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Saturday, October 2, 2010
The Vicksburg Post
THE VICKSBURG POST
EDITORIAL
Founded by John G. Cashman in 1883 Louis P. Cashman III, Editor & Publisher • Issued by Vicksburg Printing & Publishing Inc., Louis P. Cashman III, President Karen Gamble, managing editor | E-mail: kgamble@vicksburgpost.com | Tel: 601.636.4545 ext 123 | Letters to the editor: letters@vicksburgpost.com or The Vicksburg Post, P.O. Box 821668, Vicksburg, MS 39182
JACK VIX SAYS: Don’t forget to head downtown today.
OTHER OPINIONS
Prisons Epps on right track for reform From other Mississippi newspapers • Enterprise-Journal, McComb: For years, the cost of operating Mississippi’s prison system was one of the fastest growing expenditures of the state budget. In order to show they were tough on crime, state lawmakers pursued policies to lock up more offenders for longer stretches of time. That fueled a prison-building binge. In the process, the corrections budget more than tripled over a stretch of a decade and a half, taking money from other major state priorities such as education and health care. Under the leadership of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps, Missis-
sippi has been slowly bringing common sense to the balancing act between public safety and taxpayer costs. Epps has helped persuade the Legislature to lighten up on the 1995 truthin-sentencing law, which required all inmates — violent or not, first offender or habitual criminal — to serve 85 percent of their sentences before becoming eligible for parole. He has won permission to allow some drug offenders to earn their way out of prison early. He has encouraged lawmakers to give judges more discretion to use penalties other than incarceration to deal with low-risk offenders. As a result, over the last year, Epps has been able to reduce the state’s inmate population by about 2,000, cut
staff and mothball some expensive prison cells. Recently, he told state legislative budget writers that he can make it through next year without any additional money from the general fund. In fact, he proposed a tiny cut. Although $5,000 out of a $335 million budget isn’t much, the gesture is significant. Most of the other state agencies are putting in requests for additional funding even with lawmakers anticipating a revenue loss next year of $400 million to $500 million. One thing good about the economic downturn of the past couple of years, it has forced lawmakers to think much more critically about who really should be behind bars. ...
Flood insurance extension not enough The Clarion-Ledger, Jackson: Congress has voted to grant a one-year extension of the National Flood Insurance Program, which is a reprieve, but not a solution, to insureds on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The program is administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and provides flood coverage through more than 90 private insurance companies that sell policies and collect premiums on the government’s behalf for a fee. National Flood Insurance Program premiums go to FEMA. More than 5 million homeowners use the program as their primary insurance against flooding. Without the congressional extension, the program would have expired in September.
The extension did not include U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor’s proposal to offer wind coverage, a program said to be $19 million in debt as a result of Katrina and 2008 floods. A National Flood Insurance Program reform package stalled in Congress last year in a fight over adding wind coverage. The Senate opposed Taylor’s proposal. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas) said that the one-year extension helps Gulf Coast communities and gave Congress “time to get serious about modernizing the program while continuing to allow those living in the flood plains access to flood insurance.” Opening insurance markets to those who choose to live in or near coastal flood plains has vexed federal and state
governments. The Mississippi Windstorm Underwriting Association Reinsurance Assistance Fund, or Windpool, is a state insurer of last resort for those who cannot obtain private insurance. Subsidizing coast insurance premiums was necessary after Katrina, but at some point the Windpool must stand on its own and those who utilize it must pay premiums that support the basic soundness of the program. From a federal and state standpoint, subsidized insurance cannot continue indefinitely, nor should it. But a oneyear extension of National Flood Insurance Program gives Congress time to get past the elections and engage in a serious examination of how to move forward with a long-term solution to a difficult, complex challenge.
Turn spotlight on overpriced consultant The Greenwood Commonwealth: Gov. Haley Barbour likes to say that the problem in government is not that the people are taxed too little but that the government spends too much. That truism could be applied to his administration’s own spending when it comes to doling out money to a highpriced consultant. In legislative budget hearings recently, Barbour’s head of economic development, Gray Swoope, was grilled over a cushy contract his agency negotiated with a former employee.
The Mississippi Development Authority has been paying Terri Hudson $240 an hour to help oversee spending of federal money for Hurricane Katrina recovery. That’s roughly four times more than her salary when she was working as MDA’s chief financial officer. Certainly, consultants — even in the private sector — usually make more than if they were on the payroll, since they have overhead to cover and receive no fringe benefits, such as health insurance or pensions, as inde-
pendent contractors. However, four times as much sounds grossly excessive. It’s not as if Fortune 500 companies have been competing for Hudson’s services. She’s teaching accounting at Millsaps College, a fine liberal arts school but not exactly the domain of high rollers. Barbour is awfully good — and usually accurate — about identifying waste in other parts of state government. He should turn, however, the spotlight sometimes on his own domain.
OLD POST FILES 120 YEARS AGO: 1890 Miss N. Quigg departs on the Anchor Line steamer “City of Cairo” for Memphis, her future home.
MODERATELY CONFUSED by Bill Stahler
110 YEARS AGO: 1900 John W. Stafford is married to Nettie Walker. • Albert Auter dies.
90 YEARS AGO: 1920 Forty-eight women register at the library. • Two hundred enroll for study at the K.C. night school. • Milton Black, carpenter, dies.
20 YEARS AGO: 1990
80 YEARS AGO: 1930
Lyndsey Freeny celebrates her second birthday. • Warren Central girls softball team beats Byram 31-3 and secures a spot in the state playoffs. • Carrie Queen dies.
The Vicksburg Fair and Industrial Exposition opens. • Mrs. Malmo Minter and Mrs. Louis Leyens give a recital at Holy Trinity Church.
10 YEARS AGO: 2000
70 YEARS AGO: 1940
The New York Yankees make it three in a row, dumping the Philadelphia Phillies 3-2 in the third game of the World Series.
The Rev. Eddie D. Haynes, pastor of First Baptist Church in Arcola, and Allie Pearl Rushing are seriously injured in an auto accident near the Warren-Issaquena county line. The artifacts museum at the “Cairo” restoration site opens. • Thomas Guilbert Barton celebrates his first birthday. • Funeral services are held for Isaac Burns. • Pam Jackson of Vicksburg is chosen freshman maid of the homecoming court at Copiah Lincoln Junior College.
Mrs. Caroline Fox dies. • Fourteen trees will be cut down as a result of caving on the east side of the courthouse.
60 YEARS AGO: 1950
40 YEARS AGO: 1970
30 YEARS AGO: 1980
100 YEARS AGO: 1910
Meridian beats Carr Central, 16-6. • Clyde Pannell, former resident, dies in Fort Worth.
Carlton.
50 YEARS AGO: 1960 Mrs. Mary Wright dies. • Funeral services are held for Sidney Johnson, Lake Providence resident. • Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Turcotte Jr. announce the birth of a son, James
Vicksburg Police see an increase in counterfeit bills thanks to technology. • The Rev. Bill Carlin of St. Alban’s Episcopal conducts a blessing of the animals on the church grounds in Bovina. Another blessing is planned at Christ Episcopal Church. • Fire destroys a Jones Alley home.
So many landmarks went out with the tidal surge that gave the world a proper name for natural disaster and manmade calamity: Katrina.
Gaps in the smile of the Gulf shoreline BILOXI — There is a frame around the Katrina high-water mark over the mantel inside Mary Mahoney’s, the venerable restaurant in an old French house that’s survived war, hurricanes, oil spills and casinos. As fresh fish is served up by candlelight to well-dressed, chattering denizens, you have to marvel at coastal survival. The Mississippi Coast revival is remarkable — that’s the general assessment, and a correct one. Still, as I walk the beachfront streets of old Biloxi, I miss things. I know I am being selfish, longing for old things instead of celebrating the new. But there are gaps in the smile of the shoreline. Some of my favorite places have been gone a lot longer than five years; a casino, not a hurricane, took out my alltime favorite restaurant, Fisherman’s Wharf. And I’m not even sure what happened to certain other cherished sights. Was it wind, water, progress or old age that wiped out the old house with the palm tree growing through its front RHETA steps? It’s gone. The gRIMSLEY park where my niece first saw the ocean. Gone. The shell shop with the tacky but wonderful souvenirs. Gone. So many landmarks went out with the tidal surge that gave the world a proper name for natural disaster and manmade calamity: Katrina. Such a musical name, forever tainted. I pass brick walks leading nowhere, chimneys standing alone, empty lots, more empty lots. There are more “For Sale” signs than I’ve ever seen, and high-rises where shaded single-family dwellings used to be, condos that look more like Florida than Mississippi. Some casinos have moved from the sea to the shore, an evolutionary crawl hastened by the storm. But the sand is whiter than usual. And you can get better views of the calm blue Sound. Considering the original devastation, the coast looks chastened but proud. The return was as sure as the tides. Waterfront is made to be used. We all are drawn to the shoreline. As Jacques Cousteau said, “The greatest resource of the ocean is not material but the boundless spring of inspiration and well-being we gain from her.” Some things deserve to be rebuilt again and again if necessary. In nearby Pass Christian, the Episcopal Church has risen to new heights — flood-proof ones. In Bay St. Louis, the library that temporarily moved to a trailer donated by Bill Gates is back in an improved permanent site. The children’s section alone is something for the books. A puppet theater is at one end. Over Jack’s beanstalk a giant hand reaches through clouds and the ceiling. In all the coastal towns there are more fresh paint jobs and new roofs than you can imagine. I consider myself optimistic by nature. I try to avoid dwelling in the past. I admire that Coast residents have regrouped and remained, and so many have. To someone who didn’t know it before, the necessary facelift would look charming and quite natural. And yet, looking at the Harvest Moon over Mississippi Sound is not as romantic as once it was to me. There is a sadness now, an association with loss and longing that this beach did not have before. I miss the way it was.
JOHNSON
• Rheta Grimsley Johnson writes for King Features Syndicate.