Greenwood Commonwealth. Dec. 7, 2021.
Editorial: Is Itta Bena Being Delusional?
A pair of significant figures have thrown cold water on any thought by Itta Bena officials that the town should not turn over its electricity operation to Entergy Mississippi.
One, Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, helped broker the deal with Entergy in order to keep the lights on in the town. The other, Geoffrey Wilson, is well familiar with how much the town has struggled to pay its bills, since he manages the utility cooperative that has been providing Itta Bena with the power it resells to residents and businesses.
Presley and Wilson are basically saying town officials have to be nuts if they try to back out of the transfer to Entergy. The two not only raise doubts about how much progress the town has made on paying its longstanding delinquency, but they make it clear what the possible consequences would be if the city doesn’t go forward with the transfer.
Reginald Freeman, the mayor who is facing a do-over election following a successful challenge of his narrow victory in June, had recently claimed that Itta Bena had been making progress in retiring its debt to the Municipal Energy Agency of Mississippi. Not so, countered Wilson, MEAM’s president and CEO. In a tersely worded Nov. 19 letter to Freeman, Wilson said “not a single penny” of Itta Bena’s $653,000 past-due balance — not including interest, legal costs and other potential penalties — had been retired.
As Presley notes, it is ludicrous for town officials to claim that the electricity department is an important revenue source that helps cover the city’s operating costs when the department is not generating enough revenue to pay MEAM in full. Either the electricity department is not collecting enough to cover expenses, or what it is collecting is being diverted to costs unrelated to providing power to the town’s customers. Either way, the numbers don’t lie. It’s not working.
And it’s only going to get worse if this arrangement continues for much longer. MEAM indicated that starting this month, Itta Bena is not going to get the same discounts that other purchasers, such as Greenwood Utilities, receive from MEAM. Those higher wholesale rates will have to be passed on in higher rates for the town’s customers. And that’s just in the short term.
In the longer term, Presley suggests that if the transfer is not made to Entergy, Itta Bena’s roughly 1,000 customers may have to fork out $700 each to pay off the debt to MEAM. Either that, or risk MEAM threatening to pull the plug again, which it nearly did a year ago. Plus, the utility’s grid is so outdated that, according to Presley, it’s going to take millions of dollars to bring it up to par. Where is that funding going to come from in a money-losing operation?
The only sensible option for Itta Bena is to get out of the electricity business, and to do it as soon as possible. Anyone who doesn’t see that and believes Itta Bena can make this chronically troubled enterprise profitable is being delusional.
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Tupelo Daily Journal. Dec. 5, 2021.
Editorial: Elected officials should not serve on Major Thoroughfare Plan committee
Ward 3 Supervisor-elect Wesley Webb said while campaigning for the special election to fill Mayor Todd Jordan’s seat on the Lee County Board of Supervisors that, if elected, he would resign his position on the Tombigbee River Valley Water Management District, an organization which uses county tax dollars to fix water erosion issues and other projects. But when it comes to the Tupelo Major Thoroughfare Plan advisory committee, Webb says he had rather continue serving.
Jordan and city officials, seemingly supporting this dubious decision, are investigating any possible legal restrictions on an elected official — particularly a county elected official — sitting on the rather unique committee that was approved by the Legislature and codified in city governing code. If there are no legal concerns, Jordan said the city would then turn to any ethical concerns that could arise from such a situation.
All of this should be unnecessary. Webb should voluntarily resign from the Major Thoroughfare Plan committee. Not only did he pledge to do so, it is also the right thing to do to protect the integrity of both the committee and the county elected official, who should seek to be free of even the perception of a conflict of interest in performing his sworn duties.
The question is not whether Wesley Webb should serve on the Major Thoroughfare Plan committee. Webb, as an individual, has served the committee admirably. Rather, the question is whether an elected official — any elected official — should sit on the Major Thoroughfare Plan committee.
The answer should be a resounding, “Not a chance!”
One of the great successes of the Major Thoroughfare Plan has been the committee’s ability to keep political trappings from complicating its work. It was purposefully designed with those concerns in mind. For more than 30 years, it has worked extremely well. So why in the world would city leaders, or any committee member, now do something that could even remotely jeopardize the committee or bring into question its integrity?
The committee is also designed to be a “citizens committee,” as city attorney Ben Logan pointed out. In fact, it’s in the committee’s full and legal name: “The Tupelo Major Thoroughfare Plan Citizens Lobbying and Oversight Committee.” Elected officials, while citizens, hold undeniable special status when it comes to the influence and power they can yield.
Having an elected official on a citizens committee is like having a fox not only guarding the hen house, but sitting on the eggs.
Furthermore, look at the stated responsibilities of the committee. Among them — again, right there in the name — is lobbying. How on earth would you allow an elected official to lobby another elected governing board? It defies all logic and credibility.
The Major Thoroughfare Plan committee also is charged with oversight functions of ongoing plans, determining the impact of plans on citizens and communities, and raising additional funds for projects. These fundraising efforts mean going after interlocal funds, which include shared funding between the city and the county. It also means the city could be competing with the county for state and federal funds. It doesn’t take a lawyer or ethicist to see the multitude of conflicts of interest that could arise.
Elected officials are charged with representing a specific constituency and acting in their best interest. In the case of some supervisors, like Webb, that includes both city and county taxpayers. What’s best for that constituency is not always going to align with a separate constituency, even if there is overlap between the two groups. Why unnecessarily create even the possibility of a conflict?
There is obviously no need to do so in this situation. Webb should not be allowed to continue working with the Major Thoroughfare Plan. In fact, it would be wise for the city to explore updating the code to codify the exclusion of any elected official from sitting on the committee.
This is such an easy decision that one might question the motives behind officials making it more complicated than it should be. Such questions could eventually lead to people questioning the independence and effectiveness of the Major Thoroughfare Plan committee itself. And that is exactly what we do not want to see happen and why officials must be not only diligent in protecting the committee from undue political influence but painstakingly attentive to even the appearance of conflicts of interest.
Editor’s note: A previous version said Webb pledged to step down from the Major Thoroughfare Plan advisory board. He said only that he would step down from the Tombigbee River Valley Water Management District.
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The (Columbus) Dispatch. Dec. 3, 2021.
Editorial: We apologize for the occasional misspelled word
For a while there, it didn’t look as though Mississippi would have a champion to send to the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Since 1925, states have sent their champion spellers to the national event with the support of a sponsor to cover the cost of the state spelling bee.
But this year’s county and state spelling bees were put in jeopardy when the Mississippi Association of Educators, the state’s long-time sponsor, pulled its sponsorship because of budget issues.
Wilson Beck, president of the Columbus-Lowndes Chamber of Commerce, led the effort to find a new sponsor. Thanks to Beck’s leadership, both the 2021 Lowndes County and the state spelling bees will be held on the Mississippi University for Women campus.
The Dispatch has agreed to sponsor Mississippi’s state spelling bee for a couple of good reasons.
First, we understand the value of proper spelling and hate the idea that Mississippi would be the first state not to send someone to the national spelling bee. Mississippi is one of 21 states which has yet to claim a national spelling bee champion, and you can’t win without entering. So, we’re hoping that this year may finally be the year Mississippi joins the ranks of national champions.
After all, Mississippians should be great at spelling if for no other reason than our state’s name is the most difficult of all the states to spell — even for adults.
Yet Mississippi kids are taught how to spell “Mississippi” in first grade, and if our six-year-olds can spell “Mississippi,” they should be able to spell most any word. We should expect to be good at this competition in the same way we would expect Alaskans to be good at shoveling snow.
There is another reason The Dispatch felt obliged to sponsor our state spelling bee.
We view it as an act of contrition/penance for almost a hundred years worth of misspelled words printed in the pages of The Dispatch.
When you consider the thousands of words printed in each edition, it’s likely there is at least one misspelled word in today’s paper (hopefully not in this editorial, though). It is, as the saying goes, an occupational hazard, and discovering these spelling crimes and misdemeanors has become something of a hobby for some readers.
They keep us on our toes, certainly, and the embarrassment we feel on those occasions serves to strengthen our resolve to pay closer attention to such details. We do not have a cavalier attitude about spelling. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak sometimes.
Sad to say, but retired English teachers and George Hazard don’t live forever, so sponsoring the national spelling bee is our way of encouraging good spelling right here in our communities, thus creating new generations of unpaid quality-control experts.
In this age of social media — where it appears there is little emphasis devoted to proper spelling — there are some who say spelling isn’t everything.
As Andrew Johnson, our 17th President, once observed, “It’s a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word.”
Of course, we note that Johnson never attended school and was the first President to be impeached, so there’s that.
The view of one failed President notwithstanding, we believe that spelling is important. If anyone should recognize the importance of spelling, it’s us.
For those reasons, we are honored to sponsor this year’s state spelling bee and are appreciative to Beck, the chamber Education Committee, Mississippi University for Women President Nora Miller, Derek Rogers at WCBI, Lois Kappler at Mississippi State University, representatives of the Mississippi Association of Educators and others who all came together to make it possible.
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