McComb selectmen dug in their heels Tuesday night on their choice for a new McComb-Pike County Airport board member and threatened to derail a grant for safety improvements on the airport grounds.
After noting the receipt of a resignation letter from Steve Rials from the airport board, selectmen discussed county supervisors’ refusal to ratify the city board’s choice of Ed Silence to replace Walt Holifield on the airport board.
Supervisors President Chuck Lambert sent City Administrator Kelvin Butler a letter informing the city of the county board’s stance on the matter. Lambert said supervisors believe Holifield’s qualifications are superior to those offered by Silence, with whom members of the county board were unfamiliar.
Selectmen voted 4-2 on Feb. 26 to replace Holifield with Silence. Ronnie Brock, Donovan Hill, Devante Johnson and Shawn Williams favored Silence.
Michael Cameron and Ted Tullos prefered to retain Holifield.
Silence “is the candidate we proposed,” Mayor Quordiniah Lockley said. “In the past, one board would submit a candidate, and the other would ratify that choice, no question. This time, they refused.
“It’s not the county’s responsibility to tell us who to appoint. ... I think that’s dirty politics, but that’s just Lockley talking.”
Selectman Ronnie Brock said the city and county should have an interlocal agreement to govern their joint appointments, rather than a “gentlemen’s agreement” without written definition.
“If things continue as they are, somebody is being held hostage,” Brock said.
Selectmen Devante Johnson and Shawn Williams said they were unfamiliar with Holifield and had no information on him other than a letter requesting reappointment, while Silence’s application included a resume.
“I got nothing from Mr. Holifield,” Johnson said. “We didn’t get from Mr. Holifield what the county is saying they didn’t get from Mr. Silence.”
“I based my decision on what was in front of me,” Williams said.
Holifield is an engineer and pilot with a background in the aerospace industry, with 20 years of service on the airport board. Silence is teacher in the McComb School District’s Business & Technology Complex.
Lockley and Brock noted that there are no official qualifications for anyone to serve on the airport board.
Johnson noted that the airport is seeking a grant of about $1 million, and threatened to withhold supporting the airport and the grant by voting against the $32,000 in matching funds needed from the city to secure the grant.
The airport “may not get this grant if (the county) doesn’t cooperate,” Johnson said. “This is bad business.”
Lockley said it was “bad business not to respect the mayor of the city of McComb,” noting that Lambert emailed his letter to Butler rather then him. “They may not respect me, but they need to respect the office. I was not given the respect I was due.”
He suggested that the city and county boards, through their attorneys, should develop a set of qualifications for members of the airport board.
Airport board member Bob Hensarling said he thought there were misunderstandings between the city and county boards, with the county board believing Holifield’s knowledge and services at the airport are too valuable to lose.
“I don’t think it’s because they’re against Mr. Silence,” Hensarling said. “We’re losing the most important asset to the airport.”
He said he had spoken to supervisors and offered to resign so that Holifield could return to the board as a county appointment.
“I think we’ve missed the entire point,” Cameron said. “Mr. Hensarling just told us, and we’re not listening. We’re going to bow up our chest and be mad at the county, when this about the qualifications of one candidate over another. (Holifield) is extremely important to the airport.
“It’s not that Mr. Silence is unqualified, it’s that we had a man that was extremely qualified.”
Brock said Cameron was being hypocritical after he and Tullos helped to prevent two candidates with master’s degrees from joining the school board in the previous term.
“I had to swallow that and accept it,” Brock said.
Johnson attributed the dissension to held-over anger from the city election last year.
“Change is hard. Some people are still not accepting this change,” Johnson said. “We are what we’re going to be. Change comes. Accept the change and move on.”
In further talks on the grant for the airport from the Federal Aviation Administration, Johnson continued to tie action on the grant to the supervisors’ acquiescing on Silence’s appointment to the airport board.
“If (the supervisors) approve our nominee, we’ll have this conversation,” Johnson said.
Neel-Schaffer project manager Keith Lott urged the city board to makes its $32,000 match to the grant, which would fund culverts and drainage improvements in a ditch between the runway and taxiway, and allow for a leveling of the ground in that area to prevent crashes into the ditch.
The FAA grants is “discretionary funds. If you don’t take them, (the FAA) will give them to someone else,” Lott said. “The plan is to take bids by mid-July. We have to start immediately to meet the FAA’s deadline.”
Lott and Hensarling offered to take selectmen and other city officials to the airport to show them the site and describe the project in more detail.
Lockley said the city would need to make a budget amendment to offer the matching funds.
The airport grant will be on the city board’s agenda on Tuesday.
