Aldermen approve $1.2M bond

The Philadelphia Mayor and Board of Aldermen voted to proceed with a infrastructure bond issue during its regular meeting last Tuesday.

The city had advertised plans to issue $1.5 million in bonds. However, they only approved to sell $1.2 million in bonds. For the next two years, they will have the option to issue bonds for the remaining $300,000.

Bond attorney Steve Pittman asked the board to pass two resolutions. The first was a “No Protest Resolution” to certify the city has properly advertised their intent to sell the bonds, and that there were no objections.

The second was a “Bond Sale Resolution” where the board authorizes the sale of the bonds which they will approve at their Sept. 1 meeting in amount not to exceed $1.2 million.

The board passed both resolutions.

“We did do some possible debt service numbers and $1.5 million would have been on the high side,” Mayor James Young said. “The good thing is that we can use the Internet sales tax money to pay a large portion of this. This will give us the flexibility and pay off the debt without any additional cost.”

The first payment is due October 2021.

Young said the city has received a little more that $100,000 in Internet sale tax revenue so far this year.

In another matter, the board voted to give the Philadelphia-Neshoba County Park Commission an extra $10,000 to help them make it through their fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. The commission lost a big part of its income when the parks baseball, softball and T-ball seasons were canceled because of the coronavirus.

The Neshoba County Board of supervisors had already provided $10,000 to the commission. This will allow the commission to pay its bills and avoid staff layoffs.

In other matters, the board voted to:

• Approve the payment of $17,117 to Waggoner Engineering for work at the airport;

• Approve a resolution to set a public hearing date for Aug. 18, to consider a request to change the zoning from C2 to R1 for property at 511 Church Street;

• Approve a road bore along Range Avenue to Breland Street.