New Albany Board of Aldermen meeting, October 6, 2015 

The city board has accepted a grant that will allow an open storm sewer to be covered and a recreation trail to be built in its place.

The $99,000-grant from the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks will allow a 550-foot-long open storm sewer stretching from Main Street to Carter Ave.  in downtown New Albany to be replaced by a large culvert. The plan calls for the culvert to be covered with dirt and paved, creating an connector between two existing biking and hiking trail.

The new construction will connect the 44-mile Tanglefoot Trail to Tallahatchie Trails in New Albany’s Park-Along-The River. Completion is expected by Spring 2017.

The board discussed a proposed new ordinance that would replace an obsolete 1979 ordinance that governs the development of new residential subdivisions in the city. Earlier this year developer Terry Young told the board of the need for an updated ordinance. Young said he discovered the need for a new subdivision ordinance when he encountered problems with developing his Parkview subdivision.

City officials, working with consulting engineers Engineering Solutions, Inc. (ESI) have developed a new subdivision ordinance nearly 100 pages in length. During the Tuesday, October 6th, meeting Young told the board that he and his own engineers had examined the proposed new ordinance, and had found some provisions they believed the board would be wise to modify before enacting the new regulation. Mayor Tim Kent and the board asked ESI to work with Young and his engineers make any needed revisions.

In other action the New Albany Board of Aldermen —

Tourism Director Sean Johnson, seen here in “Riverfest mode”, reported to the city board about the Tallahatchie Riverfest last month.

–Heard from Sean Johnson, the city’s marketing and tourism, that the city had had tourism tax revenues of $700-thousand during the last year. Johnson reported to the board on the success of last month’s Tallahatchie Riverfest, the largest such event in New Albany each year.

—Approved the recommendation by Police Chief Chris Robertson to purchase two new Ford Explorers with the “interceptor package” for use as police department vehicles. The vehicles will be acquired on the state purchasing contract and money had already been provided for the new vehicles in the 2015-2016 city budget.

The aldermen were told that the city’s zoning board had approved a request from the New Albany Sign Company for a zoning variance that will allow a metal exterior on the expansion of an existing the building. Without the variance the metal exterior on the enlarged building could not have been installed because it is prohibited on such structures by the city building code. City Attorney Regan Russell advised the board that it need take no action since the zoning board had approved the variance.

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