Who pays? We do

By Staff
June 7, 2004
Ultimately, taxpayers will pay for an environmental study of an alternative site for an interchange to serve the Interstate 20/59 Industrial Park. Somehow, the question of who pays for the study at Sweet Gum Bottom Road jumped the track and ran afoul of federal guidelines, forcing city officials to scramble to find alternative funding. The Mississippi Department of Transportation says it, not the Federal Highway Administration, will now foot the bill.
That, of course, means state taxpayers.
When the city council unanimously awarded the environmental study contract to Engineering Associates, Mayor John Robert Smith emphatically told council members that federal funds would cover the work. The sudden change to state funding came as a shock to councilmen, who had accepted the mayor's word that federal funds would pay for the project. They had not been advised of the shift and several were justifiably unhappy about it.
The environmental assessment was ordered at Sweet Gum Bottom Road when federal authorities became unhappy with the mayor's first choice for the interchange at Hawkins Crossing.
This mayor consistently keeps the city council and citizens in the dark. Continuing goofs and this mayor's continuing efforts to sugarcoat them are growing ever so strange and counterproductive.
In the convoluted process of city government, there may be a time for excuses, even to the point of overlooking human error. In the case of the industrial park interchange, that time is past. Given the inordinate delays, members of the Meridian City Council need to step to the plate, exercise their power as the city's governing body and get on with the job of getting the interchange built.