The City of Indianola is pushing forward with a preliminary list of projects related to the congressional appropriation awarded to Sunflower County this past winter.
Rep. Bennie Thompson-D announced the $2 million appropriation during a ceremony in Ruleville back in February, with $700,000 of those monies earmarked for Indianola.
The city has met multiple times regarding the proposals put forward by Mayor Ken Featherstone, but until this past Tuesday’s special call meeting, no final decisions had been made by the board.
Ward 1 Alderman Gary Fratesi and Ward 3 Alderman Ruben Woods joined via phone. Ward 4 Alderman Marvin Elder and Ward 5 Alderman Sam Brock were there in-person. Ward 2 Alderman Darrell Simpson was not present.
Grant administrator Dr. Adrian Brown of Brown & Associates told the board that in order to receive an authorization to expend funds from the office of Housing & Urban Development, the fiscal agent for the grant, each municipality had to submit its proposed projects, budget and project narrative to the county, since it is an overall county project, he said.
The Board of Supervisors has since approved the proposals by the municipalities and has submitted an overall project narrative and budget to HUD.
Drew, Ruleville, Sunflower and Doddsville are also earmarked for the grant.
“The City of Indianola submitted a multitude of projects, spanning four or five different projects,” Brown said.
Brown followed by saying that the construction projects that would require environmental studies were submitted, even though the list is not final, in order to keep what could be a lengthy process moving.
He added that there are typically 30 to 40 state and federal agencies involved with projects that require environmental studies.
Once the environmental process is complete, Brown said HUD should issue an authorization to expend funds.
“At that point, the engineer would be able to take the project from there to advertise bids,” he said.
This set forward about half an hour of spirited debate. Things were said.
“The Board of Aldermen never agreed on anything,” Fratesi said. “We had three meetings and didn’t follow through…I want to be clear, the board has not submitted anything to the Board of Supervisors.”
Featherstone interjected and said that the mayor’s office took the liberty of submitting the paperwork.
“You don’t have that liberty, mayor,” Fratesi said.
“Yes, we do. Yes, we do,” Featherstone said.
Board Attorney Kimberly Merchant hinted to Fratesi that it is very possible procedure was not followed correctly, but the proposal had been sent.
“Right now, that train has left the tracks,” Merchant said. “Because we’re in this position now, we’re going to have to follow this track. I get it. We know it was not approved by the Board of Aldermen. We get that. Nobody is saying that did not happen, but we are where we are.”
Fratesi said he believes the board should correct the action if it needs to be corrected. Furthermore, he seemed to reject the majority of the projects on the proposal.
“I do not like any of the projects that have been submitted, because we didn’t have any input, and I’m going to do anything I can to stop it from going up the tracks, if I have to call HUD myself,” he said. “It wasn’t done right, and just because it wasn’t done right doesn’t mean we don’t need to correct it now.”
Fratesi said he believes department heads were not given the opportunity to chime in on projects for their departments.
Parks and Recreation Director Carolyn O’Neal, who was present, seemed to agree, stating multiple times that she would like to see the proposals for her department scrapped in favor of others, including a rehab to the leased gym at Cassie Pennington and fixing issues at the city pool clubhouse.
City Engineer Ron Cassada told the board that Brown had submitted the paperwork in order to begin the process of getting the money expended and that changes can be made to the list at a later date.
“At this point, nothing is set in stone,” Cassada said. “The board can now really decide what they want to do, and if they want to do something other than what Adrian originally did, he’s just got to write some additional letters.”
Elder suggested that objections to the process had more to do with the fact that the money is coming from the congressman than procedure.
He then suggested that if department heads were not happy with the proposal, the money could go elsewhere.
“If you don’t like what’s on this list, and don’t want this money, let the mayor know at the end of the day, and if any other department may need it, give it to them. If all department heads agree they do not want this money, we’ll take it and give it to Moorhead, we’ll give it to Inverness, we can give it to Sunflower, Ruleville or Drew, but I’ll be d****ed if we’re going to sit here and act this way about something that came from the second congressional district Congressman Bennie Thompson. It’s an embarrassment. This is totally being hijacked, and we as aldermen, we need to stand the ground,” Elder said.
Elder then put forth a motion to adopt the proposal and said changes could be made later.
That motion died for lack of a second.
Featherstone then went through the proposal, line-by-line, which took about another half hour.
During that time, tensions calmed and several tweaks were discussed to multiple projects.
“We’re not married to all of these,” Featherstone repeated.
Fratesi then made a motion to move forward with the proposal in hand, with the caveat that the board would have to approve each project and expenditure.
That motion got a second from Elder.
By this time Woods had dropped off the phone. Fratesi and Elder voted yes, and Brock abstained. His abstention went with the majority 2-0 vote.
