Brookhaven board approves drainage and bond awards, hires and personnel actions after executive session

At its meeting the Brookhaven City board approved several procurement and personnel actions.

Procurement and finance: The board approved awarding a drainage repair contract for Brookhaven Street to the low bidder, Greenbrier Digging Services, at $74,760 and authorized staff to advertise bids for fire-station renovations and placement of a new truck. In a separate finance item Larry Day of Night and Day Group reported five bids for a $450,000 general-obligation note and recommended awarding the note to FirstBank at a 4.38% rate; the board moved, seconded and approved proceeding with FirstBank for a five-year term. Day confirmed the other bids received were Trustmark (4.62%), BankPikeNational (4.8%), Bank of Franklin (4.63%) and Peoples Bank (5.72%).

Utilities and operations: Steven Barnett, filling in for a city official, reported crews discovered a telecommunications line bored through a sewer in the North Jackson/West Court Street area; staff removed roughly eight cubic yards of sediment and are working to identify the responsible company to recover repair costs.

Off-road diesel procurement: The board received a single bid for off-road diesel from Kaiser at $4.02 per unit (bid received and recorded by motion).

Executive session outcomes: After recessing to an executive session under Mississippi Code section 25-41-7, the board announced a set of personnel and administrative approvals: a $1-per-hour anniversary raise for Jason Markham (10-year anniversary), hiring Tiffany LaBarge at $11 per hour for the water department pending background and drug checks, a $1-per-hour raise for Kevin Collins, acceptance of several resignations, promotion of Ashley McDuffie from patrolman to sergeant, temporary suspension of an employee for medical reasons with return conditional on medical documentation and a 90-day probationary period on return, reappointment of Rob McCurry to the Park and Recreation Department, and approval of a resolution supporting Brookhaven High track and field.

Procedural notes: Most motions were adopted by voice vote after a motion and second; explicit roll-call tallies were not included in the transcript for most items. The board moved to adjourn at the end of the meeting.