An election is the most effective way for voters to break up cliques of city council members or board of supervisors who vote together regardless of the issue, according to one longtime expert on Mississippi politics.
“I used to teach city-county management and I ran across a study that said you’ll have differences of opinion,” said Marty Wiseman, Ph.D., emeritus professor of political science and emeritus director of Mississippi State University’s John C. Stennis Institute of Government and Community Development.
“The healthiest is when there are differences among different people. The unhealthiest is when you have a permanent split. It’s when you have the same three people split from the same four people on a seven-member board on every issue that comes up. That’s a sign of a deeper problem.
“A lot of times people don’t like each other and that starts to affect decision-making. You want a healthy debate on a council or board, just as long as you’ve got two on one side and three on the other, for example, and it changes.”
Last month, the Jackson City Council split when they voted several times about extending a one-year emergency contract with Richard’s Disposal. The impasse left residents without curbside pick up of their garbage for two weeks and forced them to dump it themselves or pay one of the entrepreneurs who established trash collection services.
Virgi Lindsay of Ward Seven, Angelique Lee of Ward Two, Brian Grizzell of Ward Four voted in favor of extending the contract, while Ashby Foote of Ward One, Vernon Hartley Sr. of Ward Five and Aaron Banks of Ward Six voted against it. Kenny Stokes of Ward Three abstained as he often does. Banks finally gave in and voted in favor of the contract while Foote and Hartley never changed their vote and Stokes abstained.
Wiseman said a permanent split on a board or council is difficult to mend and often recurs.
“Whether the issue is garbage or drainage on the streets you’ll have the same group opposing the other group,” he said.
Often when the Hinds County Board of Supervisors vote, Robert Graham of District One and David Archie of District Two will vote together in opposition of proposals by Credell Calhoun of District Three, Vern Gavin of District Four and Bobby “Bobcat” McGowan of District Five.
Pete Perry, a Jackson resident, said he is not worried about the way the city council and the Hinds County Board of Supervisors split their votes on issues.
“I think that’s democracy,” said Perry, who speaks from experience as he is a member of the city’s One Percent Sales Tax Infrastructure Commission. “People are elected to do what they think is right.”
In the case of the Jackson City Council, the duties of the council members are defined just as those of the mayor are defined, Perry said. Only the mayor can bring a contract forward for the council to vote on, he said, and it is the mayor’s responsibility to do that, he said.
Wiseman believes the longer a split on a council or board goes on the more set in concrete it becomes and the deeper the split grows.
He is unsure that elected officials can be taught to compromise, although it’s sometimes worth a try. “They may end up shaking hands and walking out the door but it’s not a be all and end all solution,” he said
City and county leaders, unlike many members of the Legislature who carry out their duties in Jackson during the session and then head home on the weekend, are on their home turf more and that makes a difference, he said.
“Members of the Legislature may get in a spat and then go home for the weekend and come back to Jackson,” he said. “City and county government officials and their friends and supporters live around each other, and it’s a 24-hour opportunity to be crossed up.”
Wiseman recalled that several years ago the town of Ecru in Pontotoc County in north Mississippi almost ceased to exist because of a disagreement among leaders that could not be solved and, to make matters worse, the leaders didn’t pay the town’s bills.
“The law says you have to pay the bills,” he said. “They were within days of losing the town’s incorporation. They were literally going to let it go out of existence.”
As Wiseman recalls, the ballot box took care of things and new leaders were voted into office.
