By Staff
HITT SPEAKS – Allan Stewart, left, president of the Kiwanis Club, and Craig Hitt, president of the Lauderdale County Board of Supervisors, look over the county's budget for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1. Hitt spoke Wednesday at a Kiwanis Club luncheon. PHOTO BY PAULA MERRITT / THE MERIDIAN STAR
By Lynette Wilson / staff writer
October 17, 2002
Lauderdale County Supervisor Craig Hitt said Wednesday he would eliminate the position of "county patrolman" if he had the authority to do so.
Hitt, who serves as president of the Lauderdale County Board of Supervisors and represents District 3, spoke at the weekly meeting of the Kiwanis Club at the Howard Johnson Inn.
He talked about several county issues including the budget for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1 as well as his take on county patrolmen and county green boxes where residents dump household garbage.
Each supervisor district has one county patrolman. Hitt said the county patrolman in his district spends 80 percent of his time working for animal control.
He said he thought that part of the patrolman's salary would be paid with money from the animal control budget. But he said that isn't the case; county patrolmen are paid about $24,000 a year from the county budget.
In the past, Hitt said, the county patrolman played a much larger role. But he said they are no longer justified.
Hitt said the patrolman's responsibilities include directing school traffic and the occasional long, funeral procession as well as catching wild animals at the county's green boxes.
On county green boxes, Hitt said that Lauderdale County is the only county in Mississippi still using them to collect trash. All other Mississippi counties have door-to-door trash collection.
Hitt said there was talk of letting county voters have their say on door-to-door trash pick up in a non-binding referendum on the November ballot. But, he said, that didn't happen.