County working to recruit industry and help resume grand jury

The Union County Board of Supervisors continue to work toward bringing more jobs to the area and are also helping to facilitate the first convening of a grand jury in nearly a year.

Board attorney Chandler Rogers presented memoranda of understanding and agreement to the board to Monday to transfer the right to use the former Emerald Mississippi furniture building from Emerald. This is being done to prepare for a prospective industry to move to the plant if everything can be worked out. The county still owns the buildings and New Albany officials must agree also due to the financing related to Emerald.

Plans are being made to get funding to improve the building and county officials have continued to make improvements to the Martintown Industrial Park as well.

The request for help with the grand jury came from Circuit Clerk Phyllis Stanford.

She asked the county board to approve using the Magnolia Civic Center as a venue to empanel the grand jury.

Stanford said she had sent out 200 summonses for prospective grand jurors and expected about 75 to show up after some had been exempted due to age or other reasons.

Still, with 75 she did not think social distancing could be practiced in the courtroom but people could be spaced out more in the theater.

The prospective jurors will be there Oct. 19 and 20 grand jurors will be selected to serve.

Stanford said the county usually convenes a grand jury in March but did not this year because of the pandemic. The grand jury usually hears cases for about two days but due to circumstances, no one arrested since October this past year has yet gone before a grand jury so the session this time could take as long as a week.

Supervisors also handled some personnel matters at their meeting. They included:

• Michael Knighton as full-time employee with the road department
• Transferring Timmy Wayne Cole from the road to garbage department
• LaLisa Nagule as full-time employee in the district attorney’s office
• Destany Rae Lovell as part-time jailer at the sheriff’s department

In other business, supervisors approved a pandemic pay increase for poll workers for the Nov. 3 election. They will receive $50 extra this time, bringing their pay for the day up to $150.

Circuit Clerk Stanford and Chancery Clerk Annette Hickey have been notified the county will receive $2,500 in CARES money to be used to hire additional poll workers for the election to help with social distancing. The funding offers $125 compared to the county’s pay of $150.

The board approved accepting Sleepy Hollow Road as a county road. The request was brought up at a previous meeting and a committee of supervisors inspected the road and confirmed that it meets the county standards that are required before a road can legally be accepted and maintained. The road is off CR 478 east of Myrtle.

For a second time, architect William Mills was given approval to advertise for bids on renovation work on the courthouse and old jail. Bids were received a couple of months ago, but were all much too high based on the grant and other funding available. Supervisors hope lower bids will come in this time.

In miscellaneous business:

• Supervisors approved a manual check to Scruggs in the amount of $51,928.61. This was to pay for a John Deere tractor and grappler to go on it. County Administrator Terry Johnson said this was part of a group purchase approved earlier this year, but this tractor arrived late, necessitating the separate manual check.
• Supervisors voted to renew the county’s property and casualty insurance with Ross and Yerger/Travelers without comment, other than to say they have used this company for the past several years.
• The board approved a list of school bus turnarounds for the county district.
• The board approved paying the circuit clerk for the term of court, paying the clerk for serving as county registrar, and paying the five election commissioners their allowed per diem fees.
• Supervisors gave the sheriff authority to negotiate with the Tiger Correctional Services for expanded phone service for the jail. The contract with the present supplier, Securtel Securus, ends in October and the hope is to get more services for the same or better price.

The next scheduled meeting of the board will be at 10 a.m. Monday, Oct. 5.