 supervisor Keith Taylor said the county is taking a dangerous curve out of the road because a person died in a car accident there.

“The county has 80 foot of right-of-way and two different diggings,” Taylor said.

He said county engineer Larry Britt has a drawing showing that everything inside the shoulder was dug out by the county. Everything outside the shoulder was dug by the property owner, he said.

Lester said he is familiar with Mr. (John) Porter, who has done a lot of developing in the area from that area to the state line.

Taylor said Porter deeded the land over to the county for the road to be straightened.

“The reason we straightened the road is for safety,” he said.

He said the property for the road was surveyed and the county dug everything inside the survey area.

District 5 supervisor Ronnie O’Neil Bennett. “Duck Pond is down the road,” Holland said.

“The fairgrounds might be the best place rather than them go to Tunica or Olive Branch and pay a fee. If we move things around, the space is there.”

“Holly Springs is the county seat,” said District 1 Charles Terry. “It sets a standard for it to not separate areas of the county off.”

“Walker (District 2 supervisor Johnny Walker) is digging outside (the county right-ofway),” Taylor said.

District 1 supervisor Charles Terry jumped in to say that utility lines get easements.

“What are you asking, can you mean by utility lines?” Terry asked. “You have to look where the flags and stakes are.”

“We’ve been told supervisors can do only so much, so we are trying to find out why Johnny Walker Construction equipment being on the same property,” Lester said.

“It is county equipment,” Taylor said.

“We got tons and tons of dirt leaving Marshall County and we want to know what is being done with it,” Lester said.

Taylor said the county is stockpiling dirt to build up Barringer Road and Dogwood Road to stop flooding.

He said there is a layout of the road prepared by Britt. “Walker knows where the line is,” Taylor said.

Terry stepped back in.

“For future reference, ethics (the state ethics commission) told us `I’m here to keep you out of jail,’ “ Terry said. “The auditor says `I’m here to put you in jail.’ As far as we know what’s going on, I can’t tell you if it’s (dirt is) coming off county or private (property).”

Houston said if the documentation was clear, “we wouldn’t be here today.”

“Is this county or is this their personnel. If it’s county, you got to have all the details,” she said.

She asked about how contracts are bid.

“We bid through legal channels,” Terry said.

He said the county advertises for bids. He said any money the county makes off lease of the land goes back into the county coffers.

“If Mr. Porter donated the property (for the county easement) everybody should know the ins and outs,” Lester said.

“The last question, there was an incident two months ago between two county employees. Is it fair, is it legal, or illegal for the county attorney to represent two employees in the same case?”

“It would be a conflict (of interest),” county attorney Amanda Whaley Smith said. “I did represent Mr. Powell. I didn’t represent Mr. Banks. I represented Mr. Powell privately. (Smith has a private practice as well). The county did not pay me a dime to represent Mr. Powell.”

Houston asked about grass clippings at the county fairgrounds and what the county did with it. She wanted to know if anyone made money off the grass clippings.

The county leases the hay grown at the fairgrounds after taking the best and highest offer.