Lafayette County supervisors accept Baptist trust report

Published 12:00 pm Wednesday, July 6, 2016

The Lafayette County Board of Supervisors accepted the report of the Board of Trustees regarding the trust fund of the Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi sale.

The county and city of Oxford split the $60 million sale of the hospital evenly. The county used $10 million of their $30 million to pay off debt and invested the other $20 million.

According to the report, there was a decrease of more than $1.3 million attributed to realized loss of securities that were sold and unrealized loss of securities from stocks, bonds and mutual funds. At the end of the quarter, the fund stood at nearly $19.8 million. There will be no distribution of funds due to the decrease of the initial $20 million amount.

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In other matters, the Paris community will soon be getting a new Dollar General after the board approved two variances and site plan approval upon contingencies from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality. The store will be located near County Road 4011.

County engineer Larry Britt told supervisors that he once again is being forced to present a project to the board contingent on MDEQ approval because the county does not have a local health department and must wait on someone from DEQ in Jackson to come down and inspect the site.

“Once again, Jackson said they will come down when they can,” Britt said.

He said the developer can do dirt work on the site, but can’t get a building permit until DEQ approves the sewer.

“They’re just waiting to hear from DEQ,” Britt said.

The board also tabled a couple of matters.

The final plat approval for Shelbi’s Place Phase VII was tabled because the bond that presented to the board was not signed. A plat can’t be filed until a bond, in this case $576,000 to build roads and utilities, is in place. The bond will cover the construction of sewer, water and roads, according to Britt.

The developer was expected to present a signed bond to the board during their recess meeting this morning.

The board also tabled a request from county solid waste manager Kenneth Drewery for permission to get on private property and clean up two illegal dump sites using a federal grant for county work crews to do the work.  The DEQ grant would reimburse the county for the work.  Both landowners, who were not aware of the illegal dump sites according to Drewery, would have to sign off on the request.