A rose to our Golden Triangle teams who competed in state football championship games this week. In Friday’s Class 3A title game in Hattiesburg, Noxubee County (10-5) lost a heart-breaker in a 55-52 shootout with Raleigh while West Point (11-3) was denied its record 12th state title in the Class 5A championship game, 31-21 to undefeated Picayune on Friday night. Saturday night, Starkville (12-3) won in the 6A championship against Brandon 48-32. We applaud all three teams in what is collectively the Golden Triangle’s most successful football season in many, many years.
A thorn to Columbus council members Joseph Mickens (Ward 2) and Ethel Stewart (Ward 1) for their conduct during a work session this week involving an idea to build a community garden at the Hitching Lot Farmers Market. Main Street Columbus officials and city engineer Kevin Stafford approached the council to determine whether or not the council would support the project. Previously, they had contacted Mayor Keith Gaskin via email floating the idea. Gaskin forwarded the idea to the city’s property manager Rogena Bonner as well as Ward 5 councilman Stephen Jones, whose ward the garden would be located in. Mickens and Stewart made an embarrassing spectacle of themselves by grilling the planners on why Bonner wasn’t included in the preliminary talks, which is inaccurate. Bonner was informed once the Mayor was made aware of the project. This is not a matter of Mickens and Stewart asking legitimate questions. It’s a thinly-veiled effort to embarrass the major with pointless, petty and inaccurate accusations. It’s also completely inappropriate for a single councilman to attempt to instruct the mayor on how to manage a department head. These sorts of petty power plays between the council and mayor have gone on too long and need to end, for the sake of everyone’s credibility and for the public good.
A rose to Columbus Crime Lab Director Claudette Gilman and CFO James Brigham for their efforts to persuade the city council to purchase much-needed equipment that would not only produce revenue for the city, but expedite the processing of drug testing by area law enforcement. The crime lab performs drug tests for Columbus Police Department and the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office, as well as other agencies around the state. Gilman estimates that there is a two-year backlog on testing now, driven largely by the lack of reliable equipment. County supervisors voted to purchase one diagnostics machine to test narcotics last month. Gilman and Brigham are urging the city to purchase a second machine, this one at cost of $130,000. Brigham said the machines would more than pay for themselves in time. We urge the council to approve the purchase at Tuesday’s council meeting.
A rose to Lowndes County Tax Collector Greg Andrews for alerting homeowners of a circumstance that may have led as many as 2,000 county homeowners to have erroneously received a property tax bill. Some homeowners pay their taxes directly after receiving notification from Andrews’ office. Others pay their taxes as part of their mortgage, with the lender paying taxes on the homeowner’s behalf when they are due. In that arrangement, lenders are supposed to notify the tax collector’s office to send them the bill. But three lenders failed to do that, which resulted in property tax notifications going directly to the homeowner, creating the possible scenario where the homeowner would pay taxes that were already withheld in their monthly mortgage payments. Andrew said if homeowners receive the bill and are paying taxes through mortgage payments, they should write their loan number on the bill and send it to their lender. We appreciate Andrews clearing up the confusion, which might have otherwise be costly for homeowners.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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