Commercial traffic along Industrial Park Road will receive aboost in coming months after supervisors accepted a bid Monday tobuild a left turn lane onto Manufacturer’s Boulevard.

According to Marty Hilton, the county’s State Aidrepresentative, the turn lane should help traffic flow there andlower the risk of a vehicle crash when eighteen-wheelers are makingthe turn to deliver to Wal-Mart Distribution Center or McLaneSouthern.

Supervisors considered two bids for the project Monday beforeselecting the lowest bid of $211,442.92 by Brookhaven constructioncompany Oddee Smith & Sons.

Engineers had estimated the project would cost slightly morethan $201,000, Hilton said, and the Oddee Smith bid had come in atapproximately 5 percent more than the estimate.

“That’s not bad,” he said. “I recommend you accept it.”

Supervisors also approved a motion to accept a StandardOperating Program for the combined county/city Homeland SecurityDepartment and to purchase some equipment, through a federal grant,to safeguard against a weapons of mass destruction attack.

District Three Supervisor Nolan Earl Williamson expressed someconcern in authorizing Clifford Galey, who heads the department, tomake the $136,000 purchase.

The equipment will be stored in a small trailer also purchasedthrough the grant and kept at the Brookhaven Fire Department untilneeded.

Williamson asked Galey what the shelf life on the equipmentwould be and who be responsible for replacing it in the future.

Galey could not answer the question, but County Attorney BobAllen said it would probably depend on the terrorism threat leveland the presidential administration in place at the time. If thethreat remained high, then grants would probably be available toreplace it, Allen guessed.

Supervisors approved the purchase because the grant money hadbeen funded and they said it would be needed if the county wereever to suffer from an attack or biological incident.

They were not, however, ready to approve another request byGaley seeking to approve the formation of a Regional Response Team(RRT) in conjunction with other counties.

The team could only be activated by the governor, Galey said,and would be used solely to respond to hazardous situations. Itcould not be used, for instance, in the event of natural disastersbecause a Mississippi Emergency Management Agency plan alreadyaddresses that statewide.

Allen cited the similarities between the two programs and saidhe needed to the entire RRT agreement in writing before he couldmake a recommendation to the board.

In other matters, Lincoln County Health Department OfficeManager Nelline Reed asked the board to purchase a lawnmower andweedeater so they could have inmates tend to the landscape at thefacility. The service had been contracted out for the past 11years, she said, but Sheriff Wiley Calcote had recently agreed toallow inmates to conduct the work to save the health departmentmoney.

She asked the board to authorize approximately $310 for thepurchase and deduct it from next month’s budget.

“We have mowers here at the courthouse we can use if you’llauthorize it,” Calcote said. “Transporting them back and forthwon’t be a problem.”

The board approved the sheriff’s suggestion and furtherauthorized him to have inmates restripe the parking lot at thefacility.