Mayor Quordiniah Lockley won a second term in office on Tuesday. But more important, he won a second chance from McComb voters.
The most fascinating thing about the current board of selectmen is how some of them — most often Ronnie Brock, Donovan Hill and Devante Johnson — were determined to undercut or even oppose many things that the mayor wanted to do. They had their own ideas and often had the votes to make them happen.
For anyone interested in politics or in the city of McComb as a whole, it was both surprising and disappointing that a majority-Black board and a Black mayor would be at odds over issues large and small. Less disagreeability might have made the last four years far less dramatic.
In a rare occurrence, Lockley gets six new selectmen for his second term. Only one, Tommy McKenzie, has prior experience on the city board.
Two incumbents lost their primaries, two others lost their effort to become mayor and two retired. One way to read these results is that voters decided Lockley was not the problem in city leadership. He now has four years to prove this thesis.
Like the current board, the incoming group includes four Black selectmen and two white ones — four Democrats and two Republicans. During the campaign, many of the winners said they wanted to do right for the city. We’ll know soon how many of these future selectmen meant what they said. Hopefully enough.
Here are three things regarding the operation of city government that Lockley and the new board need to address:
• Finances: The timely completion of annual audits has rarely if ever been a problem for McComb. The board needs to find the right people to catch up on this work. This is embarrassing.
• Leadership stability: Over the past four years too many department heads — Black and white, male and female — have either quit their jobs or have been fired. This is no way to run a business. When positions come open, the new board has to hire capable people and then give them the time and training to learn the job.
• Stop the lawsuits: It is not that hard for an employer to avoid court complaints from current and former employees. But in the past four years, McComb turned lawsuits and allegations into an art form. From discriminatory hiring practices to claims of workplace harassment, these complaints must stop.
Other issues, which will be more relevant to residents, businesses and onlookers:
• Crime: Oterious Marks Park got renamed this year for a reason — specifically that a 6-year-old child got killed there, allegedly in a teenage gang drive-by. But crime is more than homicides, and the new board must see if police need more resources to keep order.
• Taxes: Property taxes went up at least three times during the current term. The board needs to be careful not to give more property owners a greater incentive to leave.
• Housing: McComb has a lot of residential land available. Unfortunately, much of it is occupied by vacant or run-down homes. Many of them have outlived their usefulness, and the city board must be more aggressive in forcing the property owners either to clean up the buildings or tear them down. McComb will not be a more desirable place to live until has a lot fewer fallen-in, uninhabitable houses.
In all honesty, this is quite an assignment list for the new board, and it probably omits a dozen other important issues that McComb faces. But the new group of selectmen each sought office for a reason. It certainly wasn’t the job’s salary. Most likely, they just want to make things better.
Leading a city is challenging in the best of times. The problem for McComb is that these are not the best of times. The new board, to recall a Charles Dickens novel, must make sure that these also are not the worst of times.
— Jack Ryan, McComb Enterprise-Journal
