Middleton: First year hasn't been an easy one
Published Sunday, June 28, 2009
NATCHEZ — Mayor Jake Middleton is the first to admit his first year in office has been a tumultuous one.
Three major storms, budget shortfalls, missing project funds and, at times, bickering aldermen top the list of difficulties he has dealt with in his position at the helm of the city.
But he’s also the first to admit there have been valuable lessons to be learned.
Two months into his administration, the 16-year-aldermen-turned-mayor was faced with Hurricane Gustav, which left Natchez in the dark for days.
“That had our backs to the wall,” Middleton said.
And Middleton, along with other city officials, was charged with the responsibility of picking up the pieces in the wake of the storm.
Alderman Mark Fortenbery, who is the chair of public works, said the mayor did a good job staying focused and organized during the aftermath.
“In the first morning after Gustav, he was out there at public works trying to get things ironed out,” Fortenbery said. “He knew the contact people, who to call. I think he handled himself well.”
Middleton said while it took awhile for all debris to be cleared, he said he believes city officials and employees worked incredibly hard to restore the city.
“We did the best we could,” he said.
But like a house of cards, two storms followed Gustav to sweep Natchez to the ground once more.
The Dec. 9 tornado caused nearly as much damage as Gustav and sent public work employees back into crisis mode once more.
The city got the brunt of the damage from that storm, and this time city officials reached out to county officials for help.
Alderman Bob Pollard said that was an excellent example of an improved relationship between the city and county during the first year of Middleton’s administration.
“Supervisor President Henry Watts and Mayor Jake Middleton have a very good working relationship,” Pollard said. “There seems to be a better line of open communication between the city and the county.”
The final storm of the mayor’s first year whipped through in May, again causing much damage to the city.
While storm cleanup from Gustav will be reimbursed, the other two storms will not be reimbursed through state or federal funds, putting a toll on an already strained budget.
The recession that began in late 2008 didn’t make its way to Natchez’s sales tax revenues until earlier 2009.
And sales tax revenue fuels the general fund, which had been hit hard with the three storms.
So in preparation for hard fiscal times, the mayor and the board of aldermen began going through the budget with a fine-toothed comb looking for places to cut.
What they found was a budget that has been quite a mess for several years.
Unaccounted, non-repayable interfund loans from department to department left the budget with large non-traceable holes, causing the city to borrow money with tax anticipated loans to make up deficits from unwise spending.
Now Middleton said he has some new goals for keeping the budget in line.
“In my 17 years with the board of aldermen, I’ve never seen a board so involved in a budget as this administration,” he said.
And stemming from such heavy involvement is the desire to keep a sharp eye on expenditures and learn how to save.
Middleton’s ultimate goal is to work toward building up a rainy day fund, which the city has been without for years.
City Clerk Donnie Holloway said he has had many conversations with Middleton about establishing a rainy day fund.
“I want to get to a point where we don’t have to borrow money to make it to the end of the year — that’s my first goal,” Middleton said.
Another quite large hiccup in the mayor’s first year is the $1.3 million overlay of Franklin, St. Catherine, Martin Luther King Jr. and Homochitto streets.
A letter of intent from the Mississippi legislature said $1.3 million had been appropriated to the Mississippi Development Authority.
Pleased to have received the money, the project was bid out and completed before the board realized it had to apply for the money and that the funds might not be available after all.
“That situation went sour on us,” Middleton said.
The city did get $650,000 from MDA, but it is still missing the second half of the funds and had to borrow money to pay the contractors.
Middleton said the lesson learned there is to make sure to dot and cross every “I” and “T.”
And with $662,000 in federal stimulus money headed to Natchez for the overlay of the downtown central business district, and a Union Street overlay from Orleans Street to George F. West Boulevard about to open, monitoring the project and its funds are key.
Overall, Middleton said despite the $1.3 million overlay hurdle, he is pleased to see so many streets overlaid in his first year in office. Road work was one of his campaign platforms.
Finally the mayor said he has had to learn to work with aldermen and department heads, even when things seemed out of control.
Contention between alderman and department heads has played into year one, and Middleton said instituting respect and encouraging communication has helped solved this problem.
“We’ve addressed a lot of that,” he said. “I think sometimes you see that happen when a new administration comes in.
“Through our conversations with each other, we have pretty much agreed we don’t want to handle our business (in anger). I, as mayor, am not going to allow that anymore.”
Middleton said he looks forward to his next three years in office and hopes to see several accomplishments before his term expires.
Recreation, which he said was one of his platforms, is moving along well.
A committee of city, county and school board representatives is exploring several locations — including Liberty Park and the bean field, both near Natchez High School — for a recreation complex.
The board has already voted to enter an interlocal agreement with the county and school district to gauge residents’ recreation support on the November ballot.
The mayor said he also feels good about the direction the North Natchez Drainage Project is going.
The board recently voted to proceed with $2.5 million to repair drainage on the north side of town.
Finally, Middleton said he is happy to see that the city has had several meetings concerning potential site development of the Forks of the Road.
Middleton has continued a partnership former mayor Phillip West began with Grover Mouton from the Tulane University Regional Urban Design Center involving the Forks of the Road.
Mouton has obtained a $200,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to design a building for the Forks site.
Middleton said he doesn’t have any regrets from his first year — aside from not closely watching the budget — and he is keeping his eyes toward the future.
“I think — and I don’t have a crystal ball in front of me — but I think things are going to get better.”