Several projects throughout the city of Meridian are moving forward after the City Council voted Tuesday to approve two new job billets for the Real Time Crime Center and awarded the contract for a bridge project on Grand Avenue.

 

For the police department, council members voted unanimously to create two new account clerk senior positions and authorize MPD to begin the process of filling the roles. Assistant Chief Patrick Gale said the two new positions will be used to monitor video feeds in the department’s Real Time Crime Center.

 

The RTCC, which is currently under construction, will be a central hub where staff can monitor video from hundreds of cameras placed throughout the city. Utilizing a cloud-based software, staff will be able to share live video with responding officers, incorporate tools such as license plate readers and maintain video evidence for later use.

 

“We’ll be pretty much monitoring the city 24/7 with this request,” Gale said.

 

MPD has funding available in its budget to cover the cost of the new positions through the end of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, Gale said. Continued funding for the jobs is included in the department’s annual budget request, which is under development now.

 

Gale said the department hopes to fill the vacancies quickly to get staff trained and ready to go when the RTCC is finished.

 

“When we get it online, we want them to jump in the seat and be ready to go,” he said.

 

Grand Avenue

 

The City Council also approved a bid from Chris Albritton Construction Co. Inc. to replace a bridge on Grand Avenue at a cost of $2.182,349.99. Public Works Director David Hodge said Albritton was the lowest of two bids received. The other bid was from Hemphill Construction, he said.

 

The bridge set to be replaced was first built in 1959, Hodge said, and is weight limited. The bridge is frequently used, he said, with somewhere between 1,000 and 1,100 vehicles crossing per day.

 

Funding for the bridge project is coming from the state Emergency Road and Bridge Repair fund, which is administered through the Mississippi Department of Transportation. The city was awarded $2.6 million through the ERBR program in August 2023, and the grant does not require any matching funds.

 

With the bid coming within the awarded amount, Hodge said the project is not expected to have any cost to the city.

 

“With the bid, we’re within the money,” he said. “We don’t expect to come out of pocket with any more money.”

 

Once contracts are finalized, a notice to proceed will be issued for the contractor to begin work, Hodge said. The project is expected to take 120 working days to complete.