The last time Mayor Keith Gaskin spoke to the Rotary Club of Columbus was right after he took office in July 2021. One thing hasn’t changed since then, he told the club Tuesday afternoon.
“I’m still asking, ‘What the hell was I thinking?’” he joked. “… It’s a lot like drinking out of a fire hose, but it’s also like playing Whac-a-Mole.”
Gaskin is, on balance, combating many of the same problems now that he was a year ago, first among them wrangling the city’s troubled finances.
“Obviously we’ve had less than a stellar record with our finances for various reasons over the years,” he said. “We are working tirelessly to correct that, but it’s not an easy process. Just in our general fund there are 40 different accounts.”
The city is beginning its budget process for Fiscal Year 2023 and must have a budget approved by Sept. 15, he said. Gaskin wants as much public input as possible, and that means keeping citizens informed about an often-confusing subject.
“I’m working right now with (Chief Financial Officer James Brigham and Chief Operations Officer Jammie Garrett) to create a citizens’ guide to the budget process,” he said. “I’m hoping that will get citizens more involved in the budget process. … We’ll also have town hall meetings where we can get citizens to come in. We want them to give us input.”
Gaskin said he wants to develop a long-term planning and funding plan.
“We want to look at capital budgeting so we’re not just planning for the upcoming fiscal year but also for the long-term plans, 10 or 15 years out,” he said. “We’ve had plans in the past, but where we’ve failed sometimes is how we fund those things.”
The city needs to work with outside entities to find alternate funding mechanisms, Gaskin said.
“We need to be more proactive to work with partners for more funding,” he said. “I’m cultivating relationships with the (county) board of supervisors, with our state delegation, and also at the federal level. Historically Columbus has not been as aggressive in those areas as it should have been.”
Improving the Columbus Police Department “continues to be a challenge,” he said.
“It was obvious to me when I ran for mayor that the police department was not in the 21st Century,” he said. “They did not have the equipment or the technology that they needed. One of the things that we have done, which started under (former Mayor Robert Smith), is putting up cameras around the city. (They) really help out, there are cases that we have been able to solve with them.”
Gaskin said he wants to see more community policing.
“I want to have officers assigned to different wards and where the citizens get to know them,” he said. “They will walk the beat, ride bikes in the beat, we can help build trust with those in the community.”
Gaskin said people call him with tips all the time.
“People call me in City Hall who leave a fake name,” he said. “They won’t tell me who they are because they are afraid of retaliation. That happens a lot. People are worried about how the element in their neighborhood has changed because elderly people die and houses in their neighborhood start being used for rentals.”
In a bit of good news, Gaskin said, the city is close to settling the lawsuit over the damaged pedestrian bridge at the Columbus Riverwalk.
A loaded barge broke loose on Feb. 6, 2020, and drifted down the Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway, striking one of the bridge’s supports on its way downriver. The city filed a lawsuit seeking damages, but it has been tied up in federal court.
Gaskin said he thinks the lawsuit will be put to rest soon.
“A couple of weeks ago (City Attorney Jeff Turnage) spent a day with a (federal) magistrate in Greenwood, as well as the owners of the barge that destroyed our bridge,” he said. “We are close to having an agreement.”
Gaskin said he couldn’t go into the details because the litigation was ongoing, but said he thinks it will resolve this summer.
“They have finally become eager to get a settlement,” he said. “That bridge is dangerous, and we reminded of them of that. It could fall and someone could be hurt or killed, and what it costs to fix it now will only go up a great deal.”
The city will not be responsible for any of the costs, he said.
“We made it clear taxpayers will not pay for any of the repairs,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll have an answer to that later this month.”
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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