Attorney General Lynn Fitch's office has done the citizens of Indianola a continued disservice.
For a year and a half, the AG's office has failed to effectively prosecute and resolve its civil demands against former Aldermen Ruben Woods, Marvin Elder and Sam Brock.
The AG filed its suit against the three aldermen in October 2024, following State Auditor Shad White's summer 2024 demands against them for their role in the alleged illegal $38,900 payout to Spencer Construction.
During a December 2023 meeting of the Indianola board of aldermen, Woods, Elder and Brock blew off the advice of then City Attorney Kimberly Merchant. That advice was to not pay the above contractor for work he had completed on a home renovation project done under the 2018 HOME Grant, due to the fact that the city did not have a contract with the contractor.
They voted to make the payment anyway, and White's investigators eventually agreed with the city attorney.
Shad White's repayment demands were followed by months of dysfunction as the three aldermen launched multiple schemes to try to avoid paying the money back.
Exactly one year after the AG filed its lawsuit, the case was still unsettled, even as the city held its primary election.
The citizens of Indianola had enough of the repeated embarrassments caused by the previous board and voted in an entirely new board last fall.
The AG's office had to have known that five new aldermen were set to take their oaths of office this past January, representing what should have been a fresh start for the city.
Rather than compelling the three disgraced aldermen, or their bonding company, Western Surety Bonding Company, pay the $14,000 owed by each of the three aldermen back to the citizens of Indianola, Fitch's office has chosen to sit on this litigation well into 2026, allowing the legacy of malfeasance from the old board to be passed to the new aldermen.
That legacy includes the city's severed relationship with South Delta Planning & Development District, thousands of dollars spent on a special counsel in 2024 and 2025 and a mysterious $38,900 check that was deposited into the city's bank account last summer. The subsequent withdrawal of that check by the mayor is now the subject of the current board's recent attempt to spend thousands of more taxpayer dollars on a new special counsel.
The citizens of Indianola did their part last October when they kicked the bums out of office. They should not be on the hook for one more dime related to the silliness of that last bunch.
Perhaps Gov. Tate Reeves could employ a special investigator to look into all of the agencies involved in the Spencer debacle, from start to present, to determine for Indianola's weary taxpayers just what and who went wrong with the 2018 HOME Grant, and who all participated in the previous aldermen's schemes to try and make it all go away.
The City of Indianola is still behind on its annual audits by six years, mostly due to the last board's lack of leadership.
But instead of addressing that, and a host of budget issues, the new board is holding special called meetings and considering spending thousands of dollars on more special council work related to the Spencer payout.
Indianola's new board will never be able to lead effectively as long as the Spencer albatross is around its neck.
It's time for the state to settle this case and give the city a fighting chance at recovering from eight years of dereliction of duty from the prior board.
Bryan Davis is former publisher of the Indianola Enterprise-Tocsin.
