Robert Smith’s 15 years as Columbus mayor will be remembered for any number of things but there is one hallmark of his tenure that people will agree on: Robert the Mayor was a lot like Ferdinand the Bull.

Long before his ascension to the mayor’s office, Smith had been a fearsome presence on the football field, first at Lee High and later at Mississippi Valley State. He maintained that hard-nosed, no-nonsense personna as a football coach, teacher and principal in Columbus and carried it into office with him.

Yet like Ferdinand, the children’s story about a bull who preferred smelling flowers to bull-fighting, Smith was devoted to landscaping that enhanced the aesthetics of the city, especially in and near downtown.

On Mayor Smith’s watch, landscaping became a feature on just about every available public space – in large planters and flower beds around downtown, but also in medians. When Catfish Alley was renovated to recognize the street’s historical significance to the community, especially the Black community, 12 parking spaces were sacrificed for a new flower bed, which created a few grumbles.

With the mayor’s support – and the green thumbs of public works staff and landscaping coordinator Tjajuan Boswell – public spaces sparkled with the vibrant hues of flowers, shrubs and greenery. His devotion to beautification through landscaping didn’t come without criticism from some citizens who questioned the cost of those efforts without ever bothering to determine what those costs actually were.

We – and many other citizens – loved “the flower budget” though.

The efforts made our beautiful downtown even more beautiful. Those efforts weren’t limited to downtown, either. The medians along the stretch from Highway 45, just north of the Highway 82 interchange, were carefully maintained with shrubs and trees, surrounded by mulch.

Since Smith left office in July 2021, we’ve noticed a decline in the condition of some of these public spaces. Nowhere is that decline more prominent than those medians along the Highway 45, from the 45/82 interchange north to Leigh Mall. Gone are nearly all of the shrubs and trees. The spaces have disintegrated into ugly dirt patches, unadorned and neglected.

That’s why we are pleased to note these conditions have caught the attention of city officials.

During Tuesday’s council meeting, proposals to outsource some grass cutting and the landscaping of medians in the area came before the council.

Both proposals were tabled, not because council members didn’t see the value in these beautification efforts, but on the grounds of whether it would be more economical to do that work in-house with the city’s public works department rather than outsource it.

We hope the city will quickly make that determination and begin these projects during the optimum planting time that spring affords.

The aesthetics of our public places say a lot about a community. When these spaces are well thought-out, filled with color and carefully maintained, it promotes a spirit of optimism and pride in our community.

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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