MERIDIAN —     Dozens of citizens gave Meridian's new police chief a standing ovation Tuesday following a unanimous vote of approval by the City Council.

    James Reed will be sworn in as chief of police this morning at 10 at the City Hall auditorium.

    Reed's selection came a day after members of the City Council met with him one and two at a time to interview him. He was picked for the job by Mayor Cheri Barry, who announced his appointment last week.

    The City Council has to approve department head appointments before they become official.

    Addressing the council on Tuesday, Reed, a Meridian native, said he has a passion for his hometown.

    "As a young child growing up my parents taught me to work hard, very hard, to respect others and treat others fairly no matter how they treated you," Reed said.

    Reed graduated from Meridian High School in 1972 and was among the first two African-Americans to play football at the University of Mississippi. He graduated from Ole Miss in 1976 with a degree in public administration and law enforcement.

    "I'm very excited to be coming home. I have a lot of family, a lot of friends here. It's an exciting time for me," Reed said.

    Reed has more than 35 years of experience in law enforcement, which includes working as an analyst and investigator with the Mississippi Department of Justice, a probation and parole officer with the State of Mississippi, and as a supervisory special agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

    "I hope to bring a lot of experience to the job and certainly one of the main things I intend to do is to tap into the wealth of knowledge and experience of the individuals who are at the Meridian Police Department," Reed said. "I think all too often, we come in and we try to utilize our experience to try to make things work the way we think they ought to work instead of taking advantage of the experience of individuals who are already there. It's going to be a little bit of both."

    Barry chose Reed from among eight applicants for the job.

    "I was most impressed with his credentials, his educational background and his degree in law enforcement.," Barry said. "He was the perfect man for the job and I think our city is going to be in very good hands and you're going to see a police force that is going to work very closely with him."

    Also on Tuesday, the council approved the appointment of Michael Van Veckhoven to the Meridian School Board. Van Veckhoven is replacing Board member Don Evans, whom Barry said was moving on to other things.

    Van Veckhoven thanked the council for his appointment.

    "The Meridian Public School District has been a part of me ever since I first stepped on the campus of Magnolia Middle School well over 20 years ago," Van Veckhoven said. "It still is. Our public schools are the lifeblood of this city and this is not a task I take lightly by any means."

    Council President George Thomas praised Van Veckhoven's commitment to education.

    "He was the Meridian Public School Parent of the Year. He has a blog about the public school district. He's recognized at the state level. He's been PTA president," Thomas said. "He is just totally involved in the city school district. He's bright. He's young. He wants to help the school district."

    Meridian Superintendent Dr. Alvin Taylor said he welcomes the appointment.

    "We have great confidence in the mayor's judgment in selecting a board member for the Meridian Public School District and we are looking forward to working with Mr. Van Veckhoven," Taylor said. "He was named the 2011-2012 MPSD Parent of the Year, so we know firsthand of his passion for public education."

    The city will apply for environmental grants to determine if certain city-owned property is contaminated. Jay Estes of Eco-Systems Inc., asked the council for permission to move forward with grant applications. The first Brownfield grant would provide up to $400,000 for an environmental assessment to determine if there is contamination. That grant would require no matching funds from the city.

    The second Brownfield grant would provide up to $200,000 for actual clean up of any contamination, but would require a 20 percent match from the city. The match could be paid through in-kind labor.

    "We believe there are opportunities to get funding to actually do the environmental clean up remediation for that property so it can be used," Estes said.

    The council approved the requests.

    "Brownfield is where you have possibly contaminated soil because of something in the past that's leaked oil or something like that," Thomas said. "To do these projects you have to make sure that there is no contamination in the soil. What we've asked them to do is, first of all do an assessment if the grant is approved to find out if there is contamination in the soil."

    The properties that will be examined, if the first grant is approved, include the area across the street from the current City Hall in the building that was temporarily used as City Hall.

    The other property is the Fifth Street area where the city has applied for a grant to re-do the streets and sidewalks.

    "If there is contamination, they would come back with this second grant, which is to remove the contamination," Thomas said. "If it's contaminated, you can't build on it. You can't do anything with it."

    In other action, the council unanimously approved a motion to contribute $25,000 for the installation of EnviroTurf to the Meridian High School football field. Ray Stadium is undergoing the installation of the turf and Meridian, as a sponsor, will have the city's logo in a 10-foot by 7-foot design on the field.

    Council members approved a list of city streets to be repaired with a $4.5 million bond issue passed in 2011.

    Monty Jackson, public works director for the City of Meridian presented council members with lists of streets in their wards that are in need of repairs and each street was prioritized by a number. The number one streets are top priority, followed by two and three. It's unlikely that any of the second and third priority streets will be repaired this year.

    Councilman Jesse Palmer made it clear that his street repair program had to include work on a ditch, which he described as dangerous because of snakes. The ditch is off of Fifth Street, down to 49th Street to Gallagher Creek.

    "I think we've got to do our worst streets first and then move forward," Barry said, "because all of Meridian needs to be repaved."