With the recent success of What Wards Want Monday, officials from the Town of Sumrall are taking a break for the holidays before entertaining the idea of hosting the initiative again next year.
During What Wards Want, which started in October, residents were encouraged to stop by Sumrall Town Hall on Mondays – depending on which ward they reside in – to address issues, concerns or ideas with Mayor Joel Lofton and the Sumrall Board of Aldermen.
“For the first month or so (of next year), we’re probably going to focus on the information that we received (during What Wards Want),” Lofton said. “We want to start some action on the first few items that we have before we let too much else stack up.
“We do feel like it went well … and we’re very open to coming back and doing it again as the year progresses. I think they’ll see us again.”
Although the turnout for What Wards Want wasn’t huge, the mayor and board did receive consistent feedback throughout the process. One of the matters that was addressed throughout all wards was drainage issues, which have caused trouble in the town over the last several years.
To alleviate that problem, town officials have initiated the early stages of several major improvement projects.
“At our (next) board meeting, we’re hoping for a pretty good report from our engineer about our next step moving forward,” Lofton said. “We’ve already secured some rights-of-way in order to take care of those.
“Some of this will actually happen in collaboration with our Family Dollar Tree opening (on Mississippi 42); their business is in one of the areas where drainage is a real issue. So we’re actually working with our new business to make sure their construction, and the needs of the folks of the town, kind of mesh. So we can do good things in more than one way.”
Another topic that was consistent across the board was sewer system issues, which officials have taken steps to properly assess.
“We’re in the planning stages right now of creating a step-by-step plan,” Lofton said. “There are no huge issues, but there are a number of small issues in different locations, and we want to be able to address that to have the maximum positive impact, with the minimum negative effect, on folks as we’re working on it.”
During What Wards Want, residents are asked to bring documentation of issues, such as photographs, if possible.
In the case that officials leave town hall to address issues during What Wards Want Monday, a phone number will be provided on the door. Residents can call the number to leave a message and officials will reach out to them upon their return.
Alderwoman-at-Large Brittany Fortenberry will fill in if other members of the Sumrall Board of Aldermen have a scheduling conflict or to lend additional help.
For more information, call Sumrall Town Hall at (601) 758-3591 or email townofsumrall@gmail.com.
“Part of (the process) is, if we can focus on it and get some of the issues taken care of, then we would hope we wouldn’t hear of those same issues again,” Lofton said. “So we’ve got to take some time to address what we know, then when we open back up, it’ll kind of be a way to assess if we’ve been successful in addressing these things or not.”
