Slim Smith/Dispatch Staff

STARKVILLE — As a restaurant owner and chef, Ty Thames loves watching all of those “extreme” cooking shows that litter the cable TV landscape.

“I always wondered what it would be like to be on one of those shows,” said Thames, co-owner and chef at Starkville’s Restaurant Tyler.

On Saturday, Thames won’t have to wonder anymore.

Although the event won’t be televised, Thames will put his skills to the test under circumstances that would rival any of those featured on TV.

“Let’s see. I’ll be preparing a seven-course meal using only locally-sourced ingredients, and I’ll be doing it in, basically, a field,” Thames said. “So, yeah, I’d say that’s a challenge. Wouldn’t you?”

Thames is volunteering his skills as a chef for the “Farm To Table Dinner,” a fund-raising event for the Starkville-based Gaining Ground Sustainability Institute of Mississippi. The dinner will be held at Strawberry Fields Farm in west Starkville.

According to its website, Gaining Ground is “state-wide educational, research and outreach network … focusing on improving quality of life through sustainable building, farming, recreation and conservation practices. By educating individuals in making sustainable choices we are gaining ground on issues of equity, poverty, education, health and the environment.”

Saturday’s dinner is a demonstration of how theory can be put into practice, said event coordinator Mandi Sanders. All of the ingredients used at the dinner come from within 100 miles, she said.

Building a menu wasn’t the most difficult aspect of putting the dinner together, though.

“Honestly, the hardest part at first was knowing that there were all these people in our area who are producing food and not being able to get in touch with them,” Sanders said. “Some of these people have been farming for a long time; they aren’t necessarily as plugged-in as a lot of people because most of their business is by word of mouth. It took a while to get in touch with them, but on one hand, that’s a big part of what Gaining Ground does — building a network and putting all of these people together.”

Thames said the ingredients determine the menu.

“Definitely,” he said. “I planned the dinner based on what’s available, so that means some of the ingredients are not what I would normally use – everything from molasses to quail eggs to catfish.”

Another prominent item on the dinner menu is goat.

Read complete article at the Columbus Dispatch.

Although Starkville School District Assistant Superintendent Walter Gonsoulin is preparing for a new job, he’s also been busy developing a list of repairs and renovation needs for the district’s future.

Gonsoulin unveiled his suggestions for short-term projects during the school board’s Tuesday meeting. His list includes renovations for Starkville High School’s White House, Ward-Stewart Elementary’s cafeteria, and Millsaps Career and Technical Center’s roof; the installation of ornamental fencing at SHS; and upgrades to the SHS football field, track and tennis facility.

The total estimated cost of Gonsoulin’s project list is $2.6 million, but the outgoing administrator says the district’s next budget probably will not cover every project.

Gonsoulin, who was named Fairfield, Ala. City Schools new superintendent in April, said it is important for the district to keep a comprehensive list of repair, maintenance and enhancement projects on a sliding time line to prevent a buildup of unattended issues.

Following his presentation, Gonsoulin acknowledged his upcoming resignation from the district. He is expected to leave SSD before mid-June.

“(The budget) might not get to all of them, but the purpose of having this list is to push the remainder to a date down the line, whether that date is five years or longer,” Gonsoulin said Wednesday. “Repair projects are out of necessity, maintenance will save you money and enhancements will increase the value of your building and are positives for the school district.”

Out of all the listed projects, Gonsoulin suggested the Ward-Stewart cafeteria renovation project be completed the soonest — this summer. The cafeteria itself needs an expanded freezer area in order to meet the growing number of students at the school, Gonsoulin said. The project will cost an estimated $125,000, which is the lowest amount on the short-term needs list.

The Millsaps roof project, listed at an estimated $750,000, is the most expensive item on Gonsoulin’s list. The roof was rubber-coated five years ago, he said, in lieu of replacing it at that time. The expected lifespan of the coating was four years.

“Part of my job entails (examining roofs),” Gonsoulin said. “I didn’t want to walk on that roof because you can tell it’s time to get it changed. It could last us two more years or two more days, and I have already seen the visual problems.”

Gonsoulin’s list suggests a 2012-2013 completion date for the roof project.

As for the White House, a nagging water leak on the east side of the facility has caused structural problems, Gonsoulin said. A portion of the estimated $200,000 project would also be used to renovate the building’s interior for SSD’s expanding art program.

SHS athletic director Stan Miller said he appreciates knowing the district understands and sees the need for upgraded athletic facilities. Miller unveiled his $1.3 million project list to the school board before Gonsoulin’s presentation. He also told trustees costs could be offset by corporate donations, a major donation from an anonymous SHS alumnus and another unnamed entity willing to share one of the project’s future costs.

Read complete article at the Starkville Daily News.

Mike Toscano doesn’t like to call them “drones.”

Call them unmanned aerial vehicles, but don’t call them drones, Toscano, president of the Association for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles International, said at Colvard Student Union Tuesday. When people hear the word “drone,” he said they think only of the machine and not of the human team operating the machine from afar.

“There is a human being in the loop,” Toscano said.
Toscano and other UAV luminaries came to Mississippi State University to discuss the field’s possibilities Tuesday and Wednesday at the Unmanned Aerial Systems Symposium.

The keynote speaker at the symposium was Maj. Gen. James O. Poss, assistant deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance with the U.S. Air Force. Poss said Mississippi is a good location to discuss UAVs and grow the industry because the state has a long history of ingenuity in aviation and a strong connection to the Air Force. Poss himself grew up in Ocean Springs.

“We are the nation’s training base,” Poss said. “Roughly a quarter of all (Air Force) pilots have been trained in Columbus.”

Air Force representatives once claimed their forces could hit a pickle barrel from 30,000 feet, Poss said. Where such targeting was a challenge then, Poss said it is now possible to not only hit a pickle barrel easily but also hit a pickle barrel on the move.

To use a more concrete example, Poss said it took 12 hours to deliver a single picture from Germany to the U.S. Navy in 1982. Modern UAVs, by contrast, deliver 30-frames-per-second video anywhere on earth within two seconds, he said.

“That’s not to say we’re not without our challenges,” Poss said. “We are literally swimming in sensors and drowning in data. (With future technology currently in development,) we will collect about 320 years’ worth of HD video per day. (Data is) useless if we can’t retrieve it.”
Toscano said UAVs also face challenges on the home front. Privacy is one of the American populace’s largest concerns about UAVs, he said, which is why greater awareness of how UAV units work with law enforcement agencies is needed.

“There are people that think these are spy drones,” Toscano said. “There are rules and regulations put in place today. If people don’t like those laws … that’s what they should be concerned about.”

Toscano said instead of thinking of UAVs as autonomous drones, Americans should think of them as extra tools for military and law enforcement personnel to use. Instead of using UAVs for new initiatives to spy on the public at large, he said, enforcers use UAVs to do the jobs they normally do better than they have before.

Read complete article at the Starkville Daily News.

A second public hearing on amending the city’s current sidewalk ordinance Tuesday didn’t draw as varied reaction from citizens as it did from Starkville Board of Aldermen members themselves.

The board voted against modifying the ordinance currently on the books to exempt areas not conducive to pedestrian traffic in a 4-3 vote. Ward 2 Alderman Sandra Sistrunk, Ward 3 Alderman Eric Parker and Ward 5 Alderman Jeremiah Dumas were the three votes in favor of the changes.
One of the proposed revisions, numbered as 4.8 in the board’s e-packet, makes specific exemptions for the west side of Industrial Park Road and the entirety of Pollard Road, Miley Road and Airport Road.

That revision caused confusion because it was included in the ordinance supplied under the public hearing portion of the board’s e-packet while absent from the version included under the board business portion.
Dumas said he’s already cleared up the language and the board will hold a third public hearing on a clean version of the proposed amendments at the board’s June 5 meeting. Parliamentary procedure allows such a hearing even after a vote fails.

“One of my colleagues added 4.8 to the ordinance, and I was concerned that language would cause confusion because 4.8 specifies certain roads and there are countless other roads that are also not included in the sidewalk area. I thought it was cleaner from a policy side that the language be removed. The real confusion was in our packet. We have staff reports for each agenda item, and so the ordinance that was presented last night with the public hearing agenda item was the ordinance with all the red lines, all the edits, all the changes (and) everything associated with the workings of this ordinance since I first amended it,” Dumas said. “We have to approve a clean version of the ordinance, so the ordinance that was shown as part of the board business agenda item for accepting the ordinance was a clean version that didn’t have 4.8 in it. It just boiled down to the fact that not everybody saw the clean version, therefore there was confusion. There was a ‘no’ vote because there were folks that wanted to have that clean version in their hand — not because they were fundamentally opposed.”

Local property owner Chuck Scarborough was one of two citizens who provided a comment against the proposed amendments at the second hearing. Scarborough owns undeveloped parcels in the Industrial Park area which would not be exempt from sidewalk development due to its proximity to the city’s regional Medicaid office. He read emails he sent as well as a reply from Dumas in his comments.

“Part of my land is located on the west side of the Sportsplex and borders on the west side of Spruill Industrial Road … If the city wants to have a sidewalk along the west side of the Sportsplex, it can build one along the east side of the ditch. You could build one along the east side of the ditch or on the west side of the ditch and east of north-south portion of Spruill Industrial Road rather than requiring me to build a sidewalk west of the north-south portion,” Scarborough said. “I fail to see any material connection between the Medicaid office and my property since my property lies south of the Medicaid office property. Since you supposedly need the sidewalks now, when do you expect me to build these sidewalks? Nobody walks along this road now that I know of. Do you have a pedestrian count?”

After reading Dumas’ reply, in which he justified mandating sidewalks on Scarborough’s parcel because it borders on a park and is on the same block as the Medicaid office, Scarborough referred to the response as “gobbledygook.”

Read complete article at the Starkville Daily News.

Starkville High School Athletics Director Stan Miller put forth his best effort at Tuesday night’s school board meeting, but his proposal for program improvements failed to budge board members.

Miller asked for more than $1 million to replace the football field’s grass with artificial turf, resurface the track and expand the tennis courts, noting the upgrades would save money in maintenance and repairs, as well as generate revenue through tournament opportunities.

The biggest sticking point was time. Miller estimated six to eight weeks for the synthetic playing surface to be installed at Yellow Jacket Stadium. The team will play their first home game against Noxubee County High School Aug. 17.

The project would cost around $560,000, but Miller said it would alleviate problems with the sprinkler and irrigation systems, which are costing thousands of dollars in field maintenance and repair each season.

Because the track circles the field and involves curbing, the resurfacing and turf replacement should be done concurrently, Miller said.

The track was built in 2000, but the athletics department ran out of money, so instead of adding an all-weather track surface, they installed unsealed asphalt. Over the years, the surface has cracked, making a dangerous situation for runners, said Miller.

“If you want shin splints, go run on our track,” he cautioned. “No one will come run on our track.”

Resurfacing the track would cost an additional $350,000, according to Miller.

The final project would expand the tennis courts from six to 12, making tournament play possible and allowing the district to begin a middle school tennis program. Grants could be obtained through the United States Tennis Association for the $390,000 project, Miller said.

But with the district in the midst of preparing its Fiscal Year 2012-2013 budget, Interim Superintendent Dr. Beth Sewell cautioned against major expenditures. The board will meet next month to iron out the details of the budget, which they hope to pass the last week of June.

That would be too late for the athletics department to solicit bids and have the work done before the first football game.

“We see good things in our athletics programs, but it seems to me we still have a cash flow problem,” Board President Dr. Keith Coble said. “If we’ve got to come up with $1 million up-front, that’s hard.”

Other district facilities are in dire need of repair as well, board members said. Millsaps Career and Technology Center needs a new roof, and renovations are needed at the “White House,” where Starkville High’s arts program resides.

Tuesday night’s issues illustrate the need for a longterm strategic plan, Assistant Superintendent Dr. Walter Gonsoulin said, and the football field’s turf problems are a constant concern.

But the thought of repairing the field again didn’t appeal to board members either.

“This is not the first time this has come up,” Board Vice-President Eddie Myles said. “I hate to throw good money away to take care of the field when we know we will have to do it again next year.”

The synthetic field should last 10 to 14 years and would be relatively cheap to replace, Miller said. An added benefit is that it dries quickly, keeping inclement weather from being a hindrance to football or soccer games.

With competing needs across the district though, there’s only so much money to go around.

Read complete article at the Columbus Dispatch.

In voicing her opposition to a proposal to seek a grant for repairing the drainage ditch along Carver Drive, Ward 2 Alderwoman Sandra Sistrunk was blunt.

“I still say it’s not the worst problem we have in town,” she said, during Tuesday’s Starkville Board of Aldermen meeting,.

But it may well be the longest-running problem.

“We’ve been fighting this for 30 years,” Ward 7 Alderman Henry Vaughn said, his voice choked with emotion.

The Aldermen voted 4-to-3 against approving the application for the Community Development Block Grant, which had to be submitted by Friday to meet grant qualifications

Aldermen Sistrunk, Ward 1 Alderman Ben Caver, Ward 4 Alderman Richard Corey and Ward 3 Alderman Eric Parker voted against applying for the grant. Ward 5 Alderman Jeremiah Dumas, Ward 6 Alderman Roy A. Perkins and Vaughn voted to apply.

The debate over the proposal was waged primarily between Mayor Parker Wiseman, a strong advocate for the proposal, and Sistrunk.

“This is something the city has grappled with for years,” Wiseman said. “During that time, there have been many different options. However, because of the political turmoil, there has been a stalemate and a reluctance to accept any of those proposals. Now, this grant presents a viable option. From a financial standpoint, it’s achievable. I do support it.”

Phylis Benson of the Golden Triangle Planning & Development Partnership prepared the grant application for the city, under which the city could apply for a maximum grant to cover $600,000 of the estimated $940,995 cost of the project. The balance would require the city to put up $110,000 cash, with the remainder coming through in-kind services, provided primarily by the city’s street departments. With $60,000 in cash designated for the Carver Drive drainage project from the previous budget, the city would have needed an additional $50,000 in cash.

“This proposal has been discussed extensively and we’ve had great public support for it,” said Perkins, in whose ward the drainage ditch is located. “This isn’t politics; it’s about serving the health and welfare of our citizens.”

But Sistrunk turned a critical eye on the proposal, detailing a laundry list of concerns.

“Budget overruns would become the responsibility of the city,” she said. “The other thing that concerns me is the in-kind services. You’re talking about $110,000 out of pocket, but the out-of-pocket costs for the in-kind services have to be considered as well, (including) gas, repairs and maintenance of our equipment, man-hours. We’re talking another $15,000 to $20,000 in overruns. It’s one thing to put numbers on paper, but we need to be aware that worse than getting a grant is getting a grant for a project you can’t complete.”

Read complete article at the Columbus Dispatch.

Year 2011 2012

JANUARY 393,970.11 420,146.98
FEBRUARY 432,510.76 479,482.34
MARCH 449,079.94 476,275.46
APRIL 457,758.78
MAY 468,471.49
JUNE 419,652.34
JULY 429,807.46
AUGUST 490,740.10
SEPTEMBER 467,034.81
OCTOBER 460,505.34
NOVEMBER 473,450.02
DECEMBER 508,192.88

Yearly Totals

5,451,174.03 1,375,904.78

Monthly Avg. For Year

454,264.50 458,634.93

% Change 11-12

JANUARY 6.64%
FEBRUARY 10.86%
MARCH 6.06%

Funding from two grants will add additional Oktibbeha County Sheriff’s Office seat belt and DUI enforcement patrols this year.

OCSO Chief Deputy Chadd Garnett said a recently acquired seat belt enforcement grant and a DUI enforcement grant will add over $35,000 to the department coffers. Of that total, $25,000 will be specifically used to pay deputies overtime and increase the total number of law enforcement patrols in the county.

Although OCSO had already applied for the grants at the time of the incident, Garnett said the need for additional seat belt and DUI enforcement became more apparent after last week’s single-vehicle accident which killed 19-year-old Treasure Huffman. Oktibbeha County Coroner Michael Hunt said Huffman was not wearing her seat belt at the time of the wreck.

County investigators confirmed last week alcohol and excessive speed were factors in the wreck.

On a typical 12-hour shift, Garnett said his department averages four deputies on patrol, a number which includes a shift supervisor. Garnet said OCSO can tap into the grant money and add additional manpower as needed to extend those extra patrols through the year.

With the seat belt grant, also referred to as an Occupant Protection Grant, OCSO was awarded $12,182. Garnett said $10,000 of that grant will be used to pay overtime, while the rest is fringe benefits. The DUI enforcement grant awarded the department $23,273. $15,000 of that grant will be used to pay overtime, while $5,000 will be used to purchase 10 portable breath testers and $3,273 will go toward fringe benefits.
Garnett said the department was approved for the seat belt grant and has a verbal OK for the DUI enforcement grant.

Read complete article at the Starkville Daily News.

Starkville High School athletic director Stan Miller knows he has an uphill fight against budget constraints if he wants to find funding for various athletic facilities improvements.

But Miller showed his grassroots campaigning skills to the Starkville School District Board of Trustees Tuesday when he unveiled $1.3 million in projects and told the board he is working to procure funds to offset the costs with corporate donations, an anonymous donor who is willing to make a major contribution and another unnamed entity that could share one project’s future costs.

Miller unveiled his vision for new and upgraded athletic facilities to SSD trustees Tuesday during the board’s monthly meeting. His plans include replacing the football and soccer field with synthetic turf, providing the district’s track with an all-weather covering and constructing six additional tennis courts at the current SHS facility.
“What we’ve realized is it’ll take a lot of different groups working together with the school district if we’re going to pull these projects off,” Miller said following Tuesday’s meeting.

Miller’s presentation was simply an update for the board as the district approaches its budget season. Board members said they were understanding and sympathetic to the district’s athletic needs, but no official action was taken on any of the proposed projects.

The football field is the district’s most pressing athletic improvement project, Miller told board members during his presentation. He said the field’s underground sprinkler system appears to be in such a state of disrepair it floods some areas while not providing enough water to grow grass in others. Miller said coaches have observed water bubbling through the ground in some parts.

After the district spent thousands of dollars before last year’s football season to re-sprig the field, numerous dead patches remain on its surface. The problem is not new for SSD, Miller said, and the board can expect to come back to the issue in the future.

To alleviate the problem, Miller says the district needs to install a synthetic turf field which the football and soccer teams can utilize during their seasons. The estimated cost of installing a synthetic field is $560,000. Miller said corporate donations can be utilized to fun the costly project. As of July 1, he said corporate donations will total $54,000. That number is projected to reach $204,000 in nine years.

If the district chooses to repair the sprinkler system, address drainage issues on the sidelines and re-sprig the field, the district could spend almost $120,000 on the project.

Read complete article at the Starkville Daily News.

Starkville aldermen defeated a motion allotting matching funds for the Carver Drive drainage project Community Development Block Grant by a 4-3 vote Tuesday.

Ward 5 Alderman Jeremiah Dumas, Ward 6 Alderman Roy A. Perkins and Ward 7 Alderman Henry Vaughn all voted in favor of applying for the grant. If the measure had passed and the grant had been awarded, work to pipe and cover that ditch would likely have been the next step taken in improving the area’s condition. Golden Triangle Planning and Development District grant administrator Phylis Benson said the total cost was $940,995.
Mayor Parker Wiseman said he thought it would be feasible to complete the project using in-kind services which would cost approximately $230,995 in said services, $110,000 in city money and $600,000 of allotted grant money. He said while in this instance piping and covering is possible, it is a practice he would recommend restricting in the future because of how costly the process would be to do to each ditch with inadequacies.

Before voting, Vaughn and Ward 3 Alderman Eric Parker had a heated exchange after Vaughn suggested Parker was planning on voting against the measure because it regarded a problem in Ward 7.

Parker said he originally had planned to vote in favor of providing matching funds and applying for the grant, but with the projected total cost estimate being upwards of $900,000 and the amount of man hours that would be required to devote to one project, he could no longer support it.

“I fully supported all aspects of piping this ditch from the very beginning. I supported the application of the grant. I supported some of the cash the were willing to give to it. If the city of Starkville were to spend $940,000 piping and covering a ditch and turned around and made a policy that you can’t pipe and cover a ditch to every other neighborhood in this city, it would be extremely hypocritical,” Parker said. “I don’t know that I could honestly look at my constituents right now and tell them we spent 20 percent of our labor force working on one project. The numbers just continue to escalate. The man hours and in-kind service numbers have continued to escalate.

“I came in here tonight willing to support this when we were at certain numbers but as I look at all the in-kind services and additional cash contribution I’m struggling with how I can support this,” Parker added.
Vaughn said Ward 2 Alderman Sandra Sistrunk was incorrect when stating there were houses in Ward 1 that were flooding but that there wasn’t flooding in the Carver Drive area.

“You haven’t been over there when it rains, so you can’t say we don’t have flooding,” Vaughn said before addressing Parker. “Have your people complained for 30 years about one thing? This has been before us 20 times since we’ve been on the board three years. Have your people come to the board this many times with the same problem? Any kind of project, any of you in your neighborhoods, you know Alderman Perkins and myself would never turn down (anything) you ask for, but it just seems like because it’s in this area, it’s a problem. You don’t live like they do. Erosion is constantly taking their property away from them.”

Parker said he doesn’t take a particular area or ward in consideration when casting his votes.

“It upsets me greatly, and I’m to the point that I’m resenting the fact you think I make decisions based on where you’re located and where your ward is,” he said. “I have never made a decision at this board table that affects me in that way. I’ve tried to make decisions based on what is best for the city of Starkville.”

Sistrunk was another vote against providing the matching funds. She said there are more cost-effective options for making the improvements to the ditch.

Read complete article at the Starkville Daily News.