Which Way Do We Go?

Just the other day, I was contacted by the daughter of a concerned citizen. It seems that there's still some confusion about the exact address to her mother's house. Sadly, two years ago it was discovered that the 911 operator could not locate her address and this discovery happened at the worst possible time. After her daughter passed out and was in need of emergency care, a call was made to 911 and the could not find her house. It wasn't because of lighting or the street name; it was because the address was not logged into the system. Somehow, there's multiple addresses for a house that sits alone on Grand Alley. They emergency response team did not know if the address was 805 5th Avenue, 604 5th Avenue or 604 Grand Alley. As you know, in an emergency situation, every minute is important. The emergency response team wasted precious time trying to locate the house. Sadly, the person died that needed medical assistance. There's no way of know if her death could have been prevented if those minutes lost looking for the home could have been spent giving the caller the medical attention she needed.

Still grieving the death of her daughter, the mother, Yvonne Holder, attended a monthly board meeting to let them know about the incident and what could be done to correct the matter. Mayor Ben Winston assured the mother that the matter would be corrected and he told the mother that she could actually pick the name of the street since she was the only person in the area. Winston assured the grieving mother that he would take care of the matter and get it corrected. Well, that was almost two years ago and the problem still exists. Another call to 911 has proven that the address is not updated in their system and the mother and her children are concerned because another emergency may arise and they can not be located. Since Ben Winston has failed to do anything about this matter for two years, I decided to contact District 2 Supervisor, Warren Byrd, to see if he could get the ball rolling and address this critical issue. Hopefully, I will get to meet with Byrd to discuss another issue that's getting overlooked in Lumberton. It seems there's a problem with a ditch near Country Village Apartments. The city says it belongs to the County and the County says it belongs to the city. I've received messages from concerned citizens that want the matter addressed because the ditch is getting bigger and bigger. I guess the work of a community activist is never done. I'm not a microwave advocate; I'm aware that these things take time but after 2 years, the person living on Grand Alley should have some sort of resolution to a requested submitted to the Mayor of Lumberton. Here's another thing you need to notice, look at the roads of Lumberton, the roads in your community; are you pleased? Well, that's the work of Ben Winston. Now, have you noticed the roads between Lumberton and Purvis. It's a much smoother ride. You can thank Warren Byrd for that.

Oh yeah, there was something else I forgot to mention after the adopted the new budget; the street signs. In case you forgot, and apparently this board has forgotten, a few years ago, a mandate was passed for each city to update their street signs to reflective signs by 2016. The previous board was working to set aside money for this project because there's no grants for this change. Did you look over the budget? Maybe I missed the part where they set aside money to replace the old street signs or maybe they thought the state forgot about the required change. A year ago, Mayor Ben Winston knew the millege rate had to be increased to maintain the City of Lumberton's budget. As a matter of fact, he was advised to raise the millege rate by the Lamar County Board of Supervisors. Well, another year and no increase. Sounds like ineffective leadership to me but he want to be over a bigger budget. Also, what happened to the $450,000 grant Cora Rogers help secure. Why are they letting it sit on the books and not doing any work. Oh, I forgot, they're focused on getting the $625,000 in matching funds needed for another grant so they're just going to overlook this measly $450,000 that could be used for other projects. Interesting. I hope to meet with Warren Byrd today and I will let you know of the progress of the issues you brought to my attention.