After a contentious half-hour-long discussion, Columbus City Council voted 5-1 to sever its relationship with Waggoner Engineering during Tuesday night’s regular meeting.
The move came after Waggoner representatives Joseph Paige and Chris Gant asked the council to approve $122,000 for a detailed drainage study in connection with its plans to address drainage on Northside, in the area near Columbus Brick Company.
The city hired Waggoner Engineering in December 2021 as a consultant for spending COVID-19 relief funds through the American Rescue Plan Act. So far it has paid the firm $175,000 for planning work.
Last month, the council approved going after state matching money for an ARPA-funded drainage project that totaled about $6.9 million.
The area, which is mostly in Wards 4 and 5, includes about 7,000 linear feet of ditches. Waggoner’s plans would clean out those ditches and add drainage and storage for stormwater.
The additional $122,000 in funding would have gone toward detailed engineering work to nail down what exactly needed to be done to clean out ditches and inlets in the project area.
“This will add more detail,” Paige said. “It will be drainage ditches, pipes, inlets that need to be cleaned out. Once we get the further design, we can study more about how we’re going to add retention space. It will also help us identify areas where there have been collapses in drainage infrastructure.”
However, the council balked, arguing that the city already knew it needed to clean out those ditches.
“We don’t need a design to clean ditches,” Ward 5 Councilman Stephen Jones said. “Why would we pay $122,000 up front just to say we’re going to get started cleaning ditches?”
“We have to have some design to give to the contractor (who will do the work),” Paige said.
Jones said he would need “a second opinion from another engineer” before he would vote to support the request.
Ward 1 Councilwoman Ethel Taylor Stewart went a step further and said she was tired of Waggoner charging the city to plan instead of putting shovels in the ground.
“We have been kicking this can down the road for months now,” she said. “We have a city engineer and a public works department. Based on the money you’ve been given, we could give them a couple of backhoes and they could clean out our ditches. You’ve done studies. We need someone to do the work.”
Stewart moved to both deny the request and to sever the city’s relationship with Waggoner. Ward 2 Councilman Joseph Mickens seconded.
Ward 4 Councilman Pierre Beard said he thought Waggoner was duplicating work the city had already paid for once.
“I’m not an engineer, but we already have someone who has everything that you need and that we’ve already been paying for,” he said. “Then y’all come in and want to do the exact same thing. … We already know what needs to be done because (Public Works Director Casey Bush) gave us this list through our current city engineer. It’s like you’re doing double the work.”
Jones asked City Engineer Kevin Stafford if he thought the city needed to spend $122,000 before it could start cleaning ditches.
“No, but it’s also the definition of cleaning ditches,” Stafford said. “… But I haven’t seen the scope of what they’re looking to do, either. We shared our information we had done for public works, and they’re incorporating that in. I don’t know what that ($122,000) covers.”
Paige again tried to explain that the study looked at a larger area and involved more than simply cleaning the ditches.
“It will include design,” he said. “We’ll have to do final drawings, and there may be some surveying that has to be done. We may have to go through some permitting and work out some other details.”
Gant told the council that the $122,000 included bidding and contracting the work out, as well.
Jones pressed the Waggoner representatives on if the proposed study was necessary.
“I guess the question would be do we need to expand it, or are we expanding it just to expand it?” Jones asked.
Beard asked City Attorney Jeff Turnage what the city’s legal obligation to Waggoner was at this point.
“We’re obligated to see the task orders we’ve approved through to conclusion, I would think,” Turnage said. “… You are not obligated to approve future task orders.”
‘There ain’t no more discussion’
When the city hired Waggoner, part of the agreement was that work was done according to task orders that governed specific areas of work. The first task order was for $55,000 to perform a needs assessment. The second task order, for $125,000, was for “strategic funding,” including identifying projects and grant funding to help move those projects along.
The second task order includes the city’s current application through the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality for matching funds for the Northside work.
Mayor Keith Gaskin said the work was necessary to give the city a long-term plan it could then use to apply for further funding at the state and federal level.
“We need something that tells us extensively what needs to be done to repair the infrastructure issues we’ve been facing for quite some time,” Gaskin said. “You’ve got to have a long-term plan.”
Nevertheless, the council forged ahead. After some confusion between the mayor and council about what exactly was involved in Stewart’s motion, Beard offered a substitute motion.
“I make a motion that we not approve this task order, and to terminate Waggoner Engineering from any ARPA-related activities,” he said. “And that they continue to do the things they’ve already been paid for.”
Mickens seconded the motion and called for a vote. When Chief Financial Officer James Brigham tried to speak, Mickens cut him off.
“There ain’t no more discussion,” Mickens said. “I call for the question.”
The motion passed 5-1, with Ward 6 Councilwoman Jacqueline DiCicco voting no.
When asked after the meeting if Waggoner would continue its work under the existing task order, Paige declined to comment.
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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