“Bond Issue for Lighting Projects Moves Closer”

By Randy Bell

The Board of Aldermen has taken another step toward finalizing a $12 million bond issue aimed at making Clinton brighter while saving the City money, which can be spent on other needs. The Board, at its August 20 meeting, approved a resolution to issue the bonds through the Mississippi Development Bank, which, according to its website, provides “ready access to bond funds” and offers “a higher bond rating, resulting in lower interest rates.” The Mississippi Legislature created the MDB in 1986.

The City expects to have the bond proceeds available in early October; but, with an old bond issue being paid off, the millage rate will stay the same, and a tax increase won’t be necessary. By the time the first payment on the new bonds is due, the old bonds will have been retired, and City funds used for those debt payments will be repurposed for the new bond issue.

The revenue generated from the sale of the bonds will pay for a major lighting project on the athletic fields at Traceway Park, extending the decorative lamp posts on the Clinton Parkway down Pinehaven Drive to Arrow Drive, and the purchase of the city’s street lights, which are now owned by Entergy.

Lights, lights and more lights—and a roof

By Randy Bell

Here’s a closer look at the projects to be financed by a $12 million bond issue:

Traceway Lighting

A long-awaited overhaul of the lights on the athletic fields at Traceway Park will cost about $6.5 million.  It’s being touted as the largest sports lighting project in Mississippi history.

The fields will be illuminated with LED lights on metal poles; and, with the bond money in the City’s hands this fall, Mayor Phil Fisher says they can hit the ground running.

“We don’t have to linger,” he says.  “We can really get after it.”

Fisher says if the weather cooperates this winter, the energy-efficient lights can be ready for next year’s baseball and soccer seasons, making play safer by eliminating shadows, while reducing light pollution from the fields affecting nearby neighborhoods.

Parkway Lighting

Extending the Clinton Parkway’s decorative lights down Pinehaven Drive to Arrow Drive will mean the installation of seventy-seven new lamp posts.  It’s an effort to make the street more attractive by maintaining the continuity of the Parkway lights.

There’s been no discussion yet about taking it a step further by landscaping the traffic islands on Pinehaven.   They’re not as wide as the ones along the Parkway, which are planted with trees, shrubs, sod and other greenery.

Street Lights

The third major project the bond issue will finance is the purchase of Clinton’s street lights.

“That’s going to run us $2 million,” the mayor says, while pointing out that owning the lights rather than renting them from Entergy will work to the City’s advantage in the future.

“Our guess was right that we’d have about $400,000 saved [from] what we’re paying Entergy right now [for rent] that will pay for [the purchase] over five years.  We’ll have an agreement made [with] an outside source that if [the street lights] all get torn down, you have a tornado, that they’ll do the repairs.”

Once the lights are purchased, Fisher says, “We’ll just be paying for the electricity.”

He points out that the street lights have already been converted to LEDs at no cost to the City.

And, once the lights are paid off, the money that’s no longer going for rent can be used for other purposes.

“The big advantage is, we save $400,000 tax dollars a year that we can apply to other things within our City, within our general fund budget,” Fisher says. “Equipment purchases, pay raises – the next Board will be able to take advantage of that toward the end of their term.”

According to the mayor, Clinton has been paying rent on some of those light poles since the 1950s, and he believes that continuing to do so would have been like “throwing money away.”

Wood Activity Center

The bond issue will also fund a few smaller projects, including a new roof for the Wood Activity Center, where the Department of Therapeutic Recreation is located.