It always seems to be “nine-stitch” time in Mississippi.
Just a couple of months into 2020, we have seen, both locally and in other parts of the state, what happens when problems are too-long ignored.
It’s a dynamic that Benjamin Franklin, in his Poor Richard’s Almanac, noted more than 250 years ago: “A stitch in time saves nine.”
In contemporary language, the old adage emphasizes that a problem too-long ignored doesn’t go away, but grows more difficult. A concern ignored can become a crisis.
That’s what we are now facing on several fronts.
Locally, officials have known for years that the levee/dam system at Oktibbeha County Lake had serious defects. As far back as the early 2000s, the levee showed signs of being compromised, but only patchwork, short-term repairs were implemented. In 2016, county engineer Clyde Pritchard sounded the alarm about the levee’s continuing vulnerability and suggested a complete rebuild of the levee was likely the only permanent solution.
It wasn’t until last year that county officials began to search for the funds needed to restore the levee and the county’s supervisors didn’t vote to provide its part of the $8 million needed to build a new dam at the Lake, which would offer a permanent solution. This was something that could have been done and should have been done years ago.
This sort of delay appears to be the rule rather than the exception in our state.
Whether it’s the condition of our state’s roads/bridges infrastructure, our state prison facilities or another long-ignored flood issue on the Pearl River, the response always seems to be to wait to act until the problem cannot be ignored any longer. That approach is quite often more costly. It also prolongs the misery of those who have been affected, whose pleas for help have been in vain.
When the Mississippi Economic Council released a report showing that the conditions of our state’s roads and bridges were in crisis, it took the Legislature four years to act. Even then, the Legislature’s solution provides only about a third of the estimated $3.5 billion needed to return our roads/bridges to good order. In truth, we have still not adequately addressed his major issue. Who knows how long and what tragic circumstance it will take for our state to really correct this problem.
Likewise, our state’s prison facilities have been underfunded by millions of dollars going back to 2011 when the state first resumed control of the prison system from federal oversight as a result of a lawsuit filed over conditions in Mississippi prisons. Prisons are understaffed and guards underpaid, making the prisons unsafe for both staff and inmates alike. Since December, 16 inmates have died in state custody, more than half of them at the notorious Parchman prison.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice announced another investigation of our prison systems. It’s clear from all this, we’ve done nothing because we’ve learned nothing. The cost can be counted in the tens of millions of dollars, but also in the lives unnecessarily lost.
In all these cases, waiting has cost much, both in dollars and human suffering.
When will we ever learn?
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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