Showers and thunderstorms keep temperatures in the 80s and 70s during the weekend with highs moving back into the low-90s early in the week before another two days of rain.
The Mississippi River was 27.80 feet on July 18. It was at 26.78 feet Friday. Flood stage is 43 feet.
Warren County and representatives for ISA TanTec agreed on a $1.5 million selling price for the CalsonicKansei building in Ceres Industrial Park. Germany-based TanTec tans and packs raw leather in China and Vietnam and sell tanned leather to shoe manufacturers. The county has applied for a $2 million grant to buy the Calsonic building.
• In other county news, a letter about the 2013 county audit to the board of supervisors from the county’s auditor, Bridgers & Goodman PLLC, singled out former circuit clerk Shelly Ashley-Palmertree for spending $98,794 in unallowable fees. The county and State Auditor Stacey Pickering are suing Palmertree to determine if she owes the county $671,751.75 excessive salary and questionable subcontractor payments to her father and predecessor in office, Larry Ashley, between 2006 to 2011. She also faces a Sept. 29 criminal trial on charges of embezzlement.
• Polyvulc USA, a fixture at the Port of Vicksburg since 1995, faces closure if its owners do not find a buyer within 45 days, according to Heritage Equity partners, the Maryland-based investment bank hired to speed up the sale. The company is seeking an immediate sale of the plastics and rubber recycler and its subsidiaries in Jackson and Winnsboro, La. The plant at 1545 Haining Road employs 22 people.
The Board of Mayor and Aldermen approved leasing a building in Walnut Street for $900 a month from former mayor Laurence Leyens for the Vicksburg Police Department. The building at 1619-B Walnut St. will be used to store cars that were used in crimes and seized by police and provide a secure place where they can be processed.
In other city news:
• The city is advertising for bids to repair a 36-inch storm sewer drain located 35 feet below the intersection of Clay and Locust streets. Specifications call for a cast in place pipe where a plastic sleeve is pulled through the pipe with hot water that allows the material to harden and form a new pipe inside the pipe.
• A majority of residents and representatives for local civic and business organizations said at a meeting of the city’s ad hoc recreation committee that they want to see a new recreation complex in the city.
• Nine people, including three city officials, were named to Vicksburg’s beautification committee: Andrew Dawson, the manager of Bazinsky House and Re/Max Excellence; former teacher and Vicksburg Warren School District trustee Zelmarine Murphy; S.J. Tuminello, architect; former city right of way supervisor Ray Banks; Barry Payne, retired biologist, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center Environmental Laboratory and president of the Warren County Master Gardeners.; Mary Lynn Thomas, gardener and an office associate with the Mississippi State University Extension Service; Community Development Director Victor Gray-Lewis; landscape director Jeff Richardson; and community service director Robert Hubbard.
Rufus Lee McKay, the vocalist for Vicksburg’s iconic Red Tops died Monday at River Region Medical Center. He was 87. The Red Tops performed a mix of blues, jazz and pop music for audiences between 1953 and 1974. McKay was best known for his rendition of “Danny Boy.”
Other local deaths included George Grey, Thomas Lee Minton Sr., Allen A. Bryant, George Quitman Cain Sr., Anna Thelma Chamblee, Fred Douglas Williams, Mina Coleman Washburn Buys and Wilbur Frank Ruhl.