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A state-funded project to upgrade an already well-paved north Jackson cul-de-sac that runs by a Mississippi lawmaker’s house will go forward, a group of officials who oversee the project said on Thursday.
Rebekah Staples, the director of the Capitol Complex Improvement District’s Project Advisory Committee, said at the group’s latest meeting that the project to repave the road near the legislator’s home and four other projects the Legislature allocated money for will proceed “as quickly as possible,” though some of the details are still being worked out.
“I respect the Legislature and the governor passing the law,” Staples said. “We’re here to follow the law.”
A Mississippi Today investigation revealed that House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar, a Republican from Senatobia, helped steer $400,000 in state taxpayer funds to repave Simwood Place in Jackson, where he owns a house.
Simwood Place, located in the affluent LoHo neighborhood of northeast Jackson, is roughly one-tenth of a mile long, with only 14 single-family homes.
State lawmakers and the local Jackson City Council member who represents the area previously told Mississippi Today they did not ask state leaders to allocate money for the Simwood Place project. Lamar has declined to answer specific questions about the Simwood project but said any “innuendo of wrongdoing is baseless.”
A spending bill passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Tate Reeves routed projects through the CCID committee. The advisory committee is housed in the Department of Finance and Administration.
DFA is the primary agency responsible for state government financial and administrative operations, including employee payroll, employee insurance and maintaining state buildings. However, the Legislature has also tasked the agency with overseeing some operations of the CCID.
Jackson City Councilwoman Virgi Lindsay is a member of the CCID committee and said she wants the five projects earmarked by the Legislature to proceed, but she does not want the committee to neglect the other projects they are currently overseeing.
The CCID is funded through a 9% sales tax diversion and recommends to DFA and other state leaders which projects to fund. Efforts to expand the CCID and establish a separate court system within it have drawn outcry from several Jackson citizens and officials who view it as a state takeover of the more affluent areas of Jackson and claim the state otherwise gives the city few resources.
Liz Welch, the director of DFA, said at the meeting that the projects the committee has prioritized and the projects the Legislature has appropriated money for will run concurrently with one another.
“We will not let these projects languish,” Welch said. “That’s not what we do. We’re going to come up with an internal process, and of course, we will discuss it with the advisory committee. But we’re going to do both.”
It’s unclear exactly when DFA and the CCID committee will solicit bids for the project, but Staples and Welch said they hope to provide a substantive update to the rest of the committee by its next meeting on January 16.
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