Students from Ulysses Kelly’s Leflore County Robotics and Drone Camp stood before the Board of Supervisors on Monday to thank it for funding the summer program.
Supervisors earlier this year approved $15,000 for the program, created and administered by Kelly, director of information technology at the Leflore County School District, after debating whether committing to such an expenditure was a good idea.
Students stood before supervisors holding robots they built and programmed and drones they learned to fly as part of the program.
Kelly told supervisors that 32 students participated in the program along with a group of dedicated volunteers who made it possible for all kids to participate fully and enabled the camp to take kids to the Nissan plant in Canton for a field trip.
Children from the camp presented supervisors with a large framed photograph of all participants standing in front of the Nissan plant as a symbol of their gratitude.
Board President and District 3 Supervisor Anjuan Brown thanked Kelly and the kids on behalf of the board. District 1 Supervisor Sam Abraham moved that supervisors pass a resolution proposing that the two local school districts adopt the program as part of their curriculum, shifting the funding responsibility to those entities.
Supervisors approved that resolution and a hesitant Kelly thanked them for their confidence. But he expressed doubt over whether either school district had teaching personnel with the kind of computer coding and engineering skills required to teach or expand upon such a curriculum, along with the complications of adding new curriculum at a time of upheaval as both districts move this year toward consolidation.
Kelly told supervisors he had submitted paperwork asking the county to fund the program again next year during the summer, and administrator Christine Lymon assured him that his proposal would be considered as part of the county’s upcoming budgeting process.
Also on Monday, supervisors unanimously approved giving a free port warehouse license to HDW, Inc., a hardware distribution company that has ties to the community that stretch over the past 100 years.
Angela Curry, director of the Greenwood-Leflore Industrial Board, appeared on behalf of the company to ask supervisors for an exemption on taxes for all goods HDW ships out of state. That includes about 35 percent of the company’s product, yielding $61,000 in savings for HDW.
The county will continue to collect taxes on about 65 percent of the goods in HDW’s warehouses. The Free Port License is designed to avoid any company being taxed on goods both at the point of destination and at the place where they are warehoused.
Also on Monday, John Wiggers of the North Central Planning and Development District appeared on behalf of Mississippi Home Corp.’s Home Investment Partnership Programs.
Wiggers received approval to advertise notice of intent to request release of funds to applicants who applied and were accepted for the home improvement program last year.
Wiggers told supervisors he had submitted a total of eight homes in Leflore County to Home Corp., but in the time between application and release of funds, one owner passed away and two others were disqualified from the program because their homes required too much rehabilitation.
District 2 Supervisor Robert Moore asked Wiggers to let administrators at Home Corp. know that communities need funding for those who can least afford to fix their homes themselves and for whom these programs can mean the difference between keeping or losing a home.
Wiggers said he is trying to get that message across, but the way programs are set up now, funding amounts are tied to very strict guidelines.
Wiggers also got permission from supervisors to provide public notice of a CAP loan or Mississippi Capital Improvements Revolving Loan Program, designed to help municipalities and counties improve public facilities and infrastructure.
This particular CAP loan is tied to Project Bright, a plan to replace old lighting in county buildings with brighter and more energy efficient LED lighting.
In other county business:
• Supervisors approved an agreement with Mississippi Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks Dept. to maintain healthy fish populations in county-owned lakes at Florewood, Little Round Park and the small lake at the industrial park in Itta Bena.
• Supervisors approved a request to close Justice Court on Sept. 6 and 7 while court personnel attend a training.
• Supervisors agreed to match an $887,987 Federal Aviation Administration grant to Greenwood Leflore Airport with $22,000 of county funds. The city will be asked to chip in $22,000 as well to finance the airport’s rehabilitation and repair of its main runway.
• Supervisors approved exercising eminent domain on the bridge at Lake Henry in the county to enable county engineers to place right-of-way signage on the bridge.
• County Administrator Lymon told supervisors that department heads would begin meeting with her this Thursday to develop budgets for the 2018-19 fiscal year budget and invited supervisors to attend any and all meetings.
• Contact Kathryn Eastburn at 581-7235 or keastburn@gwcommonwealth.com.
