Mayor Zach Patterson said he believes city leaders knew about sewer and water problems in McComb long before a court-ordered mandate to upgrade facilities.
Given that premise, he asked where critics of the current situation were years ago.
With a list of a dozen water and wastewater expenditures since 1999 totalling more than $13 million, and Enterprise-Journal articles from 2006 quoting city board discussion about the problem, Patterson stated his case in his “Chat with the Mayor” after Tuesday’s city board meeting.
“We have paid considerable penalties since I have been your mayor,” Patterson said. “Whenever the water samples come back and they are out of tolerance, then you pay the fine. … What I want to do is point out to you that this board is made up of primarily the same members.”
Patterson said his beef was that people who had ignored the problem and allowed it to worsen were now critiquing efforts to fix it.
“This is something that we’ve been kicking the can down the road on,” Patterson said. “My point in bringing this up to you is these issues have been before this board for some time. We’ve had bond issuances in this city before. But for some reason, now, all of a sudden, we have to look into all the nuts and bolts.”
He said he didn’t want to imply that questioning financial advisers and bond lawyers was improper for citizens to do, but said criticism bolsters the political positioning of naysayers.
“Now I read editorials in the local newspaper about this board not inspiring confidence to make these decisions,” Patterson said. “I didn’t see that kind of rhetoric going on during the time we … patched a system that’s gone bad.”
Regarding the Enterprise-Journal, Patterson had a few other grievances to air. He blasted the paper for a new Opinion page column called “My Two Cents,” in which anonymous comments e-mailed to the paper or left on Internet message boards are reprinted.
“Never before in the city of McComb, Mississippi,” he said, “have you been able to do that. Anytime you had something to say and you wanted to put it on the Opinion page you had to sign your name to it. … Now it’s edited out by Mr. Jack Ryan and Mr. Charlie Dunagin, and those two individuals have been on record as being on the opposite end of the political spectrum as me.”
The column, Patterson said, amounted to a “cheap shot,” that functions as “a place to fan the flames of divisiveness.”
“A newspaper has a responsibility to be responsible for what they do,” he said. “As far as I know … someone could be typing that stuff in the back room of the Enterprise-Journal.”
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Patterson also chided the paper for its coverage of a recent open meetings violation by the Pike County Board of Supervisors, asking if there was a double-standard for the application of sunshine laws.
He acknowledged that Pike County officials had apologized for a miscommunication that led to media not being notified of a recent tour of the county jail, which under the state open meetings law, amounted to a public meeting.
But Patterson said that when he was prodded in 2007 about open meetings violations of the city, he too had been conciliatory. Patterson said he was on record as saying if he made a mistake it was not intentional, and that if media representatives had come to his office to discuss the problem, it could have been solved.
The city board approved across-the-board employee pay raises, budget amendments and other items in four closed meetings at City Hall last year.
“The city of McComb was sued,” he said. “I’m guessing that more than likely the Enterprise-Journal and Southwest Broadcasting will sue the supervisors.”
Additionally, Patterson asked where he could find an editorial commending public workshops on the wastewater treatment facility held in January with the intent of inviting local contractors and businessmen to get involved.
“I haven’t seen any editorials talking about how good that is for southwest Mississippi,” he said.
Meanwhile, Tuesday’s chat included some opposition to the mayor’s point of view.
The chat ended abruptly as former selectman Warren Ellis Gilmore attempted to dispute the mayor’s version of city history — eventually leading the mayor to close his session.
When Patterson asked why there was more scrutiny for bond lawyers and financial advisers on the wastewater treatment facility than previous projects, Gilmore interjected, “Do you think it’s because they’re black?”
Gilmore repeatedly tried to ask questions of the mayor, with Patterson asking him to remain silent until a question-and-answer period at the end of chat.
When Patterson asked, “Where were all these experts 15 years ago, or even back to 2006?” Gilmore responded, “Can we answer that now?”
When Patterson complained about the Enterprise-Journal’s response to an open meetings violation by the Pike County Board of Supervisors in comparison with a suit filed last year against the city, Gilmore asked, “How many times did they do it?”
“I mean no disrespect,” Gilmore told Patterson during the question period, “But sometimes when you give information, it can be misleading.”
Gilmore said several of the water expenditures listed by the mayor were necessitated by an annexation of property into the city rather than neglect of existing lines, but was stopped by Patterson who asked if Gilmore had a question.
“I appreciate the history lesson,” Patterson said.
“Is this a private meeting or a public meeting?” Gilmore responded. “You talked for the last 40 minutes and I only talked for the last two minutes. … The problem, Mr. Mayor, is you don’t want to be questioned.”
Selectman Melvin Joe Johnson, present for the chat, said he was disappointed by the exchange.
“I just hated that an ex-selectman came in and tried to disrespect the mayor’s chat,” Johnson said. “He should get on the agenda instead of interfering.”
