News and information about Starkville and Oktibbeha County
CARL SMITH
Starkville Police Chief David Lindley confirmed one person was injured in a shooting at Camelot Apartments Monday night.
Details were scarce at press time as officers conducted their investigation, but Lindley said an adult male was shot in the chest.
SPD did not release the name of the victim.
Read complete article at the Starkville Daily News.
Dispatch Staff Report
The Starkville Police Department is investigating a Monday night shooting that led to one injury.
About 8 p.m., SPD officers responded to a shooting at Camelot apartment complex, located at 1040 N. Montgomery St.
Multiple shots were fired and still were being fired when police arrived, SPD representatives said.
Gregory D. Dowd, 24, of 1040 N. Montgomery St., Apt. 12, in Starkville was shot in the chest and other shots were fired into apartments of “innocent bystanders,” the SPD confirmed today.
Read complete article at the Columbus Dispatch.
Micah Green
During a public hearing Monday, District 3 Supervisor Marvel Howard noted many options should be considered for the Oktibbeha County Lake lease.
“If the school board gets a proposal then great, but we have to look at our other options just in case,” he said.
The 407-acre property has been locked and vacant since the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks opted not to renew its lease in April after the 16th Section property was reappraised at roughly $100 an acre.
The lease has since been turned back over to the county school board, and the board is currently accepting proposals.
The public hearing gave the supervisors a chance to explain viable options and to field questions and concerns about the county possibly taking over property operations for the lake.
Danny Coleman, a game warden on the property when the lease was under the control of MDWFP, said he remembered the lake bringing in about $800 to $900 a week in revenue, but only during the peak season. Under Coleman’s recollections, projections indicate the lake would not generate enough revenue to cover the $40,700 lease.
Read complete article at the Columbus Dispatch.
JACK ELLIOTT JR.
Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi enacted a law outlawing “phone spoofing” in 2010. Other states and Congress have since enacted similar laws.
Backers of the laws say caller ID “spoofing” is a growing threat to people because of new technology making it cheap and easy to change the name and number that phone call recipients see on caller ID.
The capability of “spoofing” caller identification numbers has existed for some time and, in fact, is marketed by several entities over the Internet. It’s been used to mask prank phone calls and, more maliciously, to obscure the identity of phoned threats and harassment.
Read complete article at the Starkville Daily News.
STEVEN NALLEY
The Starkville School District will begin its Project ASSETS summer classes Monday, offering free evening classes in subjects including photography, dance, cooking, art, engineering and math.
Joan Butler, director of SSD’s Family Centered Programs, said the program uses a grant from 21st Century Community Learning Centers, a division of the Mississippi Department of Education. The program is in the last year of its five-year grant, she said, which also pays for after-school programs during the school year.
Read complete article at the Starkville Daily News.
CARL SMITH
The Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing on the vacated county lake lease 6 p.m. Monday at the courthouse.
During the supervisors’ last meeting, board President Marvell Howard said members of the public concerned about the lake’s future should have an opportunity to voice their opinion to area leaders.
Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks officials vacated the organization’s lakeside facilities in April after the group declined to renew its 407-acre lease of the county lake area once the land reappraised for approximately $100 per acre. The previous 25-year lease mandated a $2,500-minimum payment to the county school board. Currently, the entire 642-acre 16th section is open for lease proposals. County school board officials have yet to set a deadline for proposals.
Read complete article at the Starkville Daily News.
MICHAEL WARDLAW
The Bulldog showdown opens the Tallahassee Regional this morning as the red-hot Mississippi State Bulldogs face the Samford Bulldogs at Florida State’s Dick Howser Stadium.
Mississippi State (39-22) enters its 32nd NCAA postseason tournament as the No. 2 seed facing the No. 3 seed Samford University (39-21) with the first pitch slated for 11 a.m.
Playing six games in six days, the MSU Bulldogs went 5-1 in the Southeastern Conference Baseball Tournament last week to complete a second half run of 18-6, winning the conference title with a 3-0 victory over the Vanderbilt Commodores.
Read complete article at the Starkville Daily News.
Slim Smith
STARKVILLE — Five months into his job as Oktibbeha County sheriff, Steve Gladney still exudes the genial, relaxed personality that helped catapult him into office in his race against a popular incumbent.
“So far, so good,” Gladney said last week, as he sank back into his desk. “I couldn’t be prouder of the way the people in this department have handled this change. It’s been a pretty smooth transition, I think.”
Read complete article at the Columbus Dispatch.
Micah Green/Dispatch Staff
There have been no formal talks and the matter hasn’t even made it onto the agenda yet.
Even so, the rumors and speculation surrounding a possible sale of the Oktibbeha County Hospital have already prompted an accusation and a rebuttal.
“I think it’s unfortunate that (OCH) has organized a group to call the (county) supervisors to try to influence their thinking on this,” said District 2 Supervisor Orlando Trainer. “It’s sad they would sink to that level.”
Richard Hilton, the hospital’s CEO, strenuously objected to that characterization.
“What we did is tell our employees that if they didn’t want to see the hospital sold, they should contact their supervisor, whether by calls or emails or letters,” Hilton said. “We didn’t give them a canned script. It wasn’t mandatory. We just said that their viewpoint needs to be considered and the way to do that is to let the supervisors know. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that.”
Trainer, who is an outspoken advocate for exploring the sale, insisted his position is not that the hospital should be sold.
“It would be close-minded to say that at this point,” he said, noting he has talked informally to several potential buyers.
“There’s more to it than just keeping (OCH) or selling it,” Trainer said. “In the economic times we are in, with so many expectations from the citizens, if there is something you are doing that could be done better by someone else, you really have no choice. It comes down to what is in the best interest of the citizens.”
The OCH strategy to fight the sale appears to be two-fold.
Hilton said the sale would eliminate anywhere from 140 to 240 jobs, based on a comparison of staffing between OCH and other hospitals of similar size.
However, Shawn Rossi of the Mississippi Hospital Association said the impact on jobs from a sale of a hospital is almost impossible to quantify.
“There are so many variables,” Rossi said. “Who’s selling? Who’s buying? What are the particulars? Is it a management contract only? Is it a merger of two hospitals in an area? Every case is different.”
Hilton also said that if the hospital were sold, it would have an adverse effect on the services the hospital would provide, particularly if the hospital were sold to a for-profit group.
“You start answering to stockholders and they first thing you do is to look at those services that are not profitable,” Hilton said. “I think one of the first things that would happen in that situation is that the hospital would give the ambulance service back to the county, because it is not at all cost-effective. That’s just one example.”
County Administrator Don Posey said, while the board might be divided on the issue of whether or not to look into a sale of the hospital, it is unanimous in its commitment to quality care.
“”The main concern of the board would be: Does it improve the health care?” Posey said. “That’s the bottom line with us. I am pretty sure the board would not approve of anything that made health care worse. It’s not just dollars and cents for the board.”
Another factor that might influence the viability of a sale is debt. Hilton said.
OCH is carrying $35 million in debt. Additionally, there is the balance of $27.5 million in bonds that were used for an OCH expansion completed last year.
Posey said he feels the debt burden wouldn’t necessarily make a sale unfeasible.
“”It appears to be a very workable thing, as for as the debt goes,” Posey said. “With the sale, you would retire that debt if that’s what it came to. We would have the millage that you are looking for, as far as using that to pay the debt, too. Then, with the additional monies from the sale, you would probably put it in an interest-bearing account as time goes on, either to pay bond debts or using it for other projects, such as roads, for example.”
Posey said other counties also are looking into selling their hospitals.
In March, The Grenada County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to begin the process of considering the sale of Grenada Lake Medical Center.
“There are four or five counties that are looking in the same thing and some counties have already sold their hospitals,” Posey noted. “So I think the board feels it’s worth looking at, at least.”
Hilton said the majority of those sales involved hospitals that were struggling financially or under-performing, something that can’t be said of OCH.
Read complete article at the Columbus Dispatch.
NATHAN GREGORY
The Starkville Board of Aldermen will pick up where it left off in its January retreat and revisit capital improvement projects during a work session today.
During the winter planning session, the board met with Demery Grubbs of Government Consultants and made a master list of projects and purchases that would be considered capital expenditures. Grubbs will rejoin the board for its discussion today. The meeting will help the board better plan and prioritize capital improvement projects, Ward 2 Alderman Sandra Sistrunk said.
“In the budget we have traditionally used equipment, streets, drainage, debt service (including lease purchases), and such as subcategories of capital expenses. The capital improvement program would be used as a guide in developing a multi-year spending plan but is independent from the budget,” Sistrunk said. “During the planning session we made a master list of projects and purchases that would be considered capital expenditures. That list was supplemented with existing information, such as the street improvement list and the drainage improvement list. Each alderman then prioritized that master list. Grubbs … has compiled the information each of the aldermen provided. I expect we will talk about that and about funding.”
Sistrunk said the list includes items the city will be able to fund as well as items the city would like to be able to fund in the near future.
“A capital improvements program helps us to focus and plan for those projects and to take a longer view of how we allocate our resources,” she said. “The end result should be a dynamic document that will change over time to reflect more current needs and funding capabilities.”
Read complete article at the Starkville Daily News.
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