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A CLARION LEDGER article dated 1/12/01, titled, “Panel calling for MDOT reform,” concerning the findings of the Joint Legislative Committee chaired by Representative J.P. Compretta, then Chairman of the House Transportation Committee, and Representative Billy McCoy, then Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, stated as follows:
The study panel found the current elected commissioner systems has not produced the needed environment for proper management…
There’s a need to hire a professional executive manager who can bring valid management information in to the decision-making process to determine the state’s transportation needs…
The panel recommended that the Governor appoint the MDOT commissioners with the concurrence of the Senate.
Senate Effectively Kills MDOT Reform Legislation
Senate Allies of MDOT Defeat Extensive Work by House, PEER, and Citizens to Reform an Agency Racked by Demonstrated Incompetence and Mismanagement
A SUN HERALD article dated 1/17/01, titled, “Remaking MDOT won’t be rushed, key senator says.” The article went on to say that Senator Bob Dearing, chairman of the Senate Highway Committee said about the proposal to change the Transportation Commission from an elected to an appointed commission:
If a bill does come over (from the House) certainly we’ll look at it, but I doubt very seriously if we’d take it up during the session. It probably is something we need to study in the interim so we would have a decent amount of time to work on.
He said the Senate has not generally supported switching from elected to appointed public officials.
Dearing is an appointee of Lt Governor Amy Tuck. (I sent Lt. Governor Amy Tuck an e-mail dated 3/23/01, and asked for her support of the MDOT reform measure, with Senator Dearing, which apparently did no good.)
A SUN HERALD article dated 1/21/01, revealed that Compretta said, in regard to Dearing’s comments about needing more time to study the issue, “proposals to change the commission have been studied and studied and studied over the years.”
A SUN HERALD article dated 2/2/01, titled “House OKs MDOT bill,” bylined, “Overhaul faces Senate foes,” revealed that the House voted 102-19 to reform MDOT by making the MDOT Commissioners appointive rather than elective. The bill also placed additional requirements on MDOT, among which would require MDOT to create a master budget keep better contract records, tighten cost projections, and build roads in longer segments.
A SUN HERALD article dated 3/7/01, titled “MDOT bill scaled back by senators,” revealed that the bill was watered down to the point of being rather useless with the most important issue, the changing of the MDOT Commissioners from elective to appointive positions, being eliminated. However, the article stated that, “Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, sparked an hour’s worth of fiery debate when he urged senators to consider the original bill y House Transportation committee Chairman J.P. Compretta, rather than a version rewritten by a Senate panel. Bryan said:
The notion that there is any plan, that there is any vision, that there’s any concept of where we ought to be headed is wrong. They (MDOT officials) can’t see past next Tuesday.
MDOT has failed to build needed roads on the Coast and elsewhere, in Mississippi, after promising to do so for years. Appointing commissioners is the only hope for change.
Even after Senator Bryan’s valiant effort to bring a sense of right and wrong to the Senate, according to the article, “Only seven senators voted with Bryan against the Senate’s version of the bill, including ONE from the Coast, Sen. Debbie Dawkins of Pass Christian.
Compretta said, “I’m disappointed, especially that the South Mississippi delegation didn’t stand up and express by that vote what we’re facing down in South Mississippi.” One South Mississippi Senator said, “the vote was a bow to practical politics.”
Citizens from South Mississippi should be more than disappointed in their Senators, They should be outraged. If you are from South Mississippi and your Senator is not Debbie Dawkins, then it appears that your senator bowed to “practical politics,” rather than take a courageous stand for the public interest and the citizens are now paying for that.
However, Harrison County and some of its public officials were consoled by the booby price awarded to them, by Senator Dearing, in the 2001 legislative session. It was the approval of $20 million in bonds for the State to buy the rail road that extends north to Hattiesburg from Gulfport. Also, this led to the Port spending another $500,000 in feasibility studies to buy the railroad that was not for sale. In addition, Butch Brown who is from Dearing’s home town of Natchez, was appointed Executive Director of MDOT. So much for the reform of MDOT. 10 |
