It’s easy to understand the frustration of Marion County residents as they drive down pothole-filled roads on a daily basis and have become so accustomed to them that they know exactly how to swerve to avoid them, as if it’s second nature.
I know because I do it, too. I know the exact path I need to take to get to work to avoid potholes. I know exactly where to swerve on city and county roads alike to avoid the unforgiving depths of those terrible voids where road should be.
I’ve popped my tire driving over a pothole, felt my car start to pull one way or the other because of a deteriorating street and have been utterly floored by the lack of progress. I was one of the Marion County residents who was irate over the state of the infrastructure here.
That was until, however, I became more educated about what I was getting angry about. I began covering Board of Supervisors meetings regularly when former Managing Editor Mark Rogers left The Columbian-Progress. When Rogers was in that post, I read every story he wrote about roads and bridges and the supervisors trying to fix the issue. But it had a tendency to go through one ear and out the other.
When I became the one who had to cover those meetings and get to learn the details about how it all operates, I gained a greater understanding. It’s probably because when it’s your own story, you pay attention to the details more to make you’re reporting accurately.
So I began learning all about the financial challenges they face on a daily basis. We’ve all heard it before, “There just isn’t enough money.” And the reality is that it’s a fact.
The cost of building new roads that will last for any substantial amount of time is astronomical. Just redoing one road can nearly eat a district’s entire budget for the year. If you are one of the concerned citizens that take issue with the infrastructure in Marion County, I implore you to attend a meeting when Engineer Jeff Dungan is meeting with supervisors.
They go over every last dollar being spent on every single project every month. I promise you they are not only aware of the issues, but they really are trying to make the best use of the funds available to them. They are always talking about different strategies and creative avenues they can take to get the most for their money.
And you have to consider that the supervisors have had to deal with the wood-pile bridge crisis, which has been perhaps the largest headache any local government can get slapped with. There was no way for them to plan ahead for the state and federal governments deeming so many bridges unsafe and having them subsequently closed.
I can tell you with absolute certainty that the supervisors have done their part to secure as much federal and state aid to fix the bridges. One by one, the job is getting done. It’s going to take time, as all big projects do, but the bridges will be fixed.
Which brings me back to the roads. There’s only one way Marion County and the state of Mississippi is ever going to get a hold of the infrastructure crisis unfolding beneath our tires, and it’s not the impending lottery. It’s time the 18.4-cent-per-gallon gas tax is raised for the first time in more than three decades.
Only Alaska, Hawaii, Virginia and Missouri have lower gas taxes than Mississippi, and both Virginia and Hawaii have regional gas taxes in specific areas.
As evidenced by a story published in our Thursday edition titled “Weary of potholes,” state politicians love to punt the issues onto the local government. But until Mississippi’s leaders wake up and pass a gas tax, the burden to improve our roads falls at their feet.
Joshua Campbell is sports editor of The Columbian-Progress. Reach him via email at joshuacampbell@columbianprogress.com or call (601) 736-2611.
