City Council meeting once again turns to fence questions

Picayune Airport Manager Andy Greenwood addresses the Council

The Picayune City Council met last night and conducted some business before the meeting appeared to be a near repeat of the last meeting.

Airport Manager Andy Greenwood made two requests to the City Council. The first was an approval to allow American Mid-Stream, who is an AT&T contractor, to perform bore work in order to bring underground fiber optic cables to the airport, which as Greenwood described as “a real good thing because it will bring high speed internet to the area.”

The second item involved entering into an agreement with Mississippi State University Raspet Flight Research Laboratory to allow the testing of light drones at the airport. Greenwood explained that this effort is for testing of drones under 55 pounds. The project will be for research work done in the fast growing area of drone research and development for the government.

Once the business portion of the meeting was over, Councilman Larry Breland once again rehashed his discontent with the council over the 8th Street Cemetary. Breland contends that “this is not right or fair.” Breland continued to plead with the council to "spend the money to do the right thing and put a fence around the cemetery on 8th Street."

Council members Tammy Valente, Larry Breland, Janice Miller-Stevens

Breland continued his same questions that he had posed at the last council meeting stating “we’ve got the money. Why can’t we do this? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

Breland also took issue with a spreadsheet showing capital improvements on each of the city parks that was given to the public at the last meeting as a handout.

Breland stated "it is incorrect. There's data missing on here."

Breland quizzed board attorney Nathan Farmer as to how a document could be provided to the public, but not the council. Farmer told Breland that he did not have any knowledge of the spreadsheet and Breland would have to discuss the item with City Clerk Amber Hinton, who was absent from the meeting.

Council members Wayne Gouguet and Tammy Valente both told Mr. Breland that each council member received the spreadsheet via email many hours ahead of the last meeting. Gouguet told Breland that he had asked Ms. Hinton to prepare the spreadsheet.

No decision was made to take any action on the comments from Breland.