MODERNIZING TO MEET THE MOMENT IN OKTIBBEHA COUNTY
THE ONGOING COVID-19 PANDEMIC HAS SLOWED LIFE DOWN BUT HASN’T STOPPED IN STARKVILLE AND OKTIBBEHA COUNTY, WHERE EDUCATION, INFRASTRUCTURE, RECREATION AND ACTIVISM ARE ALL SEEING UPGRADES AND FORWARD MOVEMENT
PARTNERSHIP SCHOOL OPENS
After years of delays, the Partnership School for grades 6-7 in the Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District opened for the 2020-2021 academic year. The school on the Mississippi State University campus is the result of a partnership between the city, county and university. It serves as a training lab for MSU's College of Education, allowing MSU students to observe classroom teaching and making university faculty a resource for SOCSD teachers and administrators. The middle school classrooms have desks outside where MSU students sit and observe and teachers can block the younger students' view of their observers if need be. The addition of the Partnership School reconfigured some of the grade levels in SOCSD. Armstrong Middle School became Armstrong Junior High School, home of grades 8-9, and Starkville High School now has grades 10-12 instead of 9-12.
NEW DEVELOPMENTS
Another collaboration between Starkville and Oktibbeha County coming to fruition is the North Star Industrial Park near the interchange of Highways 82 and 389. Work on the new Garan Manufacturing building, relocating from Highway 12, is ahead of schedule despite the pandemic and construction of a 500,000-gallon water tank near the park's entrance started in August.
Community leaders broke ground in August at Cornerstone Park, which will include a major tournament-ready park and recreation facility, just off Highway 25. Starkville hired a new Parks and Recreation Director, Brandon Doherty, in July.
In an effort to boost downtown business and recreation, aldermen in July approved the Streatery, an outdoor seating and dining space that would temporarily occupy nine Main Street parking spaces. The Streatery faces a challenge in court from a lawyer whose office on Main Street sits behind the project’s planned location on the south side of the street.
In the meantime, the city decided to strive for the same goal by stringing 900 LED lights across South Lafayette Street between Main and Lampkin streets in early September with the full support of businesses and tenants along the block. The "Lights at Lafayette" is a collaboration among the city, which provided in-kind services to erect the lights, the Greater Starkville Development Partnership and its affiliates, Mississippi State's Carl Small Town Center and local businesses.
INFRASTRUCTURE
The city also set aside more than $3 million in its Fiscal Year 2021 budget to match the $12.66 million federal grant it received in 2019 to revitalize about a mile of Highway 182, making it more pedestrian-friendly and wheelchair accessible, increasing broadband access and improving infrastructure and stormwater drainage. The project will be completely designed and go out for bids in September 2021.
Another ongoing infrastructure project is the replacement of aging water and sewer pipes throughout the city, planned since 2018. The water and sewer systems in Pleasant Acres, Green Oaks and Rolling Hills date back to the 1950s and 1960s. The city finished replacing the metal pipes in Pleasant Acres this year and expects to finish the northern half of the Green Oaks project next year.
A new and improved electric substation planned for the past eight years in southwest Starkville is nearly complete, Starkville Utilities General Manager Terry Kemp said. It will be at the end of Azalea Lane and near the water tower behind the Starkville Sportsplex and it will replace the oldest substation in the city on Industrial Park Road, about 500 yards west.
Outside the city, 35.69 miles of 53 county roads will be upgraded by 2023, thanks to Oktibbeha County’s $3.16 million four-year road plan, approved in June. The projects range from resurfacing or removing debris to completely converting some roads from gravel to pavement.
Some roads in residential areas will be redone, specifically Cannon Road in District 2 and the Sunset neighborhood southwest of Starkville in District 1. Harrell Road in District 3 and Jeff Peay Road in District 1 are gravel roads that will be built from the base as paved roads.
The county hopes to also modernize communication and operations in all departments by hiring an information technology director, which board of supervisors president John Montgomery said would bring the county “into the 21st century.”
STARKVILLE STAND UP
Also in the vein of meeting the moment, activists in Starkville formed the racial justice advocacy group Starkville Stand Up in late May and early June in response to the national resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. Thousands turned out for the march on June 6, which started downtown at Unity Park, headed east on Main Street and University Drive, across Highway 12 into the Mississippi State University campus, past several Greek fraternity houses. The protest culminated in a rally at the MSU Amphitheatre in which students, city leaders and state officials spread a message of urgency and unity to combat systemic racism and the killings of Black Americans by police nationwide. Starkville Stand Up’s goals include creating a citizen-led police review board and cultural sensitivity training for all employees of the city and the Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District.
In response to the protest happening within a week’s notice and without insurance or a special event permit from the city, Starkville aldermen voted to allow freedom of assembly, a right protected by the First Amendment, to happen on short notice without any procedural roadblocks if it is "in response to spontaneous events," according to the policy approved in June.
STORY BY TESS VRBIN
PHOTOS BY CLAIRE HASSLER & ANTRANIK TAVITIAN
