The Pearl River County Board of Supervisors met on Monday to discuss offering local residents a garbage drop-off option on the weekend and approving a site survey on the south tower concerning the radio signals used by local fire departments.

In January, the board approved a $50,000 budget in 2016 for local fire departments to upgrade their radio and communication system. On Monday, District IV Supervisor J. Patrick Lee announced that COMSOUTH, Inc. provided the board a $1,600 quote for the site survey of the south tower.

“They’ll go out and look for dead spots and try troubleshooting the system,” Lee said.

The board acknowledged the quote for the site survey.

Also at the meeting, Lee proposed an idea to offer a drop-off dumpster location for local residents on Saturdays.

Since the county’s landfill, managed by Waste Management, is closed on Saturdays, Lee said he wanted to talk to them and see if they could work out an agreement to offer some kind of service that day.

“I’ve heard several complaints from residents who aren’t able to drop off their household garbage in the dumpster during the week,” Lee said.

Lee said he would like the board to speak to Waste Management to see if they would provide dumpsters to the county. He also said the dumpsters would be placed at the county barn.

“The garbage in the dumpsters could then be picked up by Waste Management on Mondays,” Lee said.

District I Supervisor Anthony Hales added that they would need to hire someone to supervise the dumpsters and said that household garbage would include any paper and food products.

The board approved a motion to speak to Waste Management concerning the garbage service.

Afterwards, County Administrator Adrain Lumpkin presented several charts to the board concerning the percentage of county taxes the board has control over.

“The board only controls 39 percent of the taxes. When you factor in $1,000, $390 is what the Board of Supervisors controls and affects,” Lumpkin said. The remaining 61 percent of taxes are levied by the Fire District, PRCC and the School District, he said.

“When people come in and complain about taxes, we don’t control very much of it,” Lumpkin said. “But, maybe this will help educate residents and see that the supervisors aren’t always the bad people.”

In other business, the board:

–       Recognized George Washington’s birthday on Feb. 16 as a county holiday.

–       Approved the Pearl River County Sheriff’s Department to travel to Birmingham, Alabama on March 2-5 for The Investigative Challenge Seminar, approved them to travel to New Media Relations Training in Biloxi, Mississippi on Feb. 12-13 and approved them to travel to Field Training Officer Certification in Gulfport, Mississippi on Feb. 9 -11.

–       Approved county officials to travel to Washington D.C. on Feb. 11-15.

–       Approved personnel changes in the Pearl River County Sheriff’s Department.

The next board meeting will be on Wednesday, February 18^th at 9 a.m.