DISPATCH STAFF REPORT

A Starkville School District bus was rear-ended by a vehicle Thursday afternoon as the bus driver prepared to stop on Highway 12, district officials said.

The accident happened around 3:50 Thursday afternoon in front of the National Guard Armory.

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TIM PRATT

Joe Bell and Stan Shurden were ready Wednesday for the first day of citywide curbside recycling pickup to begin in Starkville.

But the co-owners of Starkville Recycling had no idea how much material they would actually process.

City Sanitation Department trucks brought 11,090 pounds of recyclables to Starkville Recycling for sorting, Bell said, which surprised everyone at the facility on C.C. Clark Road.

“I wasn’t anticipating it being that much,” Bell said. “I was expecting maybe two tons.”

Still, Bell, Shurden and city officials, weren’t overwhelmed with the 5 1/2 tons of material. Starkville Recycling workers were able to sort and bail the items with no problems, Bell said.

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BONNIE COBLENTZ

Starkville school officials turned down requests from two out-of-district families for their children to attend the city public schools and heard about ongoing efforts to confirm the residency of all students in the district.

Two families requested their children be allowed to attend the Starkville School District. Both families had been released by their home school districts. One came from Noxubee County and the other from the West Point School District.

Superintendent Judy Couey said state law allows one school district to accept students from another school district if the home district releases them. State education funding follows the student, but local tax dollars do not. It costs more than the state pays per student to educate a student in the public schools.

Pickett Wilson made motions to deny the requests and was seconded by Eddie Myles.

“The school district is responsible for the children who live in the school district,” Wilson said. “We are under no obligation to accept other children.”

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BONNIE COBLENTZ

Starkville school officials, voicing concern over traffic issues, voted to protest a zoning change near the high school in a meeting Tuesday night.

The board also handled fundraisers and decided to make a change in how these are run next year.

Superintendent Judy Couey informed the board that a section of undeveloped land adjoining the baseball field will be considered for rezoning in a public hearing Oct. 13. The property is southeast of the intersection of Yellowjacket and Eckford drives.

The owner has requested the zoning be changed from R-1 to R-3A, making it possible to have as many as 40-50 homes on the property rather than 20. There is one entrance and exit to the property, and this is near a curve on Yellowjacket Drive.

The board considered the matter in one other meeting without taking action. This time, they directed Couey to write a letter that would be placed in the information packets of each Planning and Zoning commissioner registering their opposition to the change.

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TIM PRATT

STARKVILLE — Starkville Mayor Parker Wiseman made the definitive decision Tuesday on what stormwater runoff standards developers will have to meet to build in the city.

After the Starkville Board of Aldermen deadlocked 3-3 on how to interpret the city’s stormwater ordinance, with one member abstaining, Wiseman cast the deciding vote, saying city officials should interpret it as they have throughout the past year: “No development should be undertaken that increases the rate of surface runoff to downstream property owners or drainage systems.”

The stormwater runoff ordinance has become a point of contention among developers, city officials and residents since 2008, with some saying it contradicts itself.

One section of the ordinance says it is applicable to any residential development of four acres or more and any non-residential development of three acres or more. It’s also applicable, as written, to any development having less than four acres and more than two acres which has 50 percent or more impervious surface.

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BONNIE COBLENTZ

The Oktibbeha County School District is “well under way” in talks with East Mississippi Community College about opening a college branch at the unused O.L. Wicks school in Maben, the district’s superintendent said.

“EMCC-Mayhew had a record enrollment this year. I think they are trying to branch off some and meet the needs in other communities, such as the Maben area,” Superintendent James Covington told the Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. “The Wicks campus was a real good fit for them.”

He said the college is conducting a feasibility study to determine such things as the soundness of the structure, which had been a high school before the county school district consolidated facilities.

Covington said if EMCC does move forward to open a branch in Maben, the school district would turn the property over to them for that use. EMCC would pay a nominal fee to gain ownership of the property in the not-for-profit arrangement.

Read complete article at Commercial Dispatch.

Two recent deaths in Starkville were not the result of foul play, police said Monday.

Starkville police officers and detectives were dispatched to 305 B Old West Point Road on Oct. 2 for a death investigation call. Officers found the body of Peter Herring, 57, at the scene, Starkville police said in a release.

Read complete article at Commercial Dispatch.