Gulfport mayor, CAO questioned about spending money on downtown property city doesn’t own
Gulfport’s administration has spent at least $31,400 in taxpayer money to improve a vacant downtown lot that the city doesn’t even own.
The administration oversaw installation of sod, an irrigation system and power on the lot on the northwest corner of 13th Street at 28th Avenue as an entertainment venue and a way to reduce “blight” downtown, city records show. The Mississippi Department of Transportation owns the lot.
Normally, capitol improvement projects and budgets are approved in advance by the City Council. But in this case, the project was not brought before the public body before the work was done.
Now, the council has been advised by the city attorney that they could be held personally liable because payments for the work and materials amounted to “an unlawful donation,” Council President Rusty Walker said. The council routinely approves dockets of claims that list thousands of payments after the administration writes the checks.
Chief Administrative Officer Leonard Papania directed the project, sending emails to Mayor Billy Hewes and employees in May about the plans and costs, city records show. The City Council, as a group, did not find out about the project until a meeting in September.
The council started a special meeting at 10 a.m. Monday to interview employees and others about what happened, convening for about two hours then calling a recess until 4 p.m. The meeting started behind closed doors, with the council questioning vendors who worked on the lot.
The council also expected to question employees but did not believe any decisions would be reached Monday. The council cited potential litigation as the reason to hold the meeting behind closed doors.
The council is unsure what remedies are available after the fact, other than to rescind their approval of the checks written for the work.
After the council questioned the project, Papania reported what happened to the State Auditor’s Office. The council also has sent its own letter to Auditor Shad White, whose office is reviewing the information.
Hewes now acknowledges the administration mishandled the project.
“We got ahead of ourselves,” he told the Sun Herald Thursday afternoon. “ . . . We thought we were doing a good thing. I still think we did a good thing trying to improve and make downtown more attractive. But we went about the process in an improper way.”
Gulfport council questions spending
Councilwoman Ella Holmes-Hines said her first inkling about the project came Sept. 5, when the council received an administrative memo about sod the city had recently purchased.
“I asked why the city is buying sod in a 100-degree drought when citizens are begging for sewer, drainage, water, paving and lighting,” Holmes-Hines told the Sun Herald. She said that she never would have approved the expense..
Other council members felt the same way about the sod and other money spent on the vacant lot between a parking lot and the north-south railroad tracks. Sully’s restaurant and Chandeleur Island Brewing Co. sit to the north in adjacent city blocks.
“I would never have supported taking on property that we have to maintain and pouring money into another entertainment area,” Councilman Myles Sharp told the Sun Herald.
Gulfport has entertainment venues only a short distance away in the 60-acre harbor, including pavilions and Jones Park, a grassy field that is home to the annual Christmas lights show and other events.
Sharp, an attorney, said his bigger concern is that the council might have approved expenses that “were apparently unlawful.”
Sharp wants all the payments on the lot gathered and presented to the council, he said in the Sept. 5 meeting, so he can consider rescinding his vote for approval.
Downtown government land sits empty
MDOT acquired properties in downtown Gulfport years ago when the plan was to build a connector road from the state port to Interstate 10. Those plans fell apart.
The city has worked since Hurricane Katrina to improve downtown through multi-million projects completed with federal, state and local funds. But the downtown area between 27th and 29th avenues looks like “a desert,” Hewes recently told the council.
Hewes said he’s tried for years to work with MDOT on plans for downtown lots the agency owns. He said that he was unable to get any action until Brad White stepped in as MDOT director in July 2021.
Hewes said the administration had hoped to host a movie night on the lot during the upcoming Cruisin’ the Coast. Those plans have been scrapped until questions are answered about the work.
“Whether it’s one dollar or $30,000, we needed to be doing things in the proper sequence,” Hewes said.
“Fortunately, this is not a pattern. It has not happened before and we certainly don’t feel it’s going to happen again.”
This story was originally published September 25, 2023 at 6:30 AM.
