County wants to buy city building on Clay|[11/29/05]
Published 12:00 am Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Warren County will offer $150,000 to the City of Vicksburg for the former Southern Printing building at Clay and First North streets, but that might not be enough.
At a special meeting of supervisors Monday, the motion, passed without discussion or comment, instructed board attorney Paul Winfield to handle all title and paperwork and authorized payment if approved by the city.
Supervisors have said they need a new, climate-controlled building to store 138 suitcase-sized, touch-screen voting machines to be delivered soon.
The two-level Southern Printing building, now painted blue, has also been eyed by the county as a new home for the E-911 Dispatch Center, now in tight quarters in the courthouse basement.
The city bought the building from its private owner about 10 years ago, and it has had various uses. It is empty now and had been identified as surplus, but more recently has been suggested as a new base of operations, parking lot and dispatch center for the planned public transportation system.
Mayor Laurence Leyens indicated Monday that “nothing in writing” had been set with supervisors and the two sides “are pretty far apart” in price negotiations.
“It has been appraised at $389,000. It’s a matter of what the city paid for it versus what it’s worth,” Leyens said.
Municipalities may not legally sell property below appraised value except in a declared renewal zone or, as in this case, to another government.
No timetable for taking up the offer was given by Leyens. The city’s next meeting is Monday.
Delivery of 91 touch-screen machines, made by Diebold Election Systems and purchased with a federal grant to the state, is expected by mid-December. Supervisors say they will purchase 53 more to maintain a presence of 138 machines at 22 polling stations with six spares. Partial reimbursement for the additional machines is possible through the federal Help America Vote Act.
Almost all of Mississippi’s 82 counties will start using the machines in 2006.
The public transit system is also a federal-local program. Small buses are expected to be in service by spring.
Only four supervisors were at the special meeting, as newly elected District 2 Supervisor William Banks will be officially sworn in at the next regular board meeting Monday.
In other business, the board: