Well, here it is, the end of summer, not the heat mind you, but basically we are nearing the end of the growing season. The grass on Highway 49 has yet to be cut by the Mississippi Department of Transportation. We were told that MDOT crews would cut it twice a year. This time even Interstate 55 is lacking in visual appeal. But I-20 sure does look nice from Forest over to Newton where mowing has been done.
We called the Jackson office of the Mississippi Department of Transportation (601- 359-7000) to find out how to get on the list to get grass cut in an area, and they said the folks in McComb (601-684-2411) do that but those folks don’t answer calls.
They go to an answering machine. Maybe if the staff worked all day it would be taken care of. We tried twice and left messages in McComb and Jackson.
Now the City of Magee is having to come out of their own pockets to pay for something that is not their responsibility. According to Mayor Dale Berry, on July 1 this year MDOT was supposed to start keeping the grass cut along Highway 49 through town. Apparently, someone forgot to tell them. Magee hired their own contractor to handle the matter. But the contract does not run from city limit to city limit. If you travel old Highway 49, which many Magee people do, take a look next time you get to the ramp. The signs that say “Don’t Cut or Spray” are almost invisible because of overgrowth and lack of maintenance. In some places on the median in Simpson County the grass, probably Johnson grass, is six feet tall. Trees that have fallen into the right of way have not been cut in over a year and are rotting.
One of the big campaign issues before the last municipal election was property maintenance. How can you expect the community to do their part when the city is not doing a better job of maintaining public property?
It is hard to enforce property maintenance requirements when it doesn’t appear to be important to the state government either.
* * *
County and city leadership have started planning their budgets for the upcoming year.
The county had their first budget workshop on Tuesday of this week.
Normally the process starts with department heads and offices like the tax assessor, chancery and circuit courts submitting their budget requests for the upcoming year. Those are then submitted to the county administrator, who formulates the budget and has the figures from the previous year along with the requests from all the different county operations. Those figures are compiled into the county budget that the supervisors will review to determine what the new budget will be for the upcoming year.
The budget is announced and the public is given the opportunity to voice their opinions if there are any. If there are no objections, the board will vote to adopt the proposed budget. The new budget year will start on October 1 and run through September 30 of the next year.
The city operates in very much of the same manner in regard to their budget. As with the county, the workshops and planning meetings are open to the public.
