An attempt to bring clarity to how Sunflower County ended up with a $2 million novelty check from Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., only seemed to bring more confusion and contention.
First off, Sunflower County Board of Supervisors President Riley Rice laid out how the money, when received by the county, would be divvied out. The largest portion, $700,000, is set to go to Indianola for projects. Drew will get $500,000, Ruleville and Sunflower will get $300,000 each and Doddsville will receive $200,000.
Thompson announced the total $2 million award during a big check ceremony in Ruleville last week, something District 5 Supervisor Gloria Dickerson said was the result of her original request to the congressman for money for projects in her district.
District 1 Supervisor Glenn Donald took issue with the fact that Moorhead and Inverness were glaringly left out of the mix for money.
Dickerson said she attended a meeting with Thompson last year where he awarded millions for a project.
“After the meeting, I just asked him when he was going to do something for Sunflower County, particularly for Drew, because Drew had such bad streets,” she said.
Thompson, Dickerson said, told her she had not asked him for money previously and that he needed something in writing by the following Monday to get something done.
Dickerson originally put together a proposal for street projects in Drew that totaled around $500,000, but Thompson sent an email back with specific instructions for certain municipalities to submit projects through the county, she said.
“He made the decisions on Indianola, Sunflower and Doddsville,” Dickerson said. “Ruleville wasn’t on there at that point. He asked us to ask the county administrator to receive the projects from these municipalities and to pass on to him.”
Donald seemed surprised at the notion that Thompson would leave Moorhead and Inverness out.
“If the board has to receive it, why wasn’t Moorhead and Inverness inclusive in receiving some of this money?” Donald asked. “If he said, ‘Just ask,’ by George, if you had told me about it. I found out about it by accident…We’ve got some projects in Moorhead, certainly some projects in Inverness that need to be worked on, so are you saying the congressman won’t give Inverness and Moorhead any money?”
Dickerson suggested that was indeed the case. She said she was in on a conversation last week where a constituent asked about the apparent omissions.
“What he said to me and to him is, ‘You don’t know why. So, you tell them to ask me. You have no idea why I did that. If anybody wants to know why, tell them to come and ask me,’” Dickerson quoted Thompson as saying. “That’s what you have to do is ask him.”
Donald wasn’t buying it.
“I’m sure Bennie Thompson does not begrudge Moorhead and Inverness,” he said. “It is appalling to me that I have to sign off on something that my constituents are not involved in, and I’m done with that…I just need my constituents to know that Glenn Donald was not made aware of it, that I found out by accident. I’m really, truly upset about that, because Inverness and Moorhead vote in the Second Congressional District also.”
Dickerson suggested Donald have that conversation with Thompson.
“You should have told me, so I could have had that conversation before we sent it in,” Donald said, who added that he would definitely sign off on the money as it stands, but he was not happy he was not told last spring about the potential award.
“We didn’t have time to call,” Rice told Donald.
The conversation got more heated as Donald told Rice he had plenty of time between 9 o’clock and 5 o’clock that day.
The board took no action, and Dickerson said they would have to discuss at a later date the process for receiving the money, something Chancery Clerk Dr. Gloria McIntosh said she was reviewing presently.
“We do have to have a meeting to talk about the process we have to go through to get the money,” she said. “All we have is a big check. We don’t have a little check.”
