Leadership Needs To Look Past The Next Curve In The Road

Dear Editor,

It has been an entertaining joy to read the last two issues of the North Mississippi Herald. If you find reality show like conflict entertaining.  Two weeks ago it was the detailed report on the principal versus superintendent hullabaloo. Seems what we got here is a failure to communicate. Last week it was the unit versus beat bashing in Coffeeville.  

A tempest in a teapot, a De Niroesque “You talking to me?” and much ado about nothing all in one. Or maybe not. It seems like a battle of old overweight guys; the beat team players of former supervisors and soon to be former supervisors versus the as old and almost as heavy underdog unit team arguing about ephemeral dollars, the worthiness of heavy equipment, and the investment value of pick-ups.  

All of that seems pretty trite.

And it is. But you see this a problem that should have been fixed 27 years ago. As a result of Operation Pretense. In the mid-1980s low-level corruption was rampant in county road operations. The beat system was statewide then. Each of Mississippi’s 82 counties had 5 supervisors, each with a crew, making a total of 410 road crews. Way back when the state was all ditches and dirt roads, before automobiles and into the very early automobile years, that made sense. But by the mid 1980s roads were mainly paved and the price of roads and the culverts and asphalt, and equipment and fuel to run the equipment was a lot of money. And each supervisor was his own purchasing agent. Pretty inefficient and ripe for corruption. One pipe supplier grew tired of paying an expected 10% kickback to county supervisors. He told the FBI, who came in and set up an operation that resulted with 55 supervisors from 27 counties being convicted. The corruption was statewide. Not in Yalobusha, but in Panola and in Pontotoc on down to the coast.

So in 1988 Ray Mabus, who was the governor, came up with the unit system plan of central buying and central road fixing for each county. Seemed like a good government idea. But governor want-to-be state auditor Pete Johnson managed to get an opt out clause in the new law. Counties had to buy central, but could opt out and have a modified beat system where each supervisor still ran a road crew. Johnson knew there was political power in the road-servicing supervisors, especial in his Delta political base, and taking that service away would hurt his political connections and aspirations. It didn’t work out for him, Kirk Fordice beat Johnson in the November 1991 election, but Mississippi got stuck with this semi-split beat or unit system. So we’d all be unit system if it wasn’t for personal political desires. And Mabus’ idea has proved to be a good government solution. Unit counties on average are worth more than beat counties. That’s more county money available for schools, roads, economic development, and public safety. Things that make a place better to live.

Things have gotten better, but then there was this last year. Mississippi was named the most corrupt state in the nation based on number of government officials per population convicted. More than Louisiana, hard to imagine.

This next is all my personal opinion.

If we were unit, it would be one less thing to squabble about at the county meetings. The unit system would make the supervisor job more attractive to a wider base of candidates. In all the recent supervisors races, with all the candidates, not one woman was running. Plenty of capable leadership out there, but that combining of the supervisor’s government job with daily managing a road crew is just weird.

Leave it to one pro, a real road professional. Just more efficient. Less chance for corruption, too. Better for all Yalobusha residents. We have an anachronistic dirt road system and we’re not a dirt road county anymore. If we aspire to be better, then the unit is the better option of the two choices to take us there.

And things are looking up; there will be 4 new supervisors in January. Hopefully a new team, a new perspective, and breath of fresh air.

And I suppose I should let this go and be a past bygone, but the beat team of former and soon to be former supervisors are the same team that tried very hard to suppress the beer referendum. Their manipulations cost you the taxpayer the equivalent price of a new pickup via a special election. At least they did not repeat that mistake.  Something about those guys, they just don’t like progress. They do like their pickups. Despite their opposition to beer, they do seem to enjoy the many tens of thousands of tax dollars beer sales bring in yearly to the county budget.  That their (and our) county now has the only brewery in the north half of the state and boldly brands the county name statewide is refreshing justice if you ask me.

This beat versus unit road situation may not seem like a big deal, but the unit system is that incremental improvement in governing that has long-term positive effects for everybody. If only our leadership could see further down a county road than the next curve.

Sincerely,
Mickey Howley