A member of the One Percent Sales Tax Commission awaits information about Jackson streets that have recently been improved using revenue from the city’s one percent sales tax.
Pete Perry, a Belhaven resident and member of the commission, submitted a public record request online to the city of Jackson on Oct. 1 for a list of streets improved and the costs in 2020 and so far in 2021.
“I filed it because I’ve been asking for this information and am being stonewalled,” he said.
Perry said he has asked for the information numerous times, including at the most recent meeting of the commission, because he believes as a commission member he should be knowledgeable about projects the commission oversees and how funds are spent.
The city of Jackson’s Public Records Access Policy states it will “respond to your request within seven (7) working days. Absent any reasonable delays, the City will provide the requested nonexempt public records within seven (7) working days from the date you tender payment of the invoiced fee that is required to reimburse the City for the actual cost of searching, reviewing and/or duplicating and, if applicable, mailing you copies of the requested nonexempt public records.”
Perry plans to meet with the city’s financial officer to get clarification about the commission’s spending.
The Northside Sun requested a list of all work done since the beginning of the One Percent Sales Tax Commission and received a list of 24 projects from 2017-2020.
The list shows these projects and their costs:
- Belhaven Creek (Ward 7), $2.57 million
- Capitol Street (Boling Street to Prentiss Street), (Wards 3 and 5), $6.58 million
- Consent Decree Program Management (all wards), $1.4 million
- Country Club Bridge over Lynch Creek (Ward 4), $450,000
- Eastover Drive Water Line Phase 2 (Ward 1), $1.5 million
- Hawthorn Drive Bridge Replacement (Ward 7), $528,353
- Linde Drive Sewer Emergency (Ward 7), $1.75 million
- Meadowbrook Road (I-55 to West Street) Design (Wards 1, 3 and 7), $302,135
- Medgar Evers Boulevard (Wards 3 and 4), $4.62 million
- Myrtle Street 36-inch Water Main Emergency Repair (Ward 7), $650,000
- Operation Orange Cone–Major Streets Contract (Wards 4, 5 and 7), $4.49 million
- Operation Orange Cone–Residential Streets Contract (all wards), $11.12 million
- Riverside Drive Reconstruction Design (Ward 7), $965,000
- Robinson Road/Woodrow Wilson Avenue Resurfacing – County Match (Wards 3,4 and 5), $1 million
- State Street Resurfacing (Fortification Street to Woodrow Wilson Avenue) (Ward 7), $4.4 million
- State Street Resurfacing (Sheppard Road to Briarwood Drive) (Wards 2 and 3), $318,44
- State Street TIGER Project (Wards 1, 3 and 7), $5 million
- Street Resurfacing Project A (Wards 1 and 7), $9.96 million
- Street Resurfacing Project B (Wards 3,5 and 6), $5.27 million
- West Bank Interceptor (Ward 1), $1.5 million
- West Street Bridge over Town Creek (Ward 7), $688,205
- Woodrow Wilson Avenue Resurfacing Project (I-55 to Mill Street) Design (Ward 7), $295,414
- Woodrow Wilson Avenue Resurfacing Project (Mill Street to Martin Luther King Drive) Design (Wards 3 and 7), $391,970
- Woodway Drive Bridge Replacement (Ward 2), $390,671
The city collects about $1.1 million to $1.2 million every month from 1 percent of sales tax. That does not include sales tax related to hotels, bars or restaurants in the city.
The city dedicates just 1 mill from property taxes to roadwork and that amounts to just $1 million a year, he said. Many years ago, the city once dedicated 12 mills from property taxes to street improvements, he said, noting that the decrease in the tax mills meant the city’s funding for maintenance decreased.
The commission has overseen about 200 lane miles of improvements to city streets, Perry said. The city has about 2,200 lane miles of streets, Perry said, explaining that a mile-long street with two lanes counts as two lane miles.
Perry can name some of the streets covered in the first $11.1 million round of funding, but not all.
“The city has never produced a list and said, ‘Here it is,’” he said. “In that first round of streets, there were a lot of neighborhood streets done,” he said. “They might have done two blocks here, a side street there. There was no rhyme or reason about how they picked streets. They never gave us a list.”
When the Two Mississippi Museums (the Mississippi Museum of History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum) were set to open in December 2017, the commission agreed to fund improvements to sections streets near the museums such as North, Amite and Mississippi streets.
High Street, which extends on the north side of the state Capitol, was improved, too. “It was in terrible shape,” Perry said.
In 2017 and 2018, the commission took a less scattered approach to selecting streets to improve, Perry said. Ridgewood Road from Parham Bridges north to County Line Road, Briarwood Drive from North State Street to the I-55 frontage road were improved along with McRaven Road, Raymond Road and a portion of Gallatin Street in south Jackson.
In 2017, the commission spent $4 million on two or three streets in Fondren and a section of Bailey Avenue, he said.
In 2019 and 2020, the commission saw $15 million worth of improvements made to Canton Mart Road from Ridgewood Road to the I-55 frontage road, Northside Drive from Old Canton Road to Ridgewood Road, Pear Orchard Road from Old Canton Road to County Line Road Lakeland Drive from I-55 to Old Canton Road and Jefferson Street from Fortification Street to Gillespie Street as well as a section of Bailey Avenue, Clinton Boulevard, Sykes Road, Wheatley Street, Rainey Road, Bailey Avenue, Gallatin Street, Raymond Road, McDowell Road, Oak Forest Road and Belvedere Drive.
The commission has been able to make its funds go further by using them to match dollars from the federal government and improve much of North State Street all the way to West County Line Road.
Work is under way to replace the bridge on Hawthorn Drive.
Perry expects the improvement project on Riverside Drive from Peachtree Street to the I-55 bridge to get under way in the middle of November and take 15 months.
Six feet of the roadbed will be removed and replaced with new dirt, he said. On the south side of the street, an 18-inch water line that is said to be 100 years old will be replaced. On the north side of Riverside Drive, a 36-inch sanitary storm sewer line that is 60 years old will be replaced.
Two live oak trees in the median will be removed, and several trees by the elementary school will be taken out.
Riverside Drive will be built back with just one lane on the north side of the median and one lane on the south side of the media, Perry said. “It will return Riverside into being a neighborhood street instead of a cut through,” he said.
Bids await to be taken on a $1.8 million project to improve Meadowbrook Road from North State Street to I-55, he said.
Most of the major arterial streets in the city have been improved using funds from the sales tax, Perry said.
“There are a few that could be addressed,” he said, naming Old Canton from Ridgewood Road to County Line Road, the southern part of Ridgewood Road and a large part of McDowell Road in south Jackson.
Perry believes selecting individual neighborhood streets to improve will be difficult.
“How do you keep track of one street that’s worse than another?” he asked. “How do you pick which one ought to be done? How do you compare this neighborhood to that neighborhood?”
Perry tries to drive on every street that is on the commission’s agenda if he receives notice before a meeting so he can judge for himself the condition, see if it would benefit from being part of a larger project or if a neighborhood would be better served by having a different street improved.
