The City of Indianola should consider paying for the completion of the B.B. King Road sidewalk project with the $700,000 awarded to the city last year by Congressman Bennie Thompson.
Thompson gave five municipalities here a total of $2 million, using the county as the fiscal agent on the grant in order to circumvent everyone’s audit delinquencies.
Indianola stands to receive $700,000 of that money.
After the February 2023 announcement by Thompson, the city quickly went to work on a wish list of projects that includes new vehicles, decals for water towers, a large covering for a basketball court, a new roof and flooring for city hall, among others.
A case can be made for each listed item, but none are as worthy of consideration as the B.B. King sidewalk project.
Originally, the project was supposed to be paid for by a federal grant, but that money has been frozen due to the city’s audit delinquency. The city is making progress with its audits, but that likely will not result in that grant being reopened before the next two years.
This project was promised to the citizens of Indianola, particularly the children in the vicinity of B.B. King Road, back in 2011.
The city faced many delays in getting underway, mostly from having to acquire 37 easements.
Under the original plan, the sidewalks would start at the park on Roosevelt Street and continue down the west side of B.B. King Road to Wiggins Avenue.
Word has come to the city that Transportation Commissioner Willie Simmons has suggested the grant may be reopened in 12 months if the city has shown a good faith effort in the process of getting up to date on its audits.
The city just completed its 2018 audit and contracted with a firm to start the 2019.
City Engineer Ron Cassada told the board they likely need to have fiscal year 2022 completed in order for the federal money to be unfrozen.
Based on the timeline given by the audit firm last week, that would likely take two-plus years if everything remains on track.
A decade and a half into this sidewalk debacle, the city has three options.
The first is to hope that someone at the federal level will be impressed enough with the progress the city has made on its audits at the end of the year that they will unfreeze the sidewalk money.
If it was just Commissioner Simmons’ call to make, that might very well happen, but at best, the city will only be into its 2020 audit by then, and that probably won’t cut it.
Second, the city could wait it out and finish all of its audits and hope the grant can be reopened in two to three years.
That would mean it would take the better part of two decades to complete a simple sidewalk project. That is of course if the audits can be finished in that short amount of time.
Third, the city can pivot from its wish list with the Thompson money and finish this thing.
No matter which administration or which board of aldermen you want to blame, it’s the city’s leadership that has dropped the ball on this project.
It’s the citizens who suffer from the shortfalls of government.
The environmental, administrative and legal work has been done. Pivoting from the original wish list to this project should not pose a delay for the other municipalities who are tied up in the Thompson grant.
Based on the estimates on hand of between $450,000 to $500,000, the Thompson money should more than cover the sidewalk completion.
After that, there should be money left over to put a new roof and new flooring at city hall.
A roof estimate given this past Monday night came in under $75,000.
If the city wants to kill the sidewalk project, then so be it.
But don’t string the people along for two or three more years, only to have more hopes dashed by the incompetence of government.
#FinishTheSidewalks
