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Public Feedback on MSMS Overwhelmingly Favors MUW · Between the Headlines: Columbus

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: From the opinion page of the Commercial Dispatch.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: This is Between the Headlines.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: This is Peter Imes, publisher of the Dispatch.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: One of our hosts of Between the Headlines is the managing editor of our newsroom.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: Typically we try to keep news and opinions separate, but reporters have a unique insight into the workings of local government and their analysis can be helpful for readers and listeners.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: The dispatch remains committed to journalistic integrity and our reporting will always reflect that.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: And now Between the Headlines.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Today on Between the Headlines, we are pleased to have City Attorney Jeff Turnage, who has in his hands a stack of emails overwhelmingly in favor of leaving MSMS right where it is.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Sid Salter has words about that, and so do we Also.
• 1:02
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• 2:00
  Speaker 2: This episode of Between the Headlines is brought to you by Bank First, the locally owned bank that makes decisions right here at home by people who understand the needs of our community.
• 2:08
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• 2:35
  Speaker 2: You are listening to Between the Headlines and today we are pleased to have City Attorney Mr Jeff Turnage in our midst and he's going to join us for this discussion that we have.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the program, sir.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Thank you, you're looking well today.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: I'm surprised you decided to come on here and be among the riffraff of Columbus, as we talk about it.
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: I actually enjoyed listening to your podcast.
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: I didn't know what I would think of it when it first started, but I admire the dispatch for putting this on.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that.
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: I think you're getting a lot of public support, and people that may not necessarily want to sit and read a paper are listening to this, and I think it's a good thing, so I appreciate the invitation to be here.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Well, I'd like to jump right in here and just kind of what we're talking about today.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: You were the one who put in the public records request to get the public input on the proposals for MSMS.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: The W put out a proposal and MSU put out a proposal to host MSMS.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: You got the public input from that.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: You've been a very strong public advocate for MSMS and keeping MSMS here since well, since the debate of relocation started, but really even you were supportive of the school well before that.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: What's your involvement with the school?
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: What's the reason that you're really out front supporting MSMS?
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: You know, I'll start out by saying I would have never been considered for acceptance at MSMS.
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: I sent some money over there to their entrepreneurial program.
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: I heard about it and they asked me would I consider supporting that contest they had and coaching some of their entrepreneurial kids?
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: And I agreed to do that, and before long now I'm sucked in.
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: They want me to come down there and present the award at the end of it, and what I told them is I'm not like you all.
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: I graduated at the top of the bottom third of my high school, and that's the truth.
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: Anyway, my dad and mom were really smart.
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: My dad graduated from high school valedictorian in Grenada and went to Annapolis, and my mother graduated from the W and then went on to Peabody and had her master's in art, and I was taught to use proper grammar from the time I could start talking.
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: I hear you, I'm not a scientist, not a mathematician, but I really think a lot of the school.
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: I think it was the best, one of the best moves the legislature's ever made, and so I've supported it because it needs the support.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: That's it, basically well, when you, when you uh got that public feedback, it was pretty obvious that it was very, very one-sided, even if you weren't counting it out.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: But the count out was 185 to 3 pro-MUW, or pro-keeping it in MUW.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, were you surprised by that?
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: What did that say to?
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: you.
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: Yes, I was surprised that it was that lopsided, but, as I heard on this podcast and other places, the fix was in.
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: They already knew what they were going to do.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: I believe that, and I think they crammed the proposal process into just a small window, assuming they give people not enough time to respond and then they got an overwhelming response in favor, so they just ignored it.
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: I thought that there would be more support for keeping it here, because it's just so much more logical, but I didn't expect it to be like this.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's 185 people in five days.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: That's a lot.
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: I was really suspicious of the whole process and that's why I sent the public record request in.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: And there were only three eyesayers, right, only three.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: And you had a handful of people that were like this whole process is stupid, you need to just start over, right?
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: And then 183 people.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: You just need to leave the thing alone, and then three little old people.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Three little old people taking the politician's side on this.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: What does that say to you?
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: Well, it seems rather compelling to me, the public, the sentiment of the people that have knowledge about it, and these are not just random people.
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: The vast majority were either people that have lived in both places or gone to school at State and MSMS People that have lived in both places or gone to school at State and MSMS.
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: There's students there, there are graduates of there, there are alumni of there, parents of there, and they're all saying don't mess with it because it's working so well.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: And they all gave the same four or five basic arguments over and over and over again, uniquely phrased in their own way.
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: It wasn't any sort of canned responses at least the way I read them, It'd be one thing to think, well, this was some sort of organized thing, but it wasn't that at all, because some of them were three pages long, some were two sentences long.
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: Some said if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: Others had 40 reasons why to leave it.
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: So I just think it was people that were aware that wanted to express their concern.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: But the prevailing themes were cost difference, obviously, the identity of the school and how that would be affected by any affiliation with SFCSD, and I'm trying to remember the third one that was intermingling the kids with an SEC campus.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the safety issue was the third one.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: That was really those three really stuck out in just about every response in some way or another.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: Let me ask you this Am I crazy, or did the revelation of these emails put Nora Miller into beast mode, like she has come alive since this stuff has come out?
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: Well, I'm glad to hear that it put me in beast mode a bit when I read and reread it.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: and read it the third time.
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: He didn't really write that out.
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: Scratch his chin.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about that.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you were talking about how this looked.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Organic to you, seemed organic to me too.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Mr Salters' response at MSU seems to disagree with that.
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: Oh boy, yeah, I don't know.
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: I thought isn't he a PR guy?
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Sid Salter is the vice president of strategic communication and very strategic communication director of the office of public affairs at msu so sid salter.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: They might need to take a continuing ed from his lofty balcony, his palace over there in starkville, he looks over to the east, toward us, toward the parents of MSMS kids, and he sticks a big, fat middle finger and he says you know what?
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: What you have to say doesn't matter, we know better than thee.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: All right, here's the words.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: All right, hear that sound right there.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: That's the dispatch.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Just so you know.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: This is not the Babylon Bee, this is not the onion.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Here we go.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: He says, quote there is nothing remotely scientific about this input that reflects an accurate measure of perfect of public opinion.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: It appears to be the result of an organized effort to generate the appearance of public support.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: End quote.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: You slipped into a little British there.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: I think that Sid is from central Mississippi.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: I don't care.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: This is the same guy.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Are you sure he's advocating for higher gas taxes?
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: This is the same guy that smokes a cigarette on a stick, like Cruella DeVille.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: He says you people can go sit up in the 300 section of davis wade stadium.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: You can eat your stale nachos, you can drink diet pepsi.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: You people of columbus, you planters of odd foliage, he knows what's best for our lads and lasses.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm interested in, Jeff, your take on Sid's words.
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: I'm going to give him credit for being right about one thing it really did create the appearance of public support for leaving it here.
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: But you can subtract everything else out and put that in the BS column, because I mean, it got worse.
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: You read just the good part.
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, at first of all he thought it was some sort of orchestrated thing.
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: I don't believe that you read the emails and they came from.
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: Here's one.
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: Here's one from a woman living down in Jackson, adeola Abadili.
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: I don't know what, but she graduated from Athens High School in 07, went to Mississippi State, graduated in 12, went to Vanderbilt in 15, is a chemical and biomolecular engineer.
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: She's a smart lady and she concludes by saying it's a top-tier high school that garners state and national attention year after year, and goes on.
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: I won't bore anybody that wants to find them.
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: I assume with a dispatch link where people can read them.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's already up.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, we're going to post the link on the teaser on the link to this.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: We're going to make access to these emails readily available.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Well, I interviewed Nora Miller once I got my hands on these, looked through them, was talking to her about them.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: First of all, she bowed up a little more than she has in the past with her statements, much more definitive than maybe she had been before, much more forceful.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: But one thing that she said that I thought, or two things that she said that stuck out to me.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: One if you look at MSU's proposal, it's all about SOCSD and MSU.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: It's not really about MSMS at all.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: And the second thing she said was, while she was surprised somewhat that there was so little pro-MSU public input in this process that she thought it showed a lack of energy and a lack of interest, she wasn't sure that Starkville cared whether it came over there or not.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Is that your takeaway there?
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: No, that's not my takeaway.
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: I think they're aiming to get it takeaway there.
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: No, that's not my takeaway.
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: I think they're aiming to get it.
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: And if you listen to at least the rumors about Rob Robertson, he thinks it's a done deal already and then people need to just get ready for it to happen.
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: I got news for that fella.
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: I hope the news is what I hope it is.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Well, how does?
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Ok, so I want to.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: I want to back up here.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about the sort of the public effort to rally around MSMS and the leadership of it from the W up until this point.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: So I want to start there.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: How do you think that's going?
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: I don't really want to criticize the W or Nora Miller, but I think they should have come out a little more aggressively rather than say well, if we lose it, we'll make another plan, because that's not the right strategy.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the thing, not the way I get it when I'm arguing with somebody, even though I'm in an argument.
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: I don't get that.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: There's no plan B, Like if this is going to be the way, we're going to go this way and you need to catch on, Not, we might go this way, but if we don't go this way, there's this other way.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Is that what I'm hearing?
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: That's kind of the way I heard it and I don't know.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: That's kind of the way I heard it and I don't know Well now.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: So what needs to happen now and how effective can the W, can Columbus, can the 185 people who wrote in?
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: How effective can they still be in this argument, or do you feel like it's going down in a blaze of glory at this point?
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: You mean, do I think that the deal is done have?
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: There's nothing else we can do about it, so we should we just give up?
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: well, no, I mean, obviously you don't think you should give up, or you wouldn't be going through, uh, through this effort.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: But what?
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: How can this be leveraged?
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: How can this be harnessed to actually stop the relocation, if, if?
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: well, you asked me that.
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: I think the answer is the state board of education has no authority to do it at all.
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: So the answer is with the legislature.
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: And uh, I started I don't know.
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: Back in may I wrote every member of the house and senate Education Committee a long letter and attached articles from the dispatch.
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: Ninety-three percent of students surveyed at MSMS favor leaving it there.
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: Weinstein wins the history state wrestling state championship.
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: Another kid won a tennis championship and they won a science competition.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: I think we just have to sell it to the legislature.
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: Why would we only take all this money, give it to Starkville to build a school?
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: You're not giving money to every other place in the state to build a school?
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: And why would you uproot what's working to conduct an experiment, whether it would work over there or not, at a hundred million dollar price tag?
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: what do you think that the pr firm that they're dude I I see this thing clipping a quarter of a billion before it's over.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: Have you seen where they're?
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: gonna put it.
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: The figures they quoted been 80 something million.
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: So I'm rounding it up to 100.
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, 100.
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: If you want to make it a billion, whatever works, I guess.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Well, what do you think about the PR firm that County City's throwing in for MUW Foundation?
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Do you think that that effort to make it more of a statewide conversation is going to be helpful?
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Do you think it can move the needle?
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think so.
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: If you know, a lot of people say lobbyists and PR firms are ineffectual.
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: I don't think that's true.
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: If I go down there to Jackson and knock on the door, I probably will be denied entry if they don't know who I am or I didn't give to their campaign.
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: So I think it'll be helpful.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Well, let me back up and ask you this, trying to look at it from the other perspective Do you feel like Mississippi State University could and would be stewards in good faith to that school.
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: I think they in good faith hope that those students, if they go to school there at MSMS at state will ultimately enroll at MSU for college and then that will ultimately benefit MSU.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Hook and sinker.
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: I think that it's secondary to the interest of the students, but I could be wrong on that.
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: I'm just, you know, I'm just aggravated at the whole idea of it, when you know here we are neighbors basically trying to pick at each other and it's working so well.
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: Why are you going to do that?
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: And it's working so well.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Why are you going to do that?
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Well, how integral do you think MSMS being here is to the future of MUW as a whole and its identity?
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: I'm worried a lot about it.
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: As I understand it, there are not enough students to keep the cafeteria open, for example, if you don't have MSMS.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: So if that's true and I don't know if it is or not but if that's true and they close the cafeteria and you're an MUW on-campus student, that's not as appealing as if you have a cafeteria, for example.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Well, for example, that bill that came out a couple of sessions ago that at first was going to relocate MSMS to MSU and then it was amended to put MUW under the MSU banner.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Do you think that's coming?
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: No, I don't think Starkville MSU wants the W.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: I could be wrong on that too.
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: I guess they've studied it.
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: They came up with a name for it.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I can't imagine why they would want it.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: You know They've got plenty to manage and it's all fun and games, in my opinion, until they start messing with our kids and they start infringing upon our interests here.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: To me, I feel disrespected by the whole process.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: It's almost like well, I'll put it to you this way the good people of Columbus founded Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College way back in the day.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: We sent them their first president, lest they forget.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: And here we are, in the year 2025.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: I will tell you, jeff, I don't think it's a done deal at all, because if you look at those emails and you see what kind of support is behind keeping it here, I don't see how the politicians are going to buy into this.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: It is a boondoggle.
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: You could be right.
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: The other thing is, according to this letter and I know it's true because I've talked to some of the MSMS kids when I coached that entrepreneurial contest MSMS already has a relationship with MSU doing adjunct research over there, so that program can exist without it having to be uprooted.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Well, what do the letter writers, people of Columbus, people who want to keep this, what do they do?
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Now, in your mind, if you were leading the charge, where are you taking them?
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: What are you telling them to do?
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: I have not written to all the House and Senate members in the universities and colleges, so that may be another task.
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: I don't know that they read their letters because I've only gotten one response to all of the letters I've written.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Who responded?
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: I think it was Senator DuBois, his vice chairman.
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: He said he's for leaving it where it is.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: DuBois.
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: I believe I'm right on that.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: I'll have to go back and check.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: I want to see that Because I thought he was one of the guys trying to turn this into a hobby horse I may have the name wrong.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: It's been weeks and weeks.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: He's the chair of that committee.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: He's the vice chair.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: That sent me back.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right.
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: So that would be interesting if the chairman and the vice chairman disagree.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: So tell me about this.
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: I don't know if you want to go into this, but tell me about this second part of your public records request that you're still waiting for.
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: Well, I figured the public comment would be one thing, but I was interested in who the board members might have been emailing back and forth with about this, so I asked for all their emails between them and themselves and them and anybody else about MSMS for the last three years and text messages.
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: And then I got a quote for $756.
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: So I mailed them a check.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: Okay, waiting to see what comes.
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: Good grief, I predict probably very little.
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: They will spend all that time looking for it but they won't find anything.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: It's a shame you can't send a public records request for their signal account.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: You know those under the table kind of messages, because those are the ones I'm worried about.
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, they probably don't record their conversation, so we won't be able to know what that is.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: They probably got into a glass chamber to talk about this deal.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Well, is there anything you want to add, Jeff?
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: Nope, I think that's more than I probably should have said.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Well, we really appreciate you coming on.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: I do, and I appreciate your, your role as the city attorney.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: I know we didn't talk about this episode.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: You probably don't want to.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: I do have one question about that All right, go ahead.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: He's giving me the look.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Has there ever been a meeting where you left that meeting and you're just like man, I need to go get hammered Probably more than one, and I don't think any of them would be mad at me for saying it we appreciate you coming on the program.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, you've been listening to between the headlines with our special guest today, city attorney mr jeff turnage, appreciate y'all have me now.
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• 23:46
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• 23:51
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• 24:07
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• 24:18
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• 24:21
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• 24:26
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• 24:28
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• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Fast, reliable towing and roadside help whenever you need it, whether it's a breakdown or a lockout.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: Call 662-251-9004 and get moving again.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Holy cow, dude, I felt like I was in the presence of, like, maybe, teddy Roosevelt, like he spoke very, very softly, but that stick was amazing.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: He was wielding Lucille off of the Walking Dead.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: And I'm telling you something those emails are really going to hurt the political cause of those who are pushing to get this thing dug up and moved over there.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: You know there's nothing more fickle than a nervous legislator, and if they get enough of them that don't want to hear this anymore, they'll drop it.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: That's where Norm Miller comes in.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: That's where the W alumni comes in.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: The W alumni are notorious for I mean historically notorious, and legislators have told me this since I've come to Columbus is the last person that you want to look out your window and see is a line of W alumni coming to complain to you about something.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: And I had one legislator told me I literally hid behind my desk one time when that happened.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: So I bet that group needs to be leveraged.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: They need to be leveraged now.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: And I think I mean and Nora Miller's the one to do it and let me tell you something I have been, I've been critical and I think rightfully so of sort of the tepid, almost noncommittal nature of her stance on MSMS, the paper from a couple of days ago about this issue with the public input.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: She really turned the page on that and came out swinging a little harder than she has in the past, and I think that she takes that mindset to the alumni, mobilizes them, lets them know hey, we've got an existential crisis on campus to the W.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: We cannot lose MSMS.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Let's go keep it.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Well, I have a feeling that that's the best bullet Columbus still has.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: That's the best that Columbus still has to keep the fix from being in here, and I think that it could be effective.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: And I think that those 185 letters yeah, and.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: I think that it could be effective and I think that those 185 letters show how effective that a good, solid, linear argument could have in this.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Well, those emails are enough to scare anybody who is wanting to be a political boogeyman.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: In this ordeal OK, you look at it, man.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: In this ordeal Okay you look at it We've got the city of Columbus, having given $15,000-ish, likewise with Lowndes County, and so you've got this PR stuff.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: They're going to be stirring up the alumni too all over the state of.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Mississippi.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: So I do not think for one second that Columbus is going to go quietly in the night.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: And I was just sitting here I was looking at Jeff and he had all these emails and he was just very gently and quietly peeling through them.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: I'm like man, that's powerful stuff.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: And I'm more optimistic and I think Sid Salter needs to keep running his mouth because he is going to set people's hair on fire.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: That holier than thou, mightier than you are, kind of attitude I love it.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Just keep that coming.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: look I I understand why you feel that way.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Um I, I and I don't intend to make you mad when I say this, david I am going to defend his position a little bit here, not because I agree with it, but because I mean David, given who he is on the game board here, what was he supposed to say?
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: I?
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: understand.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: He's got a job to do and he's doing the job.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: He's doing whatever Mark Keenum tells him to do.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: I get that, that's what he's supposed to do, but I think he needs to stand on principle here.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: I think he needs to look at this for what it is what do you think?
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: his principles are, though?
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: He believes in his university, and he believes that his university is the best home for MSMS.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: So, hell yeah, he's going to say that, but why?
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: is he going to?
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Send you an is what he believes we're such a great university, we're going to go over to Columbus and gobble up their stuff too.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: I'm telling you, dude, they need to mind their own business.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: I'm right there on the edge of wanting to sell my tickets, Zach.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Well, that's up to you.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: I don't want to renew I probably will, but I just don't know I'm a Razorback fan so I don't have tickets there, but I don't, ok.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: So one thing that I think has been a weakness of the Columbus community fervor in this argument is being kind of borne out right here, and I understand why somebody from Columbus would get offended by his statements because they do not see it the way that he sees it and I don't.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: I believe that MSMS should stay here.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: I'm on the record saying that and I believe that.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: But I think a weakness in the Columbus fervor on this and Lowndes County fervor on this is there hasn't been enough recognition of who everybody is on the board and what they're supposed to be doing.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: And I think that there's a lot of feelings hurt at MSU.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of feelings hurt at Starkville and because, very close to the issue, very MSMS is here.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: That's a community identity thing.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Starkville doesn't see it that way, msu doesn't see it that way.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: They do not see themselves that way.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: They do not see themselves as the villain, they see themselves as somebody, that of entities that are trying to enhance the educational value of msms or socsd.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Now that's.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: That's a weird thing.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: But um, ain't it though.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Um, it's a weird thing but you can't come at somebody expecting them to be where you want them to be, like I expect.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: I want to hit you.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: I want to hit you right here and I don't expect you to duck.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Well, of course they're gonna duck and of course they're gonna be where they're supposed to be.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: On the game board, sid salter is going to advocate for mississippi state university.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: That's what he gets paid to do and more than that, he believes it.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: And why wouldn't he?
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Why wouldn't he believe it?
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: For the same reason that the people who believe in the W believe in the W, the same reason that people who believe in Columbus and Lowndes County believe in Columbus and Lowndes County, because that's their people, that's their institution.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: So to summarize what you're saying my tax dollars are paying for both of these institutions to fight each other.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: Well, well spent, well spent.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying that I don't know, like, why anybody is surprised at that response, because what else was he going to say?
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: He could have just minded his business and not sent you an email.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: You know, I'll get back to you on that.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: I'll get back to you on that, Zach.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: I want to.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: I want to just say that the fact that he bellied up and commented on questions that he did not want to answer, I do respect him for that.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: He's got a pair.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: As I respect Jeff Tarnage when he's done it, as as I respect Jeff Tarnage when he's done it, as I respect anybody when they do it.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: So I like comments better than no comments 100% of the time.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: All right, you are listening to Between the Headlines, with Zach and a very fired up David today.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: Let's move along, shall we?
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: Okay?
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: no-transcript.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: During the work session in the city council today, kevin Stafford presented a proposal kind of a nifty deal where he and they didn't vote on it today, it was just a work session Presented a proposal from a company that would essentially run a souped-up van with a bunch of instruments down all of the city, maintained streets, fancy.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: While they're driving down there it would pick up all of the data that they would need for road condition.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: That's going to make people nervous if they see that coming by their house.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, probably so, but I don't guess it would be here long.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: I don't guess it would take too terribly long to do it.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: This is something that they used to have to take a man out there to do by hand, and it's not.
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: That's not nearly as efficient as this.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: So I guess it'll like scan the pavement to see if it's got empty places underneath it and see if this road's getting ready.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, rough spots, the integrity of the road, you know the condition of the pavement, all of that, and then the size of the road and those types of things, and then you know the back end of that.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Then, neal Schaefer, if the city council goes with this and lets this data be taken this way, then the city would have that data.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: Kevin and Stafford and Neal Schaefer could bring out a variety of plans with us, like, okay, if we want to do, a variety of plans with us like, okay, if we want to, uh, if, if we want to do, if we want to bring all of our roads to an a or b grade in the next 10 years, how much would that cost and how could we do it?
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Or what could we do with the money that we know that we have from the internet, use tax, over 10 years, over 15 years, um, different scenarios that they could draw up, and then they could base that on priority and need of a road.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Now, how is that?
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: How that's different from what they've done before is they've pulled maybe one or two high priority roads off the top and then 60, 70 percent of the money that they have to do paving work is divided equally by ward, where the council person themselves has discretion on what gets paved and what doesn't.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Mr Jones, in talking about this issue today, said I hope that if we do this and we get this data, it takes the human hand out of it and maybe we can get to a point to where we're not fighting over road money and we're saying this is our road plan.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: These are the priorities that we've put together based on the data and this is what we're going to do, and I like that better than what's been going on, because what's been going on is inherently political, whether the council members want it to be or not.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: When you say to uh a councilman, here's uh, eight hundred thousand dollars.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Right, here's your list of roads and the condition that they're in, pick which ones you want to pave, that's going to be political on some level even if you're trying to do it in the best faith possible.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: It's still going to be political.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: It's not only political, but you're asking reasonably smart people to talk about things they're not really trained in.
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: OK, not all streets cost the same to resurface.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Not all aggregates are the same.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Some are wider, some are hillier, and Kevin does a good job arming them with that information to the best of his ability.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: But this would be way better.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: It would be way more objective, and I hope in the end, that not only that they go for this street assessment, but that they will operate in a data-driven way, moving forward.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it'll also give the people on Vanessa Poteet's Facebook page.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: You know, they can gripe at the machine, right?
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: They can gripe at the policy or the data.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: You know they're not going to grab Ethel Stewart by the hair and sling her around and say look, this is that pothole's 13th birthday party.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm tired of hearing about all that.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: Sounds like a good thing.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: I hope Stephen Jones does well with this.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope that they go with that and I hope the council will back that approach all the way through through In less pleasant news.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: it looks like waste services are about to go up 84 cents per month per customer.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Is that what it's looking like?
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: That's what it's looking like.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: The Golden Triangle Waste Services, who had to buy a bunch of trucks last couple of years to replace a fleet that was falling apart, is now starting to charge its member entities that's going to be Lowndes County, columbus, octavio, hall County, various entities from across the region A little bit more per household customer going to charge those entities.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: That.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: The entities now have a choice, that the entities now have a choice.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: City of Columbus has a choice to eat that 84 cents, which would, over a year's time, equal about $100,000 in Columbus's case.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: Eat that in whole or in part, or pass it in whole or in part to the customer, and that's what they're debating, right now, I don't see any benefit of the city eating any of that 84 cents, because money is money is money.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: The taxpayers are going to have to cough it up one way or the other, and if the city eats it up, you don't see where it's going, whereas if it's 84 cents added to your bill even though that's not pleasant at least you know what that money's going toward, right?
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when your trash does get picked up.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: I think Rusty Green has been the major proponent for the city eating the $100,000.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: And his rationale, which I understand, is back when Golden Triangle Waste Services went up on them before and it was a considerable amount more that they went up on them before they also cut their service in half.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: In the city they were getting twice a week pickup.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Now they're getting once a week pickup and they're paying more for it.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: And you know that sandpapered Rusty pretty good and now they're coming to raise the rate again and Rusty's trying to think about the customers here and honestly I don't think that the council is unsympathetic to that argument.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: They had very thoughtful discussion about that today, about the practicality of it, and one thing that the mayor is kind of leaning toward is a compromise where they see how much they can absorb practically and then they pass the rest of it on and then that way they're not asking, the city's not having to eat the whole apple and neither is the customer, and that may be the right approach.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: I don't know Well, I mean, the customer has to eat the apple one way or the other, regardless of whose mouth actually bites into it.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting here looking at this and thinking that the city of Columbusumbus is treating the symptom rather than the problem.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: I think the city of columbus has a responsibility to find a way to break up the monopoly.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, there are other options out there.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: They may not be practical right now, but we've got to be looking to the future and we can't be relying upon golden triangle waste services well, with two years ago they they requested proposals from from anybody who would submit one and those proposals.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: The best, highest value proposal was was golden triangle waste services for the customer.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: Well, good, but but the same thing with the uh, the pavement.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, um, nobody wants to be out in the sun building roads or repairing roads in the heat or in the rain, snow, whatever, and not making really good money off of it.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: I get that, but it's an ungodly amount of money that gets poured into these services and we've got to be more creative.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: We need to go out there to the community and say, hey, kid, you need to rent you this piece of equipment and and you come over here, you fill these holes.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: You fill these holes to this specification.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: We'll pay you good money and it won't be nowhere X, y, z contractor and actually save money as opposed to figuring out well, how are we going to, how are we going to pay it.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Well, on the waste services deal, lowndes County was a little less short sighted on it two years ago, because when waste services goes up on one entity, they, they go up on all of their entities, entity they go up on all of their entities.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: When they went up in 2023, lowndes County went up $3 on their customers.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Their customers were paying $12.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: They went up $3 on their customers right then.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: And then when they came up with their more nominal increase this time, they had that built-in flexibility to where the county can eat it, because they went ahead and said okay we kind of see where this is going.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: So we're going to go ahead and start charging this amount, get everybody used to it, get the county used to it.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: And then the other increase, the other incremental increases that may happen over the contract term, which is five years from goes through 28,.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: We'll absorb it and so that was how they did it and the city is in a place where they are reacting to it, increase by increase.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: Well, zach, I just think we've got to be smart with the contracts.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, you think about it if they're allowed to bump up the rate in their contract?
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: And they are On the anniversary of the contract.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: They're probably going to do it.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: They can bump it up every year through 28.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: And you know I'm just thankful to have garbage services.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: Okay, I lived outside of Nashville in a place that did not have those services.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: You had to take your trash to a facility to dump it off and it was absolutely awful and I'll tell you it sounds terrible.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: It was terrible, and a lot of rednecks up there were burning their garbage.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: They just they didn't want to go and put a hole in their tire driving up to that stinky machine, and so I'm just thankful to have garbage services.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: Well, and to that point, I was talking to somebody not too long ago that was talking about the importance of local politics and local news as opposed to, you know, the national and the state level stuff, which is all important.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: But I was talking to the person.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: I was like you know, all news is local and all politics is local.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: And if you don't believe me, wait till they don't come get your trash once, and then you'll understand.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: That's right, because not only will it pile up in your yard, it'll pile up in your neighbor's yard and it'll pile up in the streets and in the gutters and then it'll cause flooding.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: And I'm not even going to go into all that stuff again.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: Hey, this has been a good episode, yeah yeah.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: Enjoyed it.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you've been listening to Between the Headlines with Zach and David, david with the Red Bull in hand.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: I'm exhausted talking about this MSMF, but at the same time, I'm not even started yet.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: I can't wait to see what becomes of all this and I think, the powers that be here uh, nora miller being included in that.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: I think we are well poised and I think it's going to be a battle to the teeth man.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: It's going to be boom.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: What say you?
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: well, um, I don't know.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's going to depend on um how those resources are leveraged.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: But I will say that, in the same spirit that we got Rob Robertson on, I think we ought to invite Sid.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: Sid.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: We may have to tie you to your chair if we do it.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: Be careful how you play with your toys, Sid.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: Your toys see everything.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: I think we need to close the episode.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: Listen.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: We welcome your comments.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: Please send them in Tips at cdispatchcom.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: Again, that is tips at cdispatchcom.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: Like us, share us, rate us.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: You can also follow me on Facebook or X at Dee Chisholm 00.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: Until next week, we're signing off from Catfish Alley Studios here in historic downtown Columbus.
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: Y'all keep it friendly and we'll keep it real opinions expressed on this show are those of the speakers and not necessarily those of the commercial dispatch.