Editor’s note: The Dispatch is touring all five Lowndes County districts with their respective supervisor. The goal is to highlight each region’s unique aspects and challenges, and how that region’s supervisor approaches the job. Beginning today, we will publish each district’s story on five straight Mondays.
Before getting in a SUV to tour District 1, Harry Sanders is quick to point out that Lowndes County supervisors prioritize needs based on how to best serve the entire county, not individual districts.
The approach is called the unit system.
Here’s an example of how it works: Sanders, the District 1 supervisor, doesn’t identify what roads in his district are in the worst shape and put them on the annual paving list. County Road Manager Ronnie Burns does that for all five districts. Sanders may offer feedback to Burns’ suggestions, but otherwise he trusts Burns’ judgment.
“What our job is is to make sure the people we’ve got hired have got the wherewithal and the tools to do their job,” Sanders said.
Two more examples: The county is planning on building a new E-911 center at the courthouse and should commit $10 million to a new East Mississippi Community College vocational campus in the industrial park, which is in District 5.
In short, priorities are not identified by where they are located. They are identified, instead, by what they can do for the county.
Still, supervisors aren’t elected on an at-large basis. Each supervisor is elected from the section of the county they represent. And each supervisor gets plenty of feedback from those who elect them.
Sanders said most of what he hears from constituents, however, is not centric to District 1.
“What I hear more than anything as far as positive things is job creation and economic development,” Sanders said. “(Golden Triangle Development LINK CEO) Joe Higgins has done a tremendous job, but the county is involved in it, too. The continuation of providing the tools for Joe Higgins to do what Joe Higgins does is an integral part of what our job is supposed to be. The county operates as one unit.”
Complaints tend to be equally as generic, Sanders said, and typically involve anything from garbage fees to limited road visibility. Part of what the county is doing to address the infrastructure issue is using state funding to re-stripe all state aid roads.
There are also projects specific to District 1, which mostly comprises the northeastern portion of the county, like the one at its southernmost point beginning in East Columbus at the Miss. Highway 69 intersection, branching out and north. Nearly 70 percent, or 8,286 of District 1’s 11,977 residents are white, while 3,462 residents are black and 229 residents are of various races. It includes the town of Caledonia and also the unincorporated community of Steens.
A District 1 project that supervisors have the most involvement in is the construction of a new community center in Caledonia just west of the campus where all three of the town’s public school buildings sit. Supervisors allocated $250,000 to the Columbus-Lowndes Recreation Authority to build the new center, which Sanders said is slated for completion in late December.
There are also projects going on that Sanders supports but have little to no involvement with county government.
Site work on a new fire station in Caledonia is under way, as is the construction of a culvert in front of where it will be built on the corner of Lawrence and Main street. The Lowndes County Volunteer Fire Department bought a 4-acre parcel there last year and plan to build an expanded station using fire insurance rebate money and proceeds from fundraisers over time. All told, the project will cost about $250,000 for the fire department. The goal is to have the new station up and running next year.
The town of Caledonia is looking more long-term. Its board of aldermen recently purchased 20 acres for $120,000 at the southeast corner of Ola J. Pickett Park that it plans to turn into a soccer complex when it has the money to do so.
One area in District 1 that Sanders said he’s especially proud to represent is the Anderson Grove Road community. After the integration of schools, community members pitched in and rented out the abandoned school building in the area that now houses a Head Start program. Located next to that building is the community center that the new community center in Caledonia will be modeled after.
“They keep everything up,” Sanders said of Anderson Grove’s residents. “When we had the straight-line windstorm in 2001 that devastated this county and blew the whole roof off that (school) building, what did they do? They didn’t get one dime from anybody and went there and fixed it themselves.”
Sanders said when he’s no longer in office, he hopes his legacy as a supervisor won’t be just about his effectiveness in addressing the needs of his electorate, but that he was part of a board of supervisors that “got things done.” In a way, that has already been accomplished with the construction of a new health department and justice court building, increased revenue for the county and school district through luring industry and increased commitment to EMCC.
“I’d like to think the mindset of county was changed from ‘We can’t do anything,’ to ‘Yes we can,’ and that we changed from beat system to a true unit system where all districts get treated the same way,” Sanders said. “I just want to be thought of as doing the right thing. When I first got elected we fought and fought, and (now) we’re not fighting anymore. We’re working together.”
Nathan Gregory covers city and county government for The Dispatch.
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