COLUMBUS — Like Jeff Smith or not, he’s the state representative for District 39, at least until January.
The Caledonia Republican made that plain to Columbus Exchange Club members and their guests Thursday at Lion Hills Center, during a candidate forum that included the incumbent and his Republican challenger, local Realtor Dana Underwood McLean.
“I don’t care whether you like me or not, it doesn’t make a difference at this point,” Smith said. “You’re stuck with me right now.”
That response came directly to a question about the gas tax, but it was a culmination of what had, at times, been a contentious forum for Smith, who faced pointed questions and critiques of his positions on subjects ranging from public education and infrastructure to the once star-crossed 2-percent restaurant sales tax that supports tourism efforts in Lowndes County.
Smith, an attorney first elected to the Legislature in 1992, and McLean, formerly an attorney, will face off in a party primary in August. With no Democratic challenger running, the primary winner will take office in January.
During each candidate’s speech and throughout audience questions, education remained a strong point for both candidates.
For Smith, that included replacing the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, which funds public schools throughout the state. Smith said the current program is unfair and stated some districts are receiving more funds than their student enrollment, namely districts on the coast that were affected by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
For districts in the Golden Triangle, as well as most districts in the state, funding is based on average daily attendance.
“MAEP is perhaps the most unfair thing we have,” Smith said. “We are trying to replace it with something that’s fair, something that pays school districts for the amount of students it has.”
While Smith focused on creating a new formula, McLean pointed out the shortcomings of MAEP since its inception.
“Why are we in the situation we’re in right now?” McLean said. “We have had MAEP since 1997 … and we’ve only fully funded it two years. We are just now going to re-evaluate the formula? I think things need to change. Every child in that state of Mississippi deserves a quality education and that has not happened.
“If we give (these children) better than their parents received, our state will grow,” she added. “The children will thrive. They’ll have better economic development and the crime will go down. (Education) is basically the foundation of everything in our state.”
Both Smith and McLean agreed teacher salaries needed to continue to increase, in addition to the $1,500 raise the Legislature approved in April.
McLean, who works for Century 21-Doris Hardy and Associates, said public education in Mississippi was one of her main reasons for running for office. Originally from Columbus, she lived in Florida for several years before moving back to her hometown in 2014. She noticed a stark change in education quality upon her return.
“About five years ago, I decided to come back home,” McLean said. “I brought my daughter. She was 15. When we started looking at where she was going to school, I realized a lot has changed since I went to public school. I received a great education here in Columbus. She ended up going to Heritage (Academy). At Heritage what they were doing in 10th grade, she was doing in eighth grade in Tampa. Even in a private school, it wasn’t the caliber she had received while we were in Tampa. That’s why I’m running.”
An audience member asked candidates about consolidating Columbus Municipal and Lowndes County school districts. McLean declined to answer saying she wanted to do more research before responding. For Smith, who serves as the attorney for the Lowndes County School Board, he said the districts should consider consolidating, even if his client district would likely be opposed.
“One school district to a county, unless you have an overwhelming reason not to,” Smith said. “Talking about the districts here, the city schools would probably vote to merge with the county schools. The county schools don’t want them to merge.”
CVB funding
During the question-and-answer portion of the forum, audience members primarily fired questions at Smith.
Rissa Lawrence, a Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau board member, specifically addressed Smith’s decision to oppose renewing the 2-percent restaurant sales tax for tourism in 2018, which cost the CVB its funding for nearly a year until it was finally renewed as a citywide tax in this year.
“It had a threshold of ($325,000). If you didn’t gross more than ($325,000) in prepared food or alcohol, you didn’t (collect) the tax,” Smith said. “I tried to make it clear to everybody that talked to me, I’ll not vote for something that eliminates the threshold because it raises your taxes. The (city and county) voted to send to Jackson something without a threshold. The long and short of it is … I (passed) it this year, everything is back to normal. Some people just can’t get beyond that.”
McLean took the microphone and said that losing out on those funds for a year would not have happened on her watch.
“I thought it didn’t make sense whether there was a threshold or not,” McLean said. “It’s the consumer paying the tax, it’s not the mom and pop. We have a lot of consumers that come to our city as tourists. … We missed out on a whole year of (the) 2-percent tourism tax. It cost our community. That’s money we will never get back because it was mis-worded, there wasn’t a threshold, or there’s some other reason. To me, it just didn’t make sense. Now we have it, OK. I’m glad we have it. It cost the (CVB). It cost our whole community. That’s just another example of decisions that I think is bad policy, bad decision-making, maybe not speaking to constituents. That’s what I intend to do, if I’m elected. I’ll be more of a representative and less of a politician.”
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