Commissioners Jerry Kilgore and Emma Brown, along with County Judge Mark Barr, voted unanimously to hand the matter over to County Attorney Mike Thomas to begin negotiations.

“The property is a very small parcel basically out in the middle of a field on Midway Road,” explained Barr during Tuesday morning's meeting. “The city of Coahoma is hoping to trade the property back to the land owner in that area to secure property to expand their cemetery.”

Barr said his first reaction was to simply deed the property to the city of Coahoma as a courtesy, but county law doesn't allow that.

“I spoke with Mike Thomas about this and he said there has to be some sort of consideration to make it legal,” said Barr. “It looks like we may have to have it appraised. This whole thing is more or less a courtesy to the city of Coahoma, however.”

Commissioners Bill Crooker and Gary Simer were absent from the meeting. According to Barr, it was due to illness.

Also Tuesday, commissioners voted unanimously to terminate its contract with Net Plea, the company currently in charge of collecting delinquent fines and fees for the county, in favor of hiring a new company.

“This would terminate the contract we have with Net Plea and allow us to hire the firm of Perdue, Brandon, Fielder, Collins and Mott,” Barr told the court audience, which included representatives from the legal firm's Lubbock and Midland offices. “Most of the counties in this immediate area have gone with this company, and they all seem very pleased with their service.”

Barr said the services performed by Net Plea had been satisfactory in the past, but as the contract between the county and the company matured, the level of service the court was receiving from the company had waned considerably.

The terms of the contract with the Texas-based firm calls for the same schedule of fees the county approved with Net Plea, according to Barr.

Commissioners also gave the go-ahead for County Road and Bridge Administrator Eddy Jameson to compensate a grader operator at a higher rate than normal.

“My construction grader operator is having back trouble, so he's unable to operate that equipment,” Jameson told the court. “So I have a grader operator doing that work, and I'd like to be able to pay him at the rate he's working, which is construction grader.”

Jameson told the court he's had problems in the past with swapping employees from one position to another and not being able to pay them for the grade of work they are performing.

The court approved the change in pay rate and gave Jameson the discretion to pay his department's employees at the rate they are working.

Contact Staff Writer Thomas Jenkins at 263-7331 ext. 232 or by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it