McComb selectmen on Tuesday considered rescinding their predecessors’ decision to direct the spending of $1.7 million of American Rescue Plan Act funds.
City Administrator David Myers proposed calling back the money, which is more than half of the $3.2 million the city is receiving in the federal allocation targeted for infrastructure repair.
As one of their final acts in office, the previous city board voted in June to earmark $150,000 of the funding for stormwater improvements in the Donna Heights area, $150,000 for LED lighting at the East McComb Activities Field, $400,000 for lighting at the Martin Luther King Center baseball field, $4,000 for a screen and projector at the Martin Luther King Center, $565,000 for a street milling machine and $200,000 for police equipment.
The one expense Myers did not propose rescinding was $200,000 to complete Alpha Center renovations.
The board unanimously voted to table the matter until next Tuesday’s work session.
“The bottom line up front is the previous board, several weeks before the end of their term, allocated $1.7 million of ARPA money,” Myers said.
“It’s been unheard of to do that. What it did, it basically took from your hands the opportunity to allocate this money for various projects,” Myers said.
He said the city didn’t even have that much ARPA money on hand.
Although the city will be allocated $3.2 million in ARPA funds, he said it has only received $1.599 million and the rest should arrive in the next year.
“Some of these projects, in my opinion, were feel-good projects with the exception of, obviously, the Alpha Center,” Myers said. “That project is a goal that needs to be finished and it’s going to be finished and done with APRA money.”
Myers disagreed with the previous board’s decision to spend money on lighting at the Martin Luther King Center baseball field and East McComb Activities Field.
“Both of those fields are day-use fields. The City of McComb has spent roughly $5 million on South Magnolia Street with ballfield lighting over there that’s more than capable of handling this,” he said. “I think that needs to be rescinded as well.”
The Donna Heights area is in Ward 4. Bates, who represents the ward, said the matter should have been discussed before the meeting.
“I’m concerned about the people in Donna Heights because all of the water and other stuff that is backing up in their house,” he said. “I want to make sure these people get taken care of.”
Shawn Williams, a selectman on the prior board expressed his opinion on the comment thread of the meeting video on the city’s Facebook page.
“All of those projects meet needs in our city and communities, and were at the request of citizens,” he said. “Neel-Schaffer has already started the process for Donna Heights.”
All citizen comments were removed Wednesday afternoon.
Myers acknowledged stormwater improvements are needed in the Donna Heights area, but said he did not believe spending ARPA funds was necessary to make it happen. He said Neel-Schaffer Inc. has already done a study of stormwater issues throughout McComb and the city is applying for $8 million of funding through U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker’s office.
“The way we go about it is we can’t be piecemealing,” Myers said. “We’re trying to get funds to fix our entire stormwater, drainage problem. Donna Heights is in here.”
Mayor Quordiniah Lockley supported Myers’ recommendation to rescind the ARPA expenses.
“The state has said that with your ARPA money, if you would do projects that are water, sewer and stormwater, they will match dollar for dollar,” he said. “However, the ARPA money can also be used for quality-of-life projects. But that will not be matched by the state’s money.”
Both Lockley and Myers have said approximately $2 million in ARPA funds should be used for water, sewer and stormwater projects and the board should come up with projects for the other $1.2 million.
Myers said he was for spending the $200,000 for bulletproof vests, surveillance cameras around the city and laptops for police cars.
“We have an application data system that we use, that we pay for every month that we’re not using the full potential of,” Police Chief Garland Ward said. “If we have police cars equipped with laptops, they can sit out in the city on parking lots in different places and do reports and be visible instead of having to come back to the precinct, do the report and leave the city open.”
Selectwoman Tabitha Felder Isaac and Selectman Matt Codding both expressed concerns with rescinding the ARPA expenses at Tuesday’s meeting.
“I say this is something we need to discuss in a regular work session, all of us,” Isaac said. “We need to meet and go over it in more detail.”
Codding asked when was the last time the board rescinded something.
“It could be a slippery slope here,” he said.
Lockley said it had been done in the past, but he did not have a specific date.
Selectman Tommy McKenzie said an order has to be specific on how the city would spend its money.
“The city can’t spend $200,000 on police equipment without knowing what it is specifically,” he said. “I mean, that’s useless. It’s got to come back before this board to approve that money to be spent anyway. My point is, it’s coming back before us on any of this whether you approved it or tabled it or not.”
After the meeting, Lockley said orders are already in place for the police equipment, so the board must decide quickly if it wants to cancel that order.
If the board agrees to rescind the expenses at next Tuesday’s work session, then the vote would have to wait until the next board meeting on July 26.
“According to state law, the only time you can call a special called meeting is for an issue that is of the urgency that it cannot wait until the next regular board meeting,” he said. “Now, people (on the previous board) were calling special called meetings that did not meet that requirement, but no citizen challenged the previous board on their actions.”
