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Looking back at the top local news stories of 2009 |
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Friday, 01 January 2010 |
 Photos by Kelly Daniels, Paul Sims and Brian Hawkins/SDN Parker Wiseman, shown here at his campaign kickoff event, at age 28 won election as the youngest mayor in Starkville history. Wiseman’s election and the major change in leadership in city government with five new aldermen was the top local new story of 2009. A News Analysis
By BRIAN HAWKINS
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2009 proved to be another exciting year in local news, with Starkville and Oktibbeha County seeing a variety of highs and lows in local events.
Without further ado, the Starkville Daily News presents this year’s top 10 news stories as voted on by the newspaper’s readers and the staff according to impact on the community.
1. Starkville voters elected the youngest mayor in the city’s history and see sweeping change on the city’s Board of Aldermen.
At 28, Democratic candidate Parker Wiseman won the Democratic primary and primary runoff to advance to the general election, where he defeated Republican Marnita Henderson to become the youngest mayor ever elected in the history of Starkville.
The Starkville Board of Aldermen also saw five new members elected, with Ben Carver and Eric Parker winning the Ward 1 and Ward 3 seats vacated by Sumner Davis and P.C. McLaurin, who chose not to seek re-election, and Jeremiah Dumas, Sandra Sistrunk and Henry Vaughn winning the Ward 5, Ward 2 and Ward 7 seats respectively.
Only two incumbent aldermen — Roy A. Perkins (Ward 6) and Richard Corey (Ward 4) — won reelection, with Perkins becoming the longest-serving current elected official in city government.
2. Amid a significant amount of public debate, one of the first actions taken by the new Board of Aldermen within a few weeks of taking office was the passage of resolutions petitioning the State Tax Commission and amendments to city ordinances to allow the sale of beer, light wine and liquor on Sundays, which had previously been prohibited.
Proponents of the measure cited the potential for increased sales tax and local hotel/restaurant tax revenue and the possibility of changing Starkville’s image on a state and national level.
Those opposing the changed cited public safety concerns — primarily a potential increase in drinking and driving incidents — and religious and moral reasons.
After weeks of debate and discussion, the Board of Aldermen ultimately decided to allow Sunday alcohol sales by a 4-3 vote.
The change took effect in late September.
3. Mississippi State University President Mark Keenum faced numerous challenges his first year in office, including departures of key administrative team members and funding challenges.
Keenum’s formal investiture as president in mid-October was a bit more low-key than previous MSU presidential investitures amid concerns over looming state budget cuts and a desire. Keenum, in his investiture address, underscored the financial challenges facing MSU in the coming years and announced a $100 million State Pride initiative to raise money for student scholarships and faculty support.
4. State budget woes keep agency heads, university leaders and public school districts guessing about where funding levels will be over the next few years.
Passage of the state budget for the current fiscal year literally went down to the wire in a late June special session of the Legislature, and a continued decline in revenues prompted Gov. Haley Barbour to propose major spending cuts and a realignment of state government in his executive budget recommendation for the 2010-2011 fiscal year.
Among Barbour’s recommendations are a proposal to merge multiple state universities — including combining the Mississippi University for Women with the larger MSU — and consolidating the state’s 154 public school districts into 82 districts (one for each of the state’s counties) with the goal of eliminating bureaucracy and stretching state tax dollars as far as possible.
5. One of the biggest stories of year literally took place in the waning days of 2009, as a devastating fire at the Academy Crossing apartment complex on South Louisville Street claimed the lives of nine people and garnered national and international media attention.
The fire was the worst residential fire fatality in Starkville and state history. The cause of the blaze remains under investigation at this writing, and the impact of the fire has been far-reaching as the community continues to reach out to help the victims’ families, donating thousands of dollars to help with funeral expenses and to assist the surviving residents who escaped the burning building.
6. For the second time in five years, the Mississippi National Guard’s 155th Brigade Combat Team — including the Starkville-based 2nd-114th Strike Battalion — was mobilized and deployed to Iraq.
Activated early in the year, the Guardsmen trained at Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg over several months, departing for the Middle East in late June and early July. The more than 3,500 Guardsmen are scheduled to begin returning to Mississippi sometime in the early spring.
7. Starkville became the first municipality in the state to offer a free curbside recycling program in residential neighborhoods. Using a grant to purchase special green bags in which recyclables can be placed, the program launched in October with twice-monthly pickup, with hundreds of households choosing to participate in the voluntary program.
The city has contracted with Starkville Recycling to process the recyclables, and officials hope to expand the program to include local businesses in the coming months.
8. Like the state government, Starkville and Oktibbeha County government leaders also contended with flat tax revenues in preparing their annual budgets, though there was a marked difference in how each entity approached the problems.
The Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors enacted a more than five-mill increase in ad valorem taxes, with the bulk of the revenue going to support the bond issue for the latest Oktibbeha County Hospital expansion project and the remainder going for pay raises for county employees, including the supervisors themselves, who received a more than 10 percent pay hike.
The tax increase met with disapproval from county residents, particularly since a portion went to the pay raises for the supervisors themselves.
City leaders, on the other hand, tightened their belts and overcame an estimated $900,000 budget shortfall, passing a balanced budget that did include a slight cost of living pay increase for city employees.
9. Starkville School District and Oktibbeha County School District leaders received the results of the first year of the new version of the Mississippi Curriculum Test, which set higher standards for accountability.
While test scores did drop, both city and county school leaders spent time addressing the new accountability standards in a series of public meetings and through local media outlets, discussing their plans to ensure standards are met and that students achieve what they need to achieve in the classroom.
10. Jasmine Murray of Starkville was thrust into the national spotlight for several weeks in February, March and April after she auditioned for the Fox Network’s popular “American Idol” music competition show and advanced to become one of the 13 finalists on the show.
Murray, now a senior at the Mississippi School for the Arts in Brookhaven, performed multiple times on national television before being eliminated in one of the earlier rounds of finals competition, but not before garnering a fan base locally and around the region.
Here are a few stories worthy of honorable mention:
• Earlier this month, Choctaw County Hospital in Ackerman closed its doors upon recommendation of state Health Department officials over concerns for patient safety with an ongoing renovation project and lack of a full-time physician on staff.
Concerns about financial difficulties have also been voiced by hospital staff members and Choctaw County officials.
• Starkville residents saw the fruitions of the first of two $3 million bond issues approved by the Board of Aldermen early in the year as numerous city streets and drainage infrastructure received much needed repairs and upgrades.
The success of the projects prompted the Board of Aldermen to pass the second $3 million bond issue a few months ago, and that money, coupled with local appropriations from the federal stimulus package, is set to pay for another round of street and drainage improvements in the new year.
• In October, Bobby Batiste was convicted of capital murder in the beating death of this roommate and fellow Mississippi State student, Andreas Galanis, in an Oktibbeha County Circuit Court trial.
Batiste was sentenced to death by the jury.
• The former Borden/Eagle Family Foods plant on Lampkin Street at Montgomery Street saw a major renovation into the Central Station by Tabor Development.
The facility will now be the home to the Central Station Grill (formerly the Cotton District Grill), Boardtown Bikes and other local businesses.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 04 January 2010 )
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