Bay Springs city officials, seemingly all in opposition, discussed a heavy topic last Tuesday night about allowing a zoning variance from industrial to commercial for Friends of Children of Mississippi to locate a day care on property located in the industrial park in Bay Springs. That opposition carried over into the Jasper County Board of Supervisors meeting Monday.
The City of Bay Springs and Jasper County are co-owners in the industrial park.
Friends of Children of Mississippi (FCM), according to discussions that took place at last week’s Bay Springs Board of Aldermen meeting, has entered into a contract with Bluebird Properties on an FCM facility to be located in the industrial park located off Highway 15 North in Bay Springs. The proposed facility, a building formerly used over approximately the past 15 years as a job site for Ellisville State School residents to package plastic goods, would care for children ages 6-months-old and older, presumably to the age before those children can enter the FCM facility located on Highway 18 East in Bay Springs, which will remain open, according to FCM facility coordinator Albert Carter.
Carter was met with somewhat harsh opposition by the Bay Springs city board last week when it learned FCM and Ken Keyes of Bluebird Properties had entered into an agreement on the industrial park location for such a facility that would see heavy traffic and possible industrial park ramifications. Carter and Keyes both requested a variance from the City of Bay Springs last week so plans could move forward quickly.
The building and property, which have already undergone renovations for a childcare-like facility, according to Keyes at last week’s Bay Springs city meeting, is located only approximately 30 to 50 feet from one of the industrial park’s waste water and chemical waste water lagoons. The building and lagoon are separated only by a fence constructed as a playground barrier for the proposed day care. Other industrial park lagoons are also located beyond that point, and the question of heavy traffic and unsafe, unsanitary, and possibly toxic conditions, as well as the facility not being able to adhere to the industrial park’s founding policy of “producing a product,” have been brought to the table.
Keyes maintained at the Bay Springs city meeting last week that he thought the variance issue would not be a problem because the former user of the facility was Ellisville State School.
Carter told the Bay Springs Board last week, “As far as the lagoon, that comes with the inspection [Mississippi State Health Department]. If they see that is a problem with inspecting the property, they turn it down. This is a federal Headstart program, and we cannot do anything at all without a license from the Mississippi State Health Department.”
The problem the Bay Springs aldermen had with that was the variance had to be issued before the inspection, according to Carter. That spawned a concern of liability for City of Bay Springs officials, not to mention a dire concern each alderman and Mayor J.E. Smith expressed for young children that possibly could be cared for at the facility.
Four Bay Springs Aldermen present for last week’s city meeting – Steve Breland, Bob Cook, Ron Keyes and Mike Lucas – were all opposed to FCM moving into the property located directly adjacent to Peco and behind a number of other industrial facilities in the area.
Breland visited with the Jasper County Board of Supervisors Monday morning about the situation. No supervisor present at the meeting (Beat One’s Eddie Helms, Beat Two’s Sandy Stevens, Beat Three’s Doug Rogers or Beat Four’s Johnny Rowell) seemed keen to the idea of the day care located in the industrial park.
“I’ve had multiple people say something to me about it,” said Rogers.
Aside from the dangerous industrial park setting and possible traffic problems that could incur in the area, Jasper County Attorney Ricky Ruffin also mentioned another clause within the industrial park guidelines.
“I’m not sure that it complies with the EDA requirements when we built that industrial park. That’s not what it was designed to do. It’s not set up for that,” he explained. “When that thing was used by the state school, it was not a school; it was an industrial complex. What they did was carried people from the state school up there, and they worked there during the day. They did work projects. It was a work environment.”
The Bay Springs Board of Aldermen are expected to make a decision on the variance requested by Bluebird Properties and FCM, which would or would not allow Friends of Children of Mississippi to use the industrial park property, by the next scheduled city meeting.