Lumberton Informer

Today is officially the last day of the current Mayor and Board of Alderpersons. I also heard that today is also Danny Davis' last day as Public Works Director. If the rumor is true then I can truly say that things are already getting better for the City of Lumberton. I'm sure Danny think he's crippling the City of Lumberton by resigning before the new board takes office but he's actually helping the City of Lumberton Move Forward. Since the inception of this blog, Davis "quit" his job several times because he knew at least one board member would beg him to return. It's amazing that he claimed month after month, year after year that he loved this city but words are meaningless if they're not supported by your actions. If he loved this city, there would be an employee at the Public Works Department that had the education, experience and expectation to carry on in his steed but Davis made sure that the ones ...

Just one week ago, the citizens of Lumberton voted to #MoveLumbertonForward but the agents of MRHA 8 and others are trying to derail that change. I've been adjusting to my recent win while dealing with rumors on top of rumors. After getting calls from people outside the State of Mississippi and receiving screenshots from various conversations on social media, I decided to do a little investigation. I've barely had time to settle down and embrace the change that the citizens of Lumberton voted for on June 6, 2017 but it seems that I have yet another fight on my hands. LeaAnn Jones-Ulmer, a member of the LEDC and an employee of the MRHA 8, was allegedly going around telling people that I wasn't going to be able to represent Ward 3 because they're [MRHA 8] going to make sure I'm evicted. Keep in mind that a few months ago, I filed a report with the MRHA 8 regional manager about the fact that Ulmer was discussing my files with people o...

Due to inclement weather, I didn't not attend the board meeting last night but I'm sure they didn't accomplish much last night. However, about 40 minutes prior to the board meeting, I received an email from Vanessa Jones, the new attorney for the City of Lumberton. The letter did not have a subject line but I'm guessing it was in response to the request I submitted asking for verification of Paul Ockmond's certification as the building inspector and code enforcer. The letter I received is provided below. I take issue with the letter because it lacks specificity. One would think that a person that's paid $100/hour could write a better response; instead Jones seemingly struggled to string two sentences together in an effort to remain as vague as possible. Another issue I have with the response is the fact that the elected and appointed officials of Lumberton do not think the citizens of Lumberton have the right to know if thos...

As you know, this is an election year for the City of Lumberton and other surrounding municipalities. For years, self-serving agendas have ruled Lumberton. We complain about the people ruining our city but we're not willing to give others an opportunity to show leadership through service; something that's lacking from this and previous administrations. Lumberton is on life support and a mortician has the authority to pull the plug. Do you really think a person that specializes in death is capable or willing to support life. Death is his bread and butter and Lumberton's corpse is just another opportunity to put more money in his pockets. Over the weekend, those currently serving on the board were at various events gathering signatures in order to have their names placed on the ballot. Each candidate is looking to get re-elected. All of the candidates have made their intentions known except for Tommy Dukes, Jr. He's collecting signatures but...

In addition to the Presidential Election, we are electing local and state representatives. The media has failed to focus on the fact that several candidates in District 106 have refused to attend debates but manage to attend Republican sponsored events. Interesting since each candidate is running as Independents; well...on paper. I've never witnessed such a blatant disregard of voters. You want to be our representative but you choose to interact with "certain" voting demographics. We're days away from the election and we don't know most of the people that are going to be on the ballot. Another indicator of the candidate's loyalty is their campaign finance reports; it clearly shows where their interests lie and I guess that's why at least two candidates have failed to submit their finance reports. They want you to cast your vote for them without knowing who sponsored their campaigns. Show me the money and I'll show you...

Eight days from now, we will head to the polls to cast our votes. A lot of focus has been placed on the Presidential Election but there's some state and local elections that are just as important. Noticeably, the local media has failed to focus on the fact that several area candidates have refused to debate or address the general public about their platforms. Although the candidates for District 106 are running as Independents, at least three candidates: Greg Holcomb, John Corely and Larry Davis, are focused on addressing citizens at Republican sponsored events. It's interesting that they attended the Republican event at Jack's Fish House but used every excuse in the book to avoid the debate on the campus of PRCC. It's clear they're interested in representing one demographic and that's probably why they're not interested in speaking to "other" voters because once they let their klan of supporters know they're really rank ...

Repost: from Dalton Traylor : DISCLAIME R: If you can't stand the heat, you may want to vacate not just the kitchen, but the entire facility. Now. As many of you know, the Young Americans for Liberty chapter at PRCC has planned a debate at the Brownstone center between the qualified candidates running for the district 106 house seat. This has been known since early September. The candidates currently "qualified" are Ben Winston, Daniel Wise, John Corley, Larry Davis, and Greg Holcomb. They were all invited to attend this debate. I felt the community deserved to hear all of their opinions on key issues in a real environment, not a rehearsed speech at a meet and greet. Now, to the point. I spent hours upon hours preparing for this event, even going as far as to nearly sacrifice the integrity of the debate by reducing the number of questions they needed to prepare for exponentially and randomly assigning and giving the candidates the questions they needed to prepare 90 ...

The other day, I was out and about and my path crossed with Lumberton's Public Works Director, Danny Davis and this was his response. Danny almost ran off the side of the road trying to flip me the bird but it wasn't like he was actually doing any work. Keep in mind, this is a representative of the City of Lumberton. I'm sure there's a provision in the City of Lumberton's employee handbook that shuns this type of behavior. Particularly the portion that states "Employees owe a duty to the City of Lumberton and its citizens to act ina way that will merit continued trust and confidence of the public." Now ask yourself, do you trust a department will fairly and accurately read your water meters when their department head behaves in this manner? I don't and neither should you; especially since the board has approved yet another water rate increase. What's wrong Danny? Are you upset that your FUPA has blocked your vie...

There’s never a dull moment in the City of Lumberton. Despite what you think of me or my quest for accountability; my goal, unlike others, is for the advancement of Lumberton. At the latest board meeting, the city’s engineer opened bids to begin work on the roof at the Lumberton Museum. There were three bids but the lowest two were from a local contractor and a contractor in Purvis. During the meeting, the city’s engineer informed Mrs. Kathleen Bogle that since the monies for this project was raised through donations, they were not required to accept the lowest bid. After the meeting, Mrs. Bogle and other members on the Museum Committee expressed their desire to hire a local contractor. The engineer said he would question those with the lowest bids to ensure the work was up to par. Less than a week later, it seems that the engineer has suggested the City of Lumberton accept the bid of the contractor from Purvis. Here’s the twist, prior to his recommendation, the...

This started out as a Facebook post but then it grew and I didn't want my social media friends to get upset because I've been posting all week. So I decided to copy and paste it in a blog post instead. Hopefully, this will be my last post of the week regarding this matter but I'm not making any promises. This has been an exasperating week to say the least but with the culture of hunting black men, I'm thankful to still be among the living. During this week, I think I saw where someone said whites are killed by cops to but their cases are swept under the rugs. I remember the names of Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Sean Beall, Tamir Rice, Freddy Gray, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Pedro Villuneava and sadly it won't be long before another black/Hispanic male becomes a hashtag because of an overzealous police officer that wants to be judge, jury and executioner. As it was stated, these incidents are not new; police brutality has been taking place before Rodney King b...

I know today is July 6, 2016, but according to the printed agenda that was handed out, last night’s meeting will not take place until tomorrow, July 7, 2016 hence the PMS edition. The first agenda item was to conduct an informal workshop regarding information received at the MML 2016 Conference. The second agenda item was, according to Johnny Buckley, to implement a practice that was allegedly discussed at the MML Conference and that included having a time clock installed specifically for the police department. I thought they were setting a meeting for these changes but they decided that they couldn’t wait and should immediately attack the police department; even Cora Rogers saw through the bullcrap and she’s often blinded by ignorance. On the surface, it would seem that one or more of the aldermen had a vendetta against the police department. Did one of the officers dare to give an alderman or a member of their family a ticket? But once the conversation be...

Today, at 10:00 a.m., the first meeting regarding the consolidation and/or dissolution of the Lumberton School District was held at William Carey University. There were plenty of citizens there from Lumberton. Noticeably absent were the retired/self-employed elected officials of Lumberton. Purvis and Poplarville both had elected officials present and District 2 Supervisor, Warren Byrd, was also in attendance. At the beginning of the meeting, it was stated that the citizens present were not allowed to participate in the conversation. We were told that any concerns we had about the process should be addressed to the Superintendent of our school. Based on Dr. Linda Smith insistence to have Ben Winston appointed as the representative of Lumberton, I don’t think she’s looking out for the best interest of Lumberton. As a matter of fact, I think her main concern is her position and not the people but that’s just my opinion. The meeting started at a glacial pace because it seeme...

I'm a little late posting a review of the latest board meeting but not much has changed. As I was sitting there I was thinking about the sheer incompetence of the city clerk, Merlene Wall and that fact that she's going to become a certified clerk in a few weeks and she has no idea of how to operate the BBI system. She's totally incompetent and has the full support of an idiot board; as a matter of fact, they're actually planning on hiring an accountant to do her job in a city that does not have enough money for a full police department or public works department but they have plenty of money to fix the problems of Lumberton's money pit, Merlene Wall. Of course the board members are aware that this is their final year in office and there's another election coming up in 2017 so they're scrambling to purchase police cars and other things in hopes that the shiny new things will help you forget about their ineptitude over the past three years. As I listened to ...

If some changes are not made soon….the City of Lumberton will be headed to bankruptcy court because of years of mis-management. Since 2014, the City of Lumberton has been spiraling out of control with no fiduciary responsibility because there’s an inept city clerk in charge of the finances. It’s sad to think that Merlene Wall will become a certified city clerk in June but she cannot prepare a budget, she cannot tell you what’s in the accounts…hell…she don’t know the name of all the accounts because some essential accounts were closed because she wasn’t capable of keeping them separated. I know you have heard of the talented athlete that was promoted year after year, despite their inability to read/write or function off the field. Well, that’s what’s happening here in Lumberton but we don’t have a talented athlete leading us to victory. Instead we have an incompetent, paper-trail creating, mis-interpertator of ordinances, violator of Open Meeting Laws, corruptor of elections, f...

At the end of April 5, 2016 board meeting, it was announced that the board was going into executive session to discuss possible litigation. The Mississippi Open Meetings Act permits the board to discuss litigation (prospective or actual) during executive session but after it was discovered that the possible litigation involved Bobby Gibson's attempt to extort (verb meaning obtain (something) by force, threats, or other unfair means) $1,000 from the City of Lumberton, Lindsey Carter (see video posted) recanted on May 3, 2016 and said that they did not discuss possible litigation during the April 5, 2016 board meeting. However, he said that the matter involving Bobby Gibson and the land dispute on 5th Avenue is a legal matter. (Insert expletive) where? The ownership of land is public record and as you can see from the receipt I received from the Lamar County records room, Bobby Gibson owns the land that is located smack dab in the middle of 5th Avenue Park, Lumberton, MS but the pr...

Since Merlene Wall, Lumberton City Clerk, has gotten brave enough to stop hiding and actually took the time out of her busy work schedule to like the Lumberton Informer, I decided to welcome her with the post. The post is a parody of the song "You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch" from The Grinch that Stole Christmas. It's kind of fitting since she's the Grinch that Stole Lumberton or in the words of the auditor, the DUMMY that don't know how to debit, credit or use a computer but somehow she manages to follow this blog; too bad she can't do the same for the general ledgers, recording of the minutes and accessing BBI. Hope you enjoy! You're a DUMB one Merlene ! You're really a heel. You're as refreshing as a skunk's perfume. You're like a rotting banana. With a slimy black peel. Just face the music because the auditor penned you against the wall. You're a monster that can't add, subtract, keep notes and you're about to ...

I decided to return to board meetings at the right time. It seems there's a lot of backroom deals going on and the board refuses to admit that Merlene Wall is a complete idiot. One of the items discussed during executive session was the possible litigation by former Alderman at Large, Bobby Gibson, against the City of Lumberton. It seems that Gibson is allegedly claiming that he owns the property at 5th Avenue Park. Unfortunately, that part of the property includes the under-utilized tennis court. The tennis court has been there for a long as I can remember. Somehow, Gibson has made the claim that he paid the taxes on the property and want the City of Lumberton to reimburse him for the money he spent after allegedly acquiring the property via taxes. Since Gibson was one of the cronies that banned with Kent Crider, Timothy Johnson and Rebecca Hale to tie the hands of former mayor Miriam R. Holder, Mayor Kent Crider was more that willing to go ahead and reward Gibson the $1,000 he ...

In case you missed the “live” feed from last night’s audit report, here’s a recap of what happened. We were informed that the current city clerk, Merlene Wall, does not know the difference between credit, debit and she does not know how to use BBI. Charlene Kerkow of Wright, Ward, Hatten and Guel didn’t hold back any details when she outlined the sheer incompetence of Merlene Wall’s inability to perform the necessary duties of a municipal city clerk. Charlene said we were a ship headed for a mine field with no one in charge. I must say that I concur. For years, I have talked of Merlene’s incompetence and I was overjoyed to have a CPA reiterate everything I said over the years; Merlene is incapable of doing this job. She’s inept, incompetent, unintelligent idiot that lacks integrity because if she had an ounce of integrity she would admit that the job is too much for her and resign. Instead, she’s going to roll the dice and hope the elected officials will gamble...