In voicing her opposition to a proposal to seek a grant for repairing the drainage ditch along Carver Drive, Ward 2 Alderwoman Sandra Sistrunk was blunt.
“I still say it’s not the worst problem we have in town,” she said, during Tuesday’s Starkville Board of Aldermen meeting,.
But it may well be the longest-running problem.
“We’ve been fighting this for 30 years,” Ward 7 Alderman Henry Vaughn said, his voice choked with emotion.
The Aldermen voted 4-to-3 against approving the application for the Community Development Block Grant, which had to be submitted by Friday to meet grant qualifications
Aldermen Sistrunk, Ward 1 Alderman Ben Caver, Ward 4 Alderman Richard Corey and Ward 3 Alderman Eric Parker voted against applying for the grant. Ward 5 Alderman Jeremiah Dumas, Ward 6 Alderman Roy A. Perkins and Vaughn voted to apply.
The debate over the proposal was waged primarily between Mayor Parker Wiseman, a strong advocate for the proposal, and Sistrunk.
“This is something the city has grappled with for years,” Wiseman said. “During that time, there have been many different options. However, because of the political turmoil, there has been a stalemate and a reluctance to accept any of those proposals. Now, this grant presents a viable option. From a financial standpoint, it’s achievable. I do support it.”
Phylis Benson of the Golden Triangle Planning & Development Partnership prepared the grant application for the city, under which the city could apply for a maximum grant to cover $600,000 of the estimated $940,995 cost of the project. The balance would require the city to put up $110,000 cash, with the remainder coming through in-kind services, provided primarily by the city’s street departments. With $60,000 in cash designated for the Carver Drive drainage project from the previous budget, the city would have needed an additional $50,000 in cash.
“This proposal has been discussed extensively and we’ve had great public support for it,” said Perkins, in whose ward the drainage ditch is located. “This isn’t politics; it’s about serving the health and welfare of our citizens.”
But Sistrunk turned a critical eye on the proposal, detailing a laundry list of concerns.
“Budget overruns would become the responsibility of the city,” she said. “The other thing that concerns me is the in-kind services. You’re talking about $110,000 out of pocket, but the out-of-pocket costs for the in-kind services have to be considered as well, (including) gas, repairs and maintenance of our equipment, man-hours. We’re talking another $15,000 to $20,000 in overruns. It’s one thing to put numbers on paper, but we need to be aware that worse than getting a grant is getting a grant for a project you can’t complete.”
Sistrunk’s main issue, however, came on the option the city chose for the repair work, which called for piping and covering the existing ditch.
“The board was presented with five options on Carver,” Sistrunk said. “We are here talking about costs and being frugal with the city’s money and we’ve chosen the most expensive of all the options. We could have done this with our own funds, if we had chosen that less expensive option.”
Wiseman was confident the city’s engineer had provided an accurate estimate of in-kind costs the project would incur.
“The city engineer and his assistant spent a lot of time putting together a detailed analysis of the costs,” he said. “I feel like we have good estimates.”
In-kind costs concerned Parker, who asked City Engineer Edward Kemp to break down the hours city employees would work on the project, as a percentage of its total hours.
Kemp estimated the total hours at 2,700.
“That’s 20 percent,” Parker said. “I don’t know that I can look at my constituents and tell them that we spent 20 percent of our labor force working on just one project.”
“Have any of you ever had a project that we have turned you down?’ Vaughn asked. “But it seems, because it’s in this area, suddenly it’s a problem for you. Well, we have kids there that can’t walk to the edge of that ditch because of the erosion. We talk a lot about quality of life on this board. What about quality of life for those kids? I just don’t understand.”
“It upsets me that there is a suggestion that the decisions I make are based on where the project is,” said Parker. “How much money have we spent on those wards? Less than on my ward.”
The debate over Carver Drive was not the only contentious issue of the meeting.
During the second public hearing on a proposed amendment to the sidewalk ordinance, resident C.T. Scarborough complained his property along Industrial Road was not included under provisions of the amendment that would exclude some areas of the city from the sidewalk ordinance.
“I don’t know why my property is not exempted,” said Scarborough, who owns about 13 acres of undeveloped land along the road. “There is no rational basis for not being exempt. I was told that the reason is that because the Medicaid Office is on that road, but it’s nowhere near my property. And there’s no sidewalk in front of the Medicaid Office. So that means that a passenger in a car travels to the sidewalk you want me to build and becomes a pedestrian. Then when he gets past my property, where there isn’t a sidewalk, he becomes a passenger again. When he gets to the Medicaid office, he’s a pedestrian again?”
In other board action, the Aldermen voted 4-3 to change the name of the City Clerk’s office to the Department of Finance and Administration.
On the consent agenda for the meeting was a move to name Perkins chairman of the budget committee. After a brief discussion on whether the matter should be removed from the consent agenda for discussion, Perkins removed his name from consideration in frustration.
“We have five aldermen in their first term and one in his second term,” Perkins said after the meeting. “I’ve been on this board for 19 years and have served on the budget committee. And somebody has an issue with me being in that position?”
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