Giving Up Retirement Community Status, Wanting Help With Abandoned Properties, & Bridge Repairs
Clinton will give up Certified Retirement Community status
By Randy Bell
The road signs encouraging older people to move to Clinton could be coming down soon. The City is reallocating the money it budgets annually to recruit retirees under the Welcome Home Mississippi program. Clinton had been one of fourteen cities authorized to post signs touting themselves as “certified retirement communities.” Now, there are twelve, after Tupelo pulled out of the program, followed by Clinton.
The City’s Director of Communication and Tourism Marlee Price has been part of the state’s retiree recruitment efforts for the past two years.
“It is a beneficial program for towns that don’t have any other kind of exposure,” she says. “[But] it’s $20,000 of my budget to be a part of the Welcome Home Mississippi program.”
The money has paid for Clinton’s participation in trade shows and advertising in retirement magazines. But Price questions how much the City has benefited.
“When we follow up with [retirees] who have moved to the city of Clinton, and we ask them why they moved, it’s always because their grandkids or their kids have moved into the city,” she says. “There has been talk about creating a recruitment program that’s not retirement-specific, and I think that aligns a lot more with the strategic goals we have for Clinton as far as the growth of our city.”
“If the reason that we’re attracting retirees is because they’re following their kids and their grandkids here, then why not reallocate that money to pursuing anyone who wants to move to the City of Clinton, including younger families,” says Price.
As Price sees it, it’s all about getting the biggest bang for our bucks.
“You think, are we spending this money effectively, or is there a better way that we could see a return on the money that we’re spending?”
Mayor Phil Fisher agrees.
“No one’s ever said, ‘I moved to Clinton because I was in Arkansas or Nevada and saw that y’all were a retirement community’.”
Fisher says going after older people can turn off the young families looking for a new home.
“When you put the sign up, it makes [other people] feel like this is a town of old folks.”
And while Clinton is giving up its retirement certification, there’s no intention of abandoning the services that older residents are currently offered. A good example, Price says, is the Department of Therapeutic Recreation’s Living Young program for individuals fifty and older. She calls it “a wonderful quality of life program that not a lot of other cities in the state of Mississippi offer.”
Repairs underway on one Clinton bridge, another awaits replacement
Clinton school buses have been rerouted until the Pinehaven Road bridge can be replaced, hopefully some time next year. The repairs will necessitate the bridge’s closure for an estimated six to nine months.
By Randy Bell
Work has begun to repair a Northside Drive bridge which was closed after an inspection showed advanced decay in the wooden support structure. Since March, drivers have had to detour around the bridge located near Clinton’s eastern city limits. Consulting City Engineer Bill Owen says the work is expected to take three to four months to complete.
The Hinds County Board of Supervisors voted to pay the entire $400,000 cost of repairing the bridge, which crosses a tributary of Bogue Chitto Creek. The existing bridge was built in the 1970s and apparently had never been inspected before a City of Clinton employee noticed a problem several months ago.
Meanwhile, on the northern side of Clinton, preparations continue to replace the Bogue Chitto bridge on Pinehaven Drive. The City had to resort to eminent domain to obtain some of the property needed for the project. Owen says the work probably won’t begin until sometime around the first of next year, and the bridge will be closed for an estimated six to nine months.
Clinton school buses have been rerouted until the Pinehaven Road bridge can be replaced, hopefully some time next year. The repairs will necessitate the bridge’s closure for an estimated six to nine months
The Clinton Public School District (CPSD) is no longer allowing their buses to cross the bridge located north of Williamson Road. As of August 5, the buses were being rerouted “to avoid any potential danger,” a news release from the school district said. The bridge is posted with a three-ton weight limit.
“The tonnage that’s allowed on the bridge just didn’t seem safe for the school district to send their buses across it,” says CPSD Public Information Office Robert Chapman. “So, we decided to expedite our plan of redirecting those routes now, instead of waiting [for the bridge to be closed.] Students are the most precious cargo that we have here, and so we didn’t want to put them in any kind of unnecessary danger. We had the plan in place, so moving it up just seemed the right thing to do.”
According to the district’s news release, buses which usually travel over the Pinehaven bridge are now using Clinton-Tinnin Road or Cynthia Road, and students riding those buses “may experience a slight adjustment in the timelines of their respective routes.” Elementary routes 25, 26 and 27 are affected, along with junior high/high school routes 56, 57, 69 and 86 and district route 18-89.
Neighbors ask City for help with abandoned properties
By Randy Bell
A group of people wearing matching T-shirts showed up for a Board of Aldermen work session August 5 to seek City assistance with some neighborhood issues, including overgrown yards and ditches, abandoned houses, dimly-lit streets and stray cats.
Residents of The Briars subdivision were told that efforts are already underway to deal with many of those problems.
Mary Branson, secretary of the homeowners’ association, said abandoned property is the biggest concern.
“Of course, it doesn’t look good,” she said, after making a presentation to the Board, “but it’s a safety factor, also. And we have repeat offenders. Persons that don’t live in The Briars but are continuously going to [the City of Clinton’s] Environmental Court for their abandoned properties.”
Clinton’s Director of Community Development Roy Edwards confirmed that some of those cases are pending before the court and that action was being taken against the owner of an overgrown yard in the neighborhood, declaring it “unkempt property,” so it could be mowed at the owner’s expense with a penalty attached.
Branson said neighbors are concerned about the impact of the unattractive homes on their property values.
“You don’t want to live next to it,” she said.
But Branson was optimistic about the outcome.
“We are sure that we will get some satisfaction, if we can continue that momentum of working with the City of Clinton,” said Branson.
