Jackson Free Press

The Jackson City Council was frustrated last week when the Mayor Chokwe Lumumba introduced two emergency items at its special meeting Monday afternoon.

It isn't the first time the mayor has asked council to make a big-money decision without notice or time to research it. This time, the mayor asked for funding to restart a couple of stalled road projects to the tune of $2.2 million.

The mayor's practice of presenting "change orders" at the last hour, in turn, allows companies to bid as low as they want to win a contract, then make up the difference by citing "unforeseen factors" and "previously unknown complications" that force them to jack up the price of finishing the project.

We're not saying that's the case with these two projects (although Ward 4 Councilman De'Keither Stamps has a point when he rhetorically asks how long we've been building on Yazoo clay, and how much longer we're going to accept its existence as one of these unfortunate, unforeseen problems work crews run into).

The soft soil under Capitol Street and the cost run-ups on Fortification Street (see "Federal Money Restarts Projects," page 9) may be totally legitimate. The point is, we will never know if the matter isn't brought before the council in a timely enough manner that the problem can be talked out and resolved before approving additional money.

And never mind that this funding wasn't coming out of City of Jackson coffers. Even federal dollars come from somewhere, and whether it came from the luxury tax on the New York Yankees' extravagant payroll or a midwestern family's hard-earned income tax, it's all coming from the same pie that can only be sliced so many times.

The real issue here is that the emergency items truncate the process, and that process isn't in place because it doesn't work—it's there because it does work. To date, this council has proved itself to be open, aggressive and forthcoming with constructive criticism, but they aren't firefighters. They can't be effective if they are asked to do their job with no preparation and adequate time to make educated decisions.

It's hard work being responsible for all the moving parts of a city of 175,000, and sometimes things fall through the cracks. That's why it must be high priority for this mayor to be ever-vigilant, and keep himself—and this city council—out of crisis mode. The council and the citizens deserve ample notice to consider important requests; they must not be procrastinated.

Councilman Melvin Priester Jr. was right when he said that, with emergency items, "we're missing a real opportunity to hear the people's voice." He sounds like another Ward 2 councilman we remember ... right, Lumumba?