Early in the Civil War, during the Union Army’s Peninsula Campaign, Union troops under the command of General John G. Barnard stalled at the Chickahominy River as officers debated whether or not the river’s depth would permit troops to cross.

Barnard’s officers and engineers looked out upon the murky waters and began to debate the topic, offering several theories about the river’s conditions.

“How deep is it?” they all wondered.

Finally, a junior officer — George Armstrong Custer — nudged his horse into the river and, upon reaching the midpoint of the passage, turned and shouted, “It’s this deep.”

The Union troops began crossing the river.

We were reminded of this story after Tuesday’s Columbus City Council meeting, where the council voted to end its partnership with Waggoner Engineering, hired by the city in December 2021 as a consultant to plan spending the city’s COVID-19 ARPA funds.

At the time, hiring a consultant to help navigate the nebulous rules around ARPA seemed like an idea worth considering. At that point, there was little clarity about how the city’s $6.2 million federal funds could be spent and how that money might be leveraged through matching funds. The ARPA language was vague, ambiguous and confusing. Relying on consultants with experience in navigating the complex guidelines seemed prudent, and that’s exactly what many municipal and county governments did.

From the beginning, Waggoner seemed to over-promise. One of the company’s first presentations to the council included a strategy that could turn $6.2 million into $110 million in projects, based on the assumption that the city could partner with the county, state and federal governments. To say Waggoner over-promised and under-delivered puts it mildly.

Where Waggoner proved most adept was generating studies and assessments and billing the city for them – to the tune of roughly $175,000 over the past year..

What the city got in return for those fees was a plan for a $6.3 million drainage project. Addressing the drainage issues in the city was hardly a revelation. A plan for that has existed in some form since the late 1970s. Waggoner’s plan focused on cleaning ditches, repairing or replacing pipes, culverts and other infrastructure.

For more than a year now, the city has stalled on the banks of its own Chickahominy River, waiting as Waggoner did its studies.

So Tuesday, when Waggoner officials approached the council yet again, this time asking for another $122,000 for another study, the council had had enough. You either sit on the banks and talk about crossing or you start the crossing.

The city has its own engineer, Neel Schaffer’s Kevin Stafford, to plan the project and a public works director, Casey Bush, to implement it.

By a 5-1 vote, the city ended its relationship with Waggoner, which we hope is a message that the time for study and talk is ended and, at long last, the plan can start to be executed.

We commend the council for its action, recognizing that it’s not always easy to admit a mistake and change direction.

Best practices, both in the private and public sphere, mean evaluating progress once a strategy has been put in place and being willing to adjust it — or even abandon it — based on its efficacy.

This is what the city did Tuesday. It recognized a flaw and corrected it, even though it meant accepting some responsibility for the error.

That’s a mark of good leadership, one that will allow the city to move forward.

The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.