What Have You Done For Lumberton Lately?

I was looking through some old articles from the Lamar Times. In 2008, Dana Gower was covering the Jack McMullan petition drive like the Casey Anthony trail. I guess everyone in Lumberton knows that petitions don't work. There may be some obscure laws still on the books, but the only way to get rid of an ineffective elected official is to vote them out of office. After reading the old clippings, I noticed that there were a lot of references to the fact that the votes were always 3-2 with Miriam Holder, Alderwoman at Large, Quincy Rogers, Alderman of Ward 3 and Terry Cannaday, Alderman of Ward 4 voting together and Nell Busby, Alderwoman of Ward 1 and Stanley Rayborn, Alderman of Ward 2 voting together. The articles detailed how nothing was accomplished and what started out as a petition to get rid of Holder, Rogers and Cannaday was later amended to include Busby and Rayborn. Looking back, it's ironic that Holder, Rogers and Cannaday were being blamed for halting progress. Now let's fast forward a few years and look at their accomplishments. The current board has not brought any revenue to the city. The projects that are being completed are projects that were implemented by the previous board. The grant used to renovate the 5th Avenue Park was brought to the City of Lumberton by the previous board and the Downtown Revitalization Grant was also spear-headed by the previous board. As a matter of fact, Alderwoman at Large Holder had to keep filing paperwork to keep the grant active because there were two mayor's that didn't want the grant to be fulfilled.
The demolition phase of the Downtown Revitalization Grant is slated to begin next week. Thanks to the in-kind service by Gilbert Peters, the City of Lumberton was able to free up an additional $180,000 to hire an outside firm to come in and finish the demo of the buildings. Now herein lies the problem. We have almost two hundred thousand dollars that's going to a company outside the City of Lumberton. The grant writes used some "creative" techniques to find some additional funding. Why couldn't they be just as creative and find a way to ensure that that money was used to hire a local firm? Owens Construction is a local company and I'm certain that they could have used the $180,000 to get the equipment and crew needed to finish the demolition of the buildings on Main Street. With a local company like Owens Construction, the city knows that some of the money they're spending would stay in Lumberton because Owens Construction would have hired local workers. I know there are some grant guidelines that they city must follow, but since they are not brining in any new business or revenue, the board should at least find a way to make sure some of this grant money is being re-invested in the City of Lumberton.