For the past three years, the city has sought both federal and state funds for a regional crime center that would house improved crime monitoring technology and a more capable forensics lab.
This year, it looks like the city council might opt to focus on upgrading the forensics lab and shelve the rest, at least temporarily.
The council discussed legislative funding priorities Thursday toward the end of a more than six-hour strategic planning retreat at Plymouth Bluff Environmental Center. Since the mayor and a quorum of the city council were present, the retreat was advertised as a special-call meeting and was open to the public.
During the legislative priority discussion, Chief Operations Officer Jammie Garrett again proposed seeking $2 million for the Northeast Mississippi Area Crime Center, which would provide staffing, surveillance and monitoring equipment, as well as space to house the monitoring center and city’s forensics lab under one roof.
However, she proposed asking the legislature for another more than $700,000 in equipment just for the forensics lab.
“I can’t stress enough how much expensive equipment we have there but also (some) expensive equipment that’s at its life (expectancy),” Garrett said. “We definitely need to make sure we keep it in the best condition we can.”
The ask includes replacing two machines – an aging gas chromatographer-mass spectrometer (GC/MS) and liquid chromatographer – both used to help identify substances, specifically drugs.
Claudette Gilman, the lab’s director, said the GC/MS is the oldest of three in the lab, was built in 2001 and has since been refurbished. The lab acquired its other two GC/MS machines in 2022.
As for the liquid chromatographer, Gilman said it dates back to 2008.
“It has a Windows XP computer, so it needs to be updated,” she said.
The biggest-ticket item is a $450,000 instrument for quantifying substances it identifies, something the lab now cannot do. That capability would not only save Columbus and Lowndes County law enforcement from paying outside labs for that service, it would also help the local lab capture more revenue from outside agencies.
She used a new rule related to marijuana from the most recent federal Farm Bill as an example of the machine’s need.
“It has to be 0.3% THC to call it marijuana (or cannabis),” she said. “Lower than that, and it’s hemp. So, a way to identify that is quantifying it, finding that percentage within it. Right now, we can’t do that.”
While the city plans to offer NEMACC services to outside agencies for a fee, Ward 6 Councilman Jason Spears proposed focusing this year’s legislative request on bolstering a forensics lab that is already up and running with an established client base. He floated asking the state for $1 million that would cover the equipment, as well as expanding the lab’s footprint and repairing the roof at the shopping center property where it is already housed, and postponing a request for the rest of NEMACC until at least 2027.
“The NEMACC is just putting screens up and having a police officer sit there and watch them. … We’ve asked for three years and got no traction on it,” he said. “So, why don’t we change the way we’re going and just focus on the (forensics) lab? … We know there is traction with what we’re doing at the … lab.”
Chief Financial Officer Jim Brigham, a strong proponent for NEMACC, showed a video of a news report covering a similar crime center in an Alabama community. The report claimed the center had significantly reduced crime there.
Brigham said he saw the point of Spears’ proposed strategy, but then he offered impassioned advocacy for continuing to pursue the whole project.
“Our representatives need to get off their butts and do something for the city of Columbus,” Brigham said.
Thursday’s meeting adjourned without official action on the legislative priorities, as the council must adopt a resolution before sending their requests to the legislature or federal delegation. In a text to The Dispatch on Friday, Mayor Stephen Jones did not commit to a position on the NEMACC issue.
“I’m sure there will be more discussion when we bring it to a vote, but whatever the council decides, I will support it,” Jones wrote.
Watershed
City Engineer Kevin Stafford pushed for the council to seek federal dollars for a watershed study through the federal Water Resource Development Act.
He said he had spoken with representatives at Compliance EnviroSystems, which has an office in Ridgeland, that proposed a $1.4 million evaluation of the drainage system citywide. Through the study, the company would “put a video camera down every manhole,” inspect ditches and provide GIS mapping of the entire system that could be made publicly available online, Stafford said.
“You’d always have kind of a repository of what your condition is and you can also set reminders for when to clean it,” he said. “… You can click anywhere in the system and see the condition of the pipes and manholes. What they have found is that about 75% of city systems don’t even need cleaning. So why go out there and clean all this stuff that may not need it? They say 25% does. So that will help us identify that 25%, if we’re on the average. Then we can start putting together a plan to tackle cleaning.”
The city’s last drainage study came in 1971 and recommended $15 million in improvements, not counting continued maintenance, Stafford said. A $6 million American Rescue Plan Act-funded drainage improvement project is underway at strategic areas across Columbus, and it revealed unexpected system maintenance problems along the way.
Stafford said the city needs to seek authorization from the federal program to apply for Water Resource Development Act funds.
From there it can apply for a planning grant of up to $3 million, which requires a 50% match, or apply for significantly more in an implementation grant – Stafford recommended $10 million – that would cover study, design and construction, while only requiring a 25% match.
“Apply for it,” Ward 3 Councilman Rusty Greene interjected. “Go get us some money, Kevin.”
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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