Supervisors issue $6M road, bridge bond with low interest

Supervisors issue $6M road, bridge bond with low interest

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Madison County this week accepted a low bid on a short-term $6 million capital improvements loan to fund road a bridge work throughout the county.

The low bid out of nine submitted bids came from Community Bank with a 1.05% interest rate over a term not to exceed five years.

The advertised purpose of the loan is for “constructing, reconstructing, and repairing roads, highways and bridges within the County; and acquiring the necessary land, including land for road building materials, acquiring rights-of-way therefor; and the purchase of construction equipment and accessories thereto reasonably required to construct, repair and renovate said roads, highways and bridges and approaches thereto within the County, including certain low-water control improvements, and for any other purposes authorized by the County Act; and providing the costs of issuance thereof (collectively, the ‘Project’),” the ad states.

Attorney Thad Varner of Butler Snow, who managed advertising for the bids for the board, said the board received 10 bids but one was discarded because it came in after the 4 p.m. deadline.

Steve Pittman of Government Consultants then presented the bids to the board.

“We received nine bids from banks and that’s an impressive number, by the way,” Pittman said. “I do this in a lot of counties and cities around the state and nine bids is a very impressive number to the credit of Madison County. There is no question about your credit so banks want their money with good credit.”

The bids as read by Pittman in no particular order:

• Bank Plus 1.39%

• JP Morgan 1.46%

• People’s Bank of Biloxi 1.94%

• Regions Bank 1.13%

• Hancock Bank 1.13%

• Trustmark 1.18%

• Capital One Bank 1.19%

• Community Bank 1.05%

• BankCorp South 1.19%

“So the low bidder is Community Bank at 1.05% and that would be my recommendation to the board,” Pittman said.

District 3 Supervisor Gerald Steen moved to accept Community Bank’s low bid of 1.05% and the motion was carried unanimously. 

“That is a tremendous rate of 1.05%,” Varner said. “Pretty outstanding.”

Pittman said the bid that came in too late to accept was not better than the one submitted by Community Bank.

In other matters at Monday’s regular board meeting, supervisors:

• Agreed to repair a driveway on Tyson Road where garbage trucks turn around by placing gravel on it.

• Agreed to pay $7,250 to move water lines owned by the Cameron Water System because the county requested the water lines be moved to accommodate a Simpson Road bridge construction project.

• Steen made a motion to appoint Butler Snow attorneys to work with the Central Mississippi Planning and Development District to prepare redistricting maps. District 4 Supervisor and Board President Karl Banks seconded the motion for discussion and said he believed board attorney Mike Espy could handle the work and the board voted 3-2 to delay any decision until closer to the time of preparing the maps. District 2 Supervisor Trey Baxter and Steen cast the dissenting votes.

• On the recommendation of Tim Bryan, the county engineer, approved plats for Charleston Place phase III and Cedar Point as well as work at Sulphur Springs Park.

• On the recommendation of Scott Weeks, planning and zoning director, approved plats for Twelve Oaks and Charleston Place.

• Agreed to pay Waggoner Engineers $206,000 for a consultation contract to develop a project proposal for adding broadband to the county.

• Unanimously approved a resolution to solidify the transfer of ownership of a building on Main Street in Madison to the City of Madison with a reverter clause stipulating that if the building is ever to be sold, ownership would revert to the county.






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