Leflore County supervisors are working with the Mississippi National Guard to facilitate the county’s plans to use the former site of the maintenance shop behind the Guard’s armory.
The Greenwood and Greenville vehicle maintenance operations have been combined at a larger, newer facility in Greenville, said Lt. Col. Timothy Powell, a spokesman for the Mississippi National Guard.
“The building would be perfect for us,” said District 2 Supervisor Robert Moore, who first brought the matter to other supervisors’ attention at their meeting last week.
Powell said he couldn’t comment on the building’s future because final arrangements were still being worked out.
“Standard operating procedure is that an armory reverts by title to the original donor,” Powell said. That would be Leflore County and the City of Greenwood, co-owners of the industrial park.
Robert Collins, president of the Board of Supervisors, said the facility, which has two large vehicle bays, could be very useful to the county.
“It’d be a nice place to house Emergency Management or anything the county wanted to do with it,” he said.
For now, operations and units in the rest of the armory won’t be affected, according to Powell. Nonetheless, he added, the Guard is reviewing its facilities and could consolidate facilities further in the future.
Upkeep, maintenance and utilities for any National Guard armories or other buildings must come out of state or local — and not federal — budgets.
“We have a very small state budget,” said Powell. “The cities and counties are strapped now, too.
“We're constantly looking at our facilities out there. Some are older, and we built some new, larger armories throughout the state, but in terms of closing any, at this point no decisions have been made thus far to my knowledge.”
For now, Powell said, the National Guard’s facilities maintenance department would be following procedure in determining how and when to hand over control of the vehicle maintenance building.
Collins said a National Guard official told him the process would take about two months.
Greenwood Mayor Carolyn McAdams said that she’s sure there’s plenty of paperwork to be processed but that she hoped the city and county would be able to put the structure to use.
“It’s a great building. It’s a great facility,” she said. “I hope we can do something with it.”
• Contact Bryn Stole at 581-7235 or bstole@gwcommonwealth.com.
