New Laud. Co. Sheriff’s Dept. welcomed with a special ceremony

MERIDIAN, Miss. (WTOK) - Dozens of people were gathered this morning to celebrate the ribbon cutting of the new Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Department, but there was one person who has put in decades of work to get this job finished.

“Well, as I said to the crowd for over 2 decades now, I’ve been complaining about the working conditions the men and women of the Sheriff’s Department working in, and the board supervisor shut me up. They have built a building that is truly a beautiful, well-designed building for our men and women working in looking forward to them, to being able to provide a service. The citizens of Lauderdale County for decades to come,” said LCSD Sheriff Billy Sollie.

And after working for so long in the old office, this new building provides new facilities the sheriff and his deputies are very excited about.

“To be honest with you, break room. We’ve never had a break room. We’ve all had to just stand around the hallway and drink coffee, but not. Actually, in the old building, we had one interview room. We now have four interview rooms. We have the latest and greatest video and audio caption devices,” said Sollie.

The board of supervisors were also there in attendance and had a special surprise for the sheriff himself.

Well, so it really just happened recently. We were talking about the Boulevard that’s going to be coming in off the 22nd Ave. to the new complex, and we kind of threw out what we why don’t we name that after? Sheriff Solly and then another supervisor said, well, how about we do this? Why don’t we name the sheriff’s building after him? It seems more fitting, and we went with that idea. It was a great idea,” said the President of the Laud. Co. Board of Supervisors, Jonathan Wells.

There was a lot of work that went into achieving this major accomplishment, and it wouldn’t be possible without the help of community leaders.

“Oh, it’s very exciting, and, you know, I think it says a lot about the public officials here in the community, their commitment to law enforcement to get a building like this built. It’s great for morale, for the sheriff’s deputies and the Sheriff’s Office, and really a testament to the career of the sheriff,” said Mississippi’s Commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, Sean Tindell.

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