|
|
|
|
Wednesday, 31 December 2008 |
 File photos and artwork/SDN this rendering depicts the future appearance of Oktibbeha County Hospital following an upcoming expansion project to be financed witha $26.5 million bond issue approved by voters in November. A news analysis
By BRIAN HAWKINS
Starkville Daily News
Twists and turns aplenty could be found during local news in 2008, which proved to be a year full of highs and lows for Starkville, Oktibbeha County and the surrounding areas
The top headlines of the year reflected the diversity of news that took place locally.
Based upon community impact, reader votes and discussion by the Starkville Daily News staff, here are the top 10 local news stories for the past year:
1. Presidential roulette at Mississippi State University — From controversy over daffodils to an investigation by the State Auditor’s Office, the MSU presidency dominated local news in 2008, rivaling even the national presidential election.
Controversies over the removal of daffodil beds on campus and academic freedom regarding displays by architecture students dogged MSU President Robert “Doc” Foglesong” in the first two months of the year, and by mid-March, Foglesong called it a day.
Publicly, Foglesong announced he had accomplished the vast majority of the goals he set upon taking the reins of the presidency in April 2006.
Vance Watson, a long-time MSU administrator who was serving as vice president for forestry, agriculture and veterinary medicine, was appointed to serve as interim president as the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning launched its fourth MSU presidential search within a decade.
IHL Board members conducted several listening sessions with various campus and community constituency groups to learn the qualities the next MSU president should possess. A campus advisory committee was formed to screen candidates and recommend five finalists for the office of top Bulldog.
After a more than 40-year career at MSU, Watson publicly declared his desire to keep the position he was filling in the interim, only to become embroiled in an investigation by the State Auditor’s Office regarding misuse of university materials and equipment in the completion of landscaping at Higher Education Commissioner Tom Meredith’s home in Hinds County.
In October, Watson was issued a letter of demand from the auditor seeking repayment for some $12,000, which he promptly paid before announcing plans to retire from MSU and withdraw from consideration for the presidency. Meredith, who had been on administrative leave, soon announced his resignation days later.
Retired student affairs vice president and College of Education Dean Roy Ruby was called out of retirement to serve as interim president as the IHL Board acted in mid-November to name MSU alumnus and federal agriculture undersecretary Mark Keenum as MSU’s new president. Keenum is take office within the next few days.
2. Voters pass another major bond issue for continued expansion at Oktibbeha County Hospital — The $27.5 million bond issue was sought to help finance construction of a new west tower for the OCH to allow for larger, more modern patient rooms so physicians, therapists and nurses more room to treat patients and provide greater comfort for patients and guests, as well as provide needed space to treat patients in individual rooms, hospital officials say.
The new tower would also mean expanded nurse’s stations on the patient room floors, enlarged and more comfortable waiting areas, additional elevators and restrooms and a new covered dropoff/pickup area for patients and their families, according to plans for the facility.
The hospital’s critical care unit will also be expanded in size, but not in the number of beds since the state health plan does not recognize the need for new patient beds. A new, multi-tiered parking deck would also be constructed on the west end of the tower to recoup parking spaces that would be lost to the construction of the new addition.
Plans also call for a major overhaul of the obstretrics/labor and delivery unit, which is currently overtaxed. The unit would be modernized and expanded with 6 to 7 new birthing suites, new patient triage and observation rooms, a state-of-the-art Cesarian section suite, an enlarged newborn nursery and viewing area and an enlarged, more comfortable waiting area, according to plans.
3. Development projects show potential for future growth — Starkville attracted two major retail development projects during 2008, and city and county officials responded by passing tax-increment-financing bonds to help meet infrastructure needs for the various projects.
The first project, the CottonMill Marketplace, is scheduled to break ground early next year and will be a mixed-use development centered around Mississippi State’s E.E. Cooley Building.
The Cooley Building, which currently houses the MSU Physical Plant and was originally constructed as the J.M. Stone Cotton Mill, will be renovated as the anchor for a Courtyard by Marriott hotel and conference center, with the remainder of the development including residential, retail, office, and restaurant space, as well as a cinema.
The second project involved the renovation of the former State Shopping Center on Highway 12 at Louisville Street into the Middleton Court.
The shopping center and its landscaping received a major facelift and is now home to such retailers as CitiTrends and Tuesday Morning, with more on the way.
Work also continues on the shopping center that formerly housed the Jitney Jungle grocery store on Highway 12 East at Spring Street.
Office Depot plans to locate a store there, but other retailers, including Sears and Little Caesar’s Pizza are already operational.
4. City and county officials enact major tax increases — Despite a national economy in recession, but the Starkville Board of Aldermen and Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors implemented ad valorem tax increases to boost their respective budgets. But public support was not unanimous behind the increases.
The Board of Supervisors adopted a 2.77-mill increase for the 2008-2009 fiscal year, citing increased operational costs in several budget areas — particularly fuel and materials /equipment costs for the Sheriff’s Department and Road Department and state mandated increases in certain areas — as the reason for the increase.
The supervisors were heavily criticized by many county residents for waiting to hold a budget hearing seeking comments from voters until the day they adopted the budget.
The Board of Aldermen, which adopted a 3.4-mill tax increase, saw far less opposition after holding public hearings on the budget over a six-week period leading up to its adoption. The tax increase, aldermen said, was being implemented to meet increasing city infrastructure needs, namely street and drainage repairs. Some residents did object to the city’s tax increase.
5. City officials discuss issuing $12 million in bonds for street and drainage improvements — Within weeks of adopting a budget with increased taxes, Mayor Dan Camp introduced a proposal for two bond issues totaling $12 million to finance a major street and infrastructure upgrade and maintenance program.
Two bond issues of $6 million each would be issued, with one coming shortly after the beginning of the new year. The second bond issue would be delayed, allowing the new mayor and aldermen to be elected this coming spring to decide whether to proceed. The second bond issue would have to be issued within 2 years of the first.
City Engineer Edward Kemp presented the Board of Aldermen with a three-phase priority list for street upgrades totaling more than $8 million, and city officials noted that the priority list could change as the needs of the city dictate.
Some aldermen and members of the public, however, voiced concerns that the $12 million figure is too large and urged adoption of a smaller bond issue, with a $3 million figure being proposed. After the board voted in a split 4-3 vote to approve the $12 milllion proposal, a citizen-led petition drive was initiated to bring the matter to a public referendum.
The petition drive is ongoing.
6. Major leadership changes take place at the Greater Starkville Development Partnership — After 7 years, founding GSDP President and CEO David Thornell resigned to return to his home state of Alabama to pursue a commercial real estate career.
Other GSDP staffers had also departed, leaving a void in the community’s economic development agency. Thornell and the GSDP had come under increasing public criticism for being out of touch with the community and for showing little progress in economic development.
New President and CEO Jon Maynard was hired in the late summer and began work Oct. 1. Maynard came from a similar development organization in northwest Louisiana and is currently working with GSDP leaders and members to refocus the organization and boost its profile in the development arena.
7. Top leadership changes in the city and county school districts — James Covington took the reins of the superintendent’s office for the Oktibbeha County School District in January after defeating long-time incumbent Walter Conley in the 2007 county elections.
Starkville School District Supt. Phil Burchfield announced his resignation in January to become superintendent of the Clinton School District effective in June, and Judy Couey, then the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, is named as his successor. Couey took office July 1.
8. The city and county see a surge in violent crime for the first time in several years — All three of the county’s major law enforcement agencies — the Starkville Police Department, the Oktibbeha County Sheriff’s Department and the MSU Police Department — had to contend with a variety of violent crimes during 2008, making it the most violent year on record since 2001.
Law enforcement officials contended with at least seven homicide cases in the city and county, as well as numerous shootings, stabbings, armed robberies and other assault cases. Most cases have seen the arrest of suspects; only one case — the beating death of a 68-year-old man on Self Creek Road — remains under investigation.
9. Starkville and Eupora both lose native sons to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan — On March 10, U.S. Army Cpl. Robert Taylor McDavid of Starkville died when he and four other soldiers in the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, 1st Battalion, 64th Armor were victims of suicide bomber as they got of out of a Humvee to begin a foot patrol in the Sunni Mansour neighborhood of Baghdad.
McDavid’s funeral was held at First Presbyterian Church on March 19, and residents bearing American flags lined the streets all the way to the cemetery to pay their final respects.
He was the grandson of former Starkville mayor and long-time Judge R.L. McDavid and is only the second Starkville soldier to sacrifice his life in the war in Iraq.
On May 19, Marine Corps Cpl. William Justin Cooper of Eupora was killed during combat operations in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, when he was hit by small arms fire that went through his arm and chest, around his body armor.
His funeral was held before a capacity crowd at Eupora High School on May 26.
10. Tyler Edmonds is acquitted in climax to second murder trial — In a case that generated statewide and national media coverage — including from Court TV — 19-year-old Tyler Edmonds stood trial on a murder charge for a second time in the May 2003 shooting death of his half-sister Kristi Fulgham’s husband, Joey Fulgham.
Edmonds, who his defense attorneys argued was unduly influenced by his half-sister to be involved in the crime and that he did not pull the trigger on the gun that killed Joey Fulgham, was acquitted by an Attala County jury after a week-long trial.
The trial had been ordered by the Mississippi Supreme Court after justices overturned his initial July 2004 conviction and he spent more than three and a half years behind bars.
|
|
Last Updated ( Friday, 02 January 2009 )
|
|
|
|
