Board of Aldermen listen to presentations during work session
During the Board of Aldermen’s work session meeting on Friday, the focus was on issues that could potentially improve the community.
Senior Account Executive of the shared micro-mobility company Bird Michael Covato gave a presentation in an effort to potentially start a partnership with the City of Starkville.
A few years ago, the City of Starkville had a partnership with Lime, a company similar to Bird, that allowed residents of Starkville to rent a bike or electric scooter to navigate across town or the MSU campus if they needed to get somewhere in a hurry.
“As everybody is already familiar with the Lime bike program, we do share some similarities in the sense that we are a shared micro-mobility operations company,” Covato said during his presentation. “Our area’s specialty is with the electric kick-scooters you may be familiar with during the final period with Lime. Difference being we intend to exclusively provide those options rather than paddle bikes in addition to the scooters. We also firmly believe in building deep community ties. We believe that is the best way to not only find a partnership, but to stay there for years to come.”
Mayor Lynn Spruill reflected her thoughts after Covato’s presentation on Friday.
“I, personally, loved seeing the Lime scooters in town when they were here,” Spruill said. “I think they’re fun. I think they’re cool. I think they give off a unique
vibe. I also think they are an opportunity for mobility in ways. You don’t have to have a car. You don’t have to have your own bike. What we want to do is to have multiple options for transportation, so not only do I think they’re fun, but I think they’re an alternative transportation opportunity for our citizens.”
Mary Love Tagert is an Associate Extension Professor for the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering for the MSU Extension Service gave a presentation on considerations for a city recycling program.
In Tagert’s presentation, she mainly stated the importance of recycling and gave examples as to what other communities in the state are doing with their recyclables.
“Each year, Mississippians spend about $70M to dispose of recyclables worth $200M, so we’re not going to make money from recycling, but it is still very important to recycle for the sake of our environment and preventing pollution,” Tagert said during her presentation on Friday.
Tagert is also the president of the Mississippi Recycling Coalition, which is a non-profit organization that works to promote, grow recycling efforts across the state, and to encourage responsible solid waste management.
After assessing the information given by Dr. Tagert, Spruill thinks that the city definitely needs a recycling program going forward.
“I have supported recycling since way back when I first got to town,” Spruill said. “We used to do recycling and that was back when there was actually a market for recycling of which there is much less of that these days. I don’t like the fact that while we may be not putting it in our landfill, it could potentially be going somewhere or not being actually recycled and that’s my only concern. There are things that clearly do get recycled like cardboard, and we’re not recycling plastics for that reason. We’re not sure that it actually gets recycled, so I think as long as we adhere to those products that we actually know have a second, third, and fourth live, or how many lives we can give them, I think it’s something that as a community we should be fully supportive of and practice.”