DeKalb, Scooba seek to improve appearance

The mayors and boards of aldermen in both DeKalb and Scooba have pushed making changes to the appearance of their re­spective towns to the fore­front of their agendas.

During their January board meetings both Scooba Mayor Craig Nave Sr. and DeKalb Mayor Clark Adams stressed to their boards that unsightly buildings, yards, streets, and homes needed to be dealt with sooner rather than later.

Adams has long com­plained about the condi­tion of some of the property in DeKalb.

“I don’t want to go an­other summer with the town looking like a jun­gle,” Adams said. “Some people just don’t care.”

Attorney Marvin Wig­gins, who serves as attor­ney for both the Town of DeKalb and the Town of Scooba, said the current ordinances need to be looked at and enforced and if they aren’t sufficient then new ones needed to be drawn up.

The mayor and board agreed that ad ordinance needed to be adopted dealing with run-down property in DeKalb.

Wiggins said the town would need to notify the property owners of exactly what needs to be taken care of and what time frame they have to work within.

In Scooba, Nave put most of his focus on build­ings that are falling into ruin. The street that runs along the railroad in town has particularly become an eyesore.

“This is a situation that needs to be taken care of in order to better our com­munity,” Nave said con­cerning any of the buildings in the town that were now vacant and in need of attention. “We need to get the (owners) to take care of their prop­erty.”

Wiggins noted that the town needed to be clear what needed to be done and to send it to the prop­erty owners in the form of a letter.

In other action the DeKalb Board of Alder­man:

— Were read a letter from the Kemper County Board of Supervisors not­ing that garbage pick-up wold be changed from two days a week to one begin­ning in February;

— Approved the agenda;

— Approved the Docket of Claims;

— Approved the Finan­cial Report.

In other action the Scooba Board of Alder­man:

— Approved the Minutes

— Approved the Claims Docket;

— Approved the Decem­ber 2021 Financial State­ments

— Approved Jan. 17 as a holiday honoring the birth­days of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert E. Lee

— Approved Water op­erator training;

— Heard from Ike Kiefer, consultant for the Kemper County Economic Devel­opment Authority.