In a special meeting Thursday, Brookhaven aldermen voted to askthe chamber of commerce to determine the amount of remainingavailable land in the industrial park, environmental clean up costson other property, and to consider purchasing some nearby land forpark expansion.

The resolution asks the chamber to contact EngineeringAssociates, which is City Engineer Carl Ray Furr’s firm, todetermine the balance of useful land in the current park and tocheck on Superfund assistance for remediation ofenvironmentally-contaminated property near the speculativebuilding.

Preliminary results of environmental tests on the buildingproperty were “not good news,” Chandler Russ, the chamber’sexecutive vice-president, told city officials during Tuesday’sregular meeting. He said more results were forthcoming and wereunder review by the Department of Environment Quality.

In support of building a new industrial park, chamber officialshave said there is less than 10 acres of available land in thecurrent park. The city holds an option on a 40-acre tract adjacentto the park, but has not moved to purchase that land.

In several park discussions, Mayor Bill Godbold has advocatedfully using the current park and rehabilitating the speculativebuilding site prior to pursuing a new park.

Godbold last night also urged the board to ask the chamber touse Industrial Development Foundation money from previous landsales to look into buying a 33-acre site that was once used forbrick production. The mayor mentioned asbestos concerns, but saidthe property would be “ideal” with railroad access and frontage onold Highway 51.

“Nobody can build on it until we go in there and clean it up,”Godbold said.

Under the current set up regarding industrial land, the cityowns land for industrial development. When sold, proceeds go to theIDF to support maintenance and chamber activities.

If the city does not get money for land sales, aldermen want theIDF to use its money to buy the land in question.

“That’ll keep us from having to buy it,” said Ward 3 Aldermanthe Rev. Jerry L. Wilson.

HEALTH INSURANCE

In other business, aldermen approved an employee healthinsurance renewal that calls for a 24.7 percent increase inpremiums. It is the second year in a row the city has experiencedan increase of over 20 percent.

Agent Sylvia King said the renewal initially had a 40 percentincrease, but she was able to negotiate that down.

The plan approved last night allows the city to maintain itscoverage with no changes. Two other options considered would havereduced the increase to 22.7 percent or 19.7 percent, but therewould have been severe changes that would have affected employees,King said.

“I think we need to look out for the employees,” said Ward 5Alderman Tom Smith. “They’re not paying enough money to paythis.”

Smith said part of working for the city is having an insuranceplan that takes care of employees and their families. The planincludes medical, dental and other insurance aspects.

Mayor Bill Godbold agreed regarding motivation for cityemployees.

“That’s what they’re working for now, retirement and ourinsurance,” Godbold said.

Aldermen also discussed letting employees know the value of thehealth insurance, which the city pays fully for employees andalmost all for their families, in relation to other city benefits.Godbold suggested making the insurance premium increase part ofemployees’ salary increase.

“It’s a lot better than a salary increase,” said City Clerk IrisRudman about the city paying insurance costs.

In a preliminary fiscal year 2004 budget draft presented earlierThursday night, a 25 percent increase in health insurance costs wasforecast.

The draft also includes projections for 3 or 5 percent employeepay raises, no money for equipment purchases and no figures on citycosts associated with major projects like the multi-modaltransportation facility. Those costs are needed from Furr.

Aldermen were given the budget draft for review and the boardscheduled an Aug. 26 public hearing. They planned to discuss thebudget in more detail following that hearing.

Officials hope to adopt the new year budget at the Sept. 2 boardmeeting. The new fiscal year starts Oct. 1.