Columbus annexation plans placed on hold
COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) -During Tuesday night’s executive session, and after some conversations between ward 5 councilman Stephen Jones and president of the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors Trip Hairston, Columbus City Council members agreed 6-0 to pause the planned annexation of two areas along the city’s south and eastern borders.
“They reset a meeting for Wednesday January the 29th at 9am, to give council for both sides a time to come back with an assessment of the proposal, and hopefully at the time, said Keith Gaskin, Columbus Mayor. “We will put it on stay until the next council is elected, and that will let them determine whether or not to move forward with annexation.”
The idea for the annexation being stayed comes because the city and the county both feel that they can’t reasonably get all of the pretrial work done for the case, before next year’s municipal election.
“Since we do not know the outcome of the next election, it makes sense to put it on pause and wait to see if the folks get reelected or new folks come in and want to proceed with annexation,” said Jeff Turnage, City Attorney. “Then we will have only lost a few months, and if the election turns out the other way, then we will not have spent a bunch of money for a case that is not going to go forward.”
Mayor Keith Gaskin said the city has already spent about $50,000.
The county had set aside $50,000 to help residents fighting annexation with legal costs.
To date, they have spent about $15,000 of that.
Some of the remaining money will go toward training costs for Columbus Fire and Rescue, which already responds to emergencies in the proposed annexation area through a mutual aid agreement with the county.
“The county does a lot of things for the city’s Fire Department, just like the city’s Fire Department does a lot of things for the county Fire Department, it is a two-way street,” said Trip Hairston, Board President of the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors. “I really did not want to put politics in between firemen doing their jobs, no matter if they work for the city or the county those guys do an excellent job of running to danger.”
A decision will be made about the annexation plans after the city’s election in June of 2025.
