The Sunflower County Transitional Shelter for the Homeless apparently will have a paid case manager to handle its intakes and data collection.
This after the board of supervisors voted this past Monday to budget $20,000 out of a $92,000 Mississippi Home Corporation grant to pay for the services.
The move signals for the board what could be the end of a political blockade against District 1 Supervisor Glenn Donald that has seemingly stood for well over a year.
Shelter representatives had spoken to the board in late May about the county either employing a case manager or allowing money for one to come out of the above grant.
Donald made the motion two weeks ago to allow grant administrator Dr. Adrian Brown to ask MHC to increase the grant amount. That motion died for lack of a second.
Donald’s motion on Monday to take the $20,000 out of the existing grant was seconded by District 2 Supervisor Riley Rice and seemed to pass unanimously.
The case manager position likely puts the shelter’s operator, Sunflower County Ministerial Alliance Counseling Services, in position to be in compliance with the federal guidelines, a requirement of the MHC grant.
Without the grant, SCMACS would operate the shelter on the county’s $40,000 annual contribution, along with donations from private donors and municipalities.
The $92,000 grant, which was awarded last fall, seems to be a boon as it will help with operational costs at the shelter.
The rift between Donald and the board had escalated recently after the firing of two county employees whom Donald publicly stood with during recent meetings.
At times, over the past 18 months, it has seemed as if other supervisors may have been predisposed to ignore Donald’s motions and appeared to be dismissive of his concerns on certain issues.
Last year, Donald told the board that private donors were preparing to build a new helipad for South Sunflower County Hospital, a county-owned institution.
The estimated cost at that time was around $30,000.
The county might have donated a small sum to the cause or even levied millage for one year to pay for the entire project.
Donald made a motion back then to provide financial support for the helipad, which should aid in the logistics of transporting patients out of Indianola by way of air travel, and that motion too died for lack of a second.
The City of Indianola’s board of aldermen later voted to donate $5,000 toward the project, which is currently under construction.
These are just a couple of examples out of several over the past year-plus where politics perhaps has gotten in the way of better sense.
Disagreement is okay. Debate is healthy. Political blockades can be the opposite of okay and healthy, especially if they work against the interest of the taxpayers.
We often complain about political stagnation in Washington D.C. That seems to have trickled down to the county and city levels.
Indianola is no stranger to political antics.
Three aldermen here have been under the microscope since late 2023.
The alliance between those three seems to have led to some puzzling moves, including the nonpayment of annual dues to South Delta Planning & Development District.
That came to a head last week when one of the recipients of SDPDD funds, Sunflower Humphreys Counties Progress Inc., confronted the board about the nonpayment. The three aldermen stood firm in their resolve to not pay those dues, despite the large crowd that showed up to the meeting that night and left pretty angry.
We would not ask any elected official to not vote their conscience on any issue.
What we would ask is that those decisions be made based on thoughtful and reasoned arguments that are in the best interest of the citizens.
