A vote Tuesday night on whether to borrow $2 million to extend a service road in McComb divided the city board, as usual, with some selectmen questioning the project’s necessity and if there’s a sweetheart deal behind it.
Selectmen split 3-3 on whether to borrow $2 million to build a road connecting Anna Drive with Parklane Road at its intersection with 24th Street.
Mayor Whitney Rawlings sided with selectmen Tommy McKenzie, Michael Cameron and Ted Tullos, to approve the project. Selectmen Albert Eubanks, Donovan Hill and Ronnie Brock opposed it.
The dissenters questioned the need for the new road and suggested the family that gave up the rights-of-way for it benefited from about $50,000 worth of city paving earlier this year along two hardly traveled streets that are barely a quarter-mile long.
They’re right to question spending money on paving those streets, but wrong for not seeing the potential benefits of extending the road.
Long term, a road connecting Parklane Road to Anna Drive could be a game changer for transportation and commerce in McComb, offering a quick route from Presley Boulevard to Delaware Avenue and a new, highly visible plot of land on which businesses can develop.
However, the emptiness of most of the lots on Anna Drive can blur the optimism of the big-picture view and bolster some of the arguments heard Tuesday night — that the city should take care of existing infrastructure, which is in terrible shape, rather than borrow to build new roads it cannot afford to maintain.
Eubanks’ assertion that the project is tied to a decision last month to pave part of 25th Street and the half-block-long, dead-end Jones Street also raises some questions.
In laying out the case for the paving project, Rawlings was adamant that it needed to be done, but vague about why.
Jones and 25th Street run behind a Peterbilt dealership, a convenience store and a old motel. Their traffic counts probably pale in comparison to other city streets that are in worse shape. And neither street is on the city’s list of roads in the most need of repair.
The heirs of Charles Day, who operated a Chevrolet dealership next to the Peterbilt lot, which is run by Day’s nephew, recently donated the 75-foot-wide strip of land to build the new road. In light of the timing of last month’s paving vote and this month’s bond vote, and the family connections the two parcels of land have, Eubanks is right to ask questions.
When pressed about his support for paving those two streets, Rawlings said he wanted to help the Peterbilt dealership, which brings in heaps of sales tax money with the sale of every six-figure truck, and he wanted to help the convenience store and motel, too.
But the decision to divert funds away from any number of streets that could also use the work needed a better explantation.
Maybe the Peterbilt dealership’s owners threatened to pack up and move away if they didn’t get their street paved. Maybe the heirs said they wouldn’t donate the land without the paving.
But the timing of all this — and perceived lack of transparency — raises some questions:
• Are scarce city dollars earmarked for street paving being spent wisely, or are there some brother-in-law deals going on?
• Can economic development efforts keep up with the growth of taxpayer supported land and infrastructure set aside for that purpose?
• Can officials think independently enough to see a long-range view of McComb?
City officials who support the bond project deserve credit for their vision, but the questions by opponents are fair.
