A McComb selectman’s request to purchase video equipment so he can better attend meetings virtually isn’t the same as the city’s expenses related to breast cancer awareness and New Year’s events, the mayor and a city board member said Friday.
Selectman Matt Codding, who routinely attends city board meetings by speakerphone because of his work schedule, asked the city to get quotes for video equipment that would enable him to be seen and heard at meetings he cannot attend in person.
City Administrator David Myers presented a $4,200 quote on Tuesday, which Mayor Quordiniah Lockley scoffed at, saying it would only benefit Codding.
Codding compared the expense to the mayor’s request to spend city money on a New Year’s celebration with live music and fireworks, and Selectwoman Terri Waterman-Baylor’s sponsorship of a breast cancer awareness event.
He said neither came with city board approval, which the mayor and Waterman-Baylor disputed.
“He talks about breast cancer awareness. That was approved by the board,” Lockley said. “New Year’s — it was approved by the board and he even voted for it when he approved the docket with the purchase of the fireworks.”
Lockley said both events were approved “for the city at large.”
“When he talks about the New Year’s Eve celebration, it was not Mayor Lockley’s, it was for the City of McComb,” the mayor said.
Waterman-Baylor said she spearheaded the breast cancer awareness event, which was held Oct. 29.
“This event was also approved on the docket by the City Board,” she said in a statement Friday. “The only amount that the city contributed was $975.78. Everything else was paid for with donations in the amount of $607.”
Lockley said Codding also approved the claims docket for those expenses.
Codding earlier this week offered to give up travel advances for board members to attend training in order to purchase the video equipment and accused the mayor of politicizing the issue.
Lockley said the selectman has attended just four board meetings in person since he took office in July and was well aware of the board’s meeting schedule when he ran for office, making the scheduling problem his own, not the city’s.
“He’s talking about it’s all political,” Lockley said. “I’sm just trying to state the facts and the facts are so blatant.”
