Supervisors rescind approval of travel plans
By By Steve Gillespie / staff writer
October 19, 2004
Lauderdale County supervisors on Monday rescinded a motion they passed last week to approve a list of travel plans to attend conferences and conventions.
The action passed 3-2 on Monday with supervisors Eddie Harper of District 1, Craig Hitt of District 3 and Ray Boswell of District 5 voting yes. Supervisors Jimmie Smith of District 2 and Joe Norwood of District 4 voted no.
Boswell then moved to approve travel taken by board members on a case-by-case basis throughout the year. Hitt offered an amendment to Boswell's motion to consider approving travel as needed at the beginning of each month.
Smith said county staff members need more notice than a month to make arrangements for trips. Harper said sometimes registration for conferences and workshops are required several months ahead of time and that late registrations sometimes cost extra.
Smith said all of the travel in question had been discussed by supervisors when they were working on the budget for this fiscal year that began Oct. 1. About $30,000 was budgeted for supervisors' travel expenses.
Last week, Smith and Norwood approved a list of out-of-town trips to be taken by some supervisors, mostly Smith and Norwood. The vote was taken while Hitt and Harper were out of town. Boswell voted against it.
The week before that, the trips came up for a vote while Harper was absent, but the motions deadlocked with Smith and Norwood wanting to approve all the trips at once and Boswell and Hitt wanting to approve the trips separately throughout the year.
In other business, Hitt made a motion to allow Lauderdale County Sheriff Billy Sollie to purchase two more patrol cars other than what was budgeted for the sheriff's department this fiscal year.
The motion passed 3-2 with Hitt, Norwood and Harper voting to give the sheriff $40,000 to buy two vehicles to replace cars made in the early 1990s.
Boswell and Smith voted against the motion.
Smith wanted to table the decision to explore other ways of paying for the cars.
Boswell said one-fifth of the county budget goes to the sheriff's department, and that the sheriff could use other funds budgeted in his department to buy the additional cars.
He said vehicles in other county departments need to be replaced, but money for that was cut from those budgets.
After the vote, Sollie said Boswell's constituents are apparently happy with the sheriff's department.
Boswell told Sollie he had never voted for him.
Later, Boswell apologized to the sheriff and he accepted his apology.
Lauderdale County supervisors also took the following actions on Monday:
They voted to consider a resolution to increase fines for illegally dumping residential garbage to $100 for the first offense, $200 for the second offense, and up to $500 and/or six months in jail for the third offense. For illegally dumping non-residential garbage, the first offense would be $500, the second offense would be $750, and the third offense would bring a fine of up to $1,000 and/or six months in jail. Supervisors set a public hearing to discuss the resolution for 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 15.
They voted to for the county to observe Halloween be observed this year on Saturday, Oct. 30, instead of Sunday, Oct. 31.
