Water district taxing draws fire

 
STEVEN A. McCALEB
103 ALVERADO DRIVE
LONG BEACH, MISSISSIPPI 39560
PHONE & FAX: (228)-868-8428
E-MAIL: mccaleb4thdist@aol.com
WEB SITE: www.mississippiwebsite.com

September 9, 2001

L.B. entity can't solve flooding, residents complain

By GEOFF PENDER
THE SUN HERALD

Monday, April 30, 2007

LONG BEACH - Harrison County and Long Beach elected leaders want to do away with or restructure the Long Beach Water Management District, which residents complain has taxed them for years but done little to solve persistent flooding.

People say the district's three commissioners, appointed to indefinite terms by the county Chancery Court, aren't accountable to voters and that the district tax amounts to taxation without representation. Many residents, especially those whose homes and yards flood, are passionate in their criticism of the district.

“What's the chance the city and the (county) Board of Supervisors can get rid of this useless piece of a water management district?” resident Luther Conn Jr. asked city aldermen and county supervisors at a meeting Tuesday. His question drew applause.

“They've charged us all these taxes," he said, "and all they've managed to do is dig a great big hole out by Espy Avenue.”

Harrison County Supervisor Marlin Ladner said, “I think the district should at least be made a little more accountable to the public.”

Ladner proposed last week that the Board of Supervisors ask the Chancery Court and the Legislature to allow the county or Long Beach to take control of the district. The board voted unanimously to make such a request.

Alderman Richard Bennett said he believes the district should be expanded to include the entire county, then placed under the control of the Board of Supervisors. He plans to bring such a resolution before the Board of Aldermen soon.

Michael Wren, who has served as a district commissioner since 1992, says he's heard complaints and talk of shutting down the commission for years and isn't very concerned over them.

“I'm doing this as a public service,” Wren said. “During the course of time I've been serving, I've had people come to me and say, 'Tell me how we can shut this down.' I didn't get on here to shut it down. If you want to shut us down, I'd say go hire yourself a lawyer. . . . People keep complaining. Well, they should work within the framework of the law to get things changed. Sitting back

b------g about it won't change anything.”

"b------g" - "bitching" about it won't change anything.”

District set up to get money

The Long Beach Water Management District was created in 1917 by legislation. Its mission was to oversee construction of the city's two main drainage canals. After World War II, the district became dormant and the canals fell into disrepair.

A chancery judge reincarnated the district in 1983 as a way to try to get federal funds, not then available to cities or counties, to rebuild and maintain the canals. In 1994, the district began taxing more than 4,300 residents living around the canals, including a few households in Pass Christian and Gulfport.

The tax brings in about $135,000 a year. The commission has nearly $500,000 in the bank. It has spent nearly that much to date, much of it on engineering, attorney and appraisal fees, prompting some residents to call it a “cash cow” for lawyers and engineers.

The district's three commissioners are appointed for indefinite terms by the Chancery Court, the only entity to which the commissioners must answer. Commissioners receive no salary, but are paid $40 per district meeting, which is held on the third Thursday of each month. One commissioner recently resigned and has yet to be replaced.

Little done since restored

For more than a decade after being resurrected, the district did little beyond studies and planning, even as area homes flooded when water backed up in the vegetation-choked canals.

In 1997, using $1.2 million in federal tax dollars, the district oversaw a project to clean and widen part of the city's northern canal. But residents complain the work did little to improve drainage and say that stretch of the canal has become a holding pond that is already becoming overgrown with weeds and trees.

“Basically, they spent $1.2 million of our federal tax dollars to dig a pond,” said resident Jim Smith, a retired engineer and vocal critic of the Water Management District. “Until they dig those canals out, all the way to Bayou Portage, Johnson Bayou, you can dig a ditch every 10 feet in this city and will only be wasting taxpayers' money.”

Wren said the process of improving the canals is complicated and takes time, primarily because of all the federal and state environmental red tape involved. Also, he said, the process of buying easements from property owners along the canals is expensive and time-consuming.

Wren said work on the northern canal has not been completed because the district is waiting for the city to buy out flooded homeowners through a federal flood mitigation program. He said the city will then give the easements to the district.

He said the district also plans to work on the southern canal, although he's unsure when that work will be started or completed.

“Frankly, once we get everything in place and ready to go for (the southern canal), we still have to get money from Congress,” Wren said. “I would not venture to guess when that will happen, particularly in this economy.”

Wren said the district often gets blamed for flooding that is caused by Turkey Creek, not the canals it controls.

An engineer hired by the county to plan a way to stop Turkey Creek from flooding northern Long Beach said last week that he thinks the Water Management District's planned canal improvements will be adequate if the Turkey Creek overflow is resolved.

But many residents say that despite big projects to widen them, district canals will always contribute to flooding because they aren't routinely maintained.

“I say abandon the water district, put it under the supervisors, earmark the tax money and put it into an escrow account so that it can't be used for anything but to clean and maintain the canals,” Smith said. “We have a constitution that says we can't be taxed without representation. This water district is a free-standing entity, and I have no vote as a taxpayer to vote them off if I feel like they're not doing their job. Their appointments are perpetual. That's just wrong.”

Geoff Pender can be reached at 896-2329 or at glpender@sunherald.com.