The City of McComb is close to wrapping up its litigation with the McComb Housing Authority over the collection of garbage in public housing units.
After meeting in executive session Tuesday, the city board voted to remove the housing authority from the city’s Waste Management account.
“This is at the recommendation of the attorney so that we can close out a legal issue with the housing authority,” Mayor Quordiniah Lockley said.
He said Wednesday the move did not mean the city and the housing authority’s legal issues were over but noted that it should not be long before the litigation ends.
“It has not been completely settled, but we are moving in that direction,” he said. “It should be worked out by the end of next month.”
The dispute started in late 2019 when the housing authority took action to back out of the city’s contract with Waste Management and contract with another company for garbage collection in order to save money. The city argued that the housing authority could not do that, noting the potential to raise costs for the service to remaining residents.
But on Tuesday, the board voted 5-0 to grant the housing authority’s wishes and remove its units from the house count for garbage collection. Selectman Donovan Hill, who has not attended a meeting since June 23, was absent.
City nears selection
on new administrator
In other city news, Lockley said he should have a recommendation for a full-time city administrator by the beginning of September and the city is accepting applications for the job through Aug. 31.
“We’ve gotten some good applications,” he said. “The 31st is the closing date, so hopefully I’ll have a recommendation in September.”
Selectman Devante Johnson said he did not know that advertising had started and believed that move should have had board approval. Lockley said in the past, mayors have brought recommendations without advertising at all, and he felt it was fine for him to advertise for the position as soon as the termination took place.
Board attorney Angela Cockerham suggested the board vote to ratify the mayor’s actions, and the board voted 3-2 to do so. Selectmen Michael Cameron, Ted Tullos and Shawn Williams voted in favor, while Johnson and Selectman Ronnie Brock opposed.
Johnson could not be reached for comment on Wednesday, but Brock said he voted against ratifying the action because he believed the mayor exceeded his authority.
The need for a new city administrator comes following the firing of Dirkland Smith in June.
“We did not make searching for a city administrator part of the motion. ... It wasn’t authorized at that time,” Brock said. “The search for some reason got posted by the mayor, and I wasn’t aware of it until just recently that we had that opening.”
Brock said he “was not on board” for moving forward with the search for a new city administrator since the board didn’t authorize the process.
“We put an interim in place and changing course at this time was not the right thing to do,” he said. “We were ratifying what shouldn’t have been done or wasn’t authorized at that time.”
