Received a letter for a neighbourhood meeting, which was weird because we never have these. But the city owns some sewer lines in the county (we do pay for our sewer through them) and they're starting up an eight month project to lay new lines. I didn't want to go, but also I wanted to know what to expect. Mom and The Sister wouldn't have wanted to go & dad can't hear anybody, so I volunteered as tribute. I'm not even really certain why we received a letter, because the new sewage lines and construction won't really effect me. For one week in some months ahead, the four-way stop up from my house will be closed. There might be some misguided traffic turning around in my circle because they won't believe the signs posted on the main thoroughfaire about the road closure. I'm used to that last bit. And one week out of eight months isn't really note worthy. But now I know for certain that there's really nothing to know for us. So, the letter stated it was a neighbourhood meeting between the city mayor, the city engineer, and the county. The letter is signed by the mayor and he says "We" all over the place. It did not state that the mayor would make a brief intro and then skeedaddle, which is exactly what he did. Like he was too important for this meeting and used the tucking in of his kids for bed as an excuse. When I arrived he and some other man were standing at the door; that man is the District One Supervisor for the county, as I would later find out. There was no where to go, so I just had to stand there. The mayor extended his hand and said, "I'm Toby Barker, Mayor of Hattiesburg." I gave a slight curt nod with my handshake, that I didn't want to participate in. I did not give my name. I wanted to state, 'Oh, I know who you are. I was there at The Hippo, before you were elected, the night you said, "Fuck Oak Grove."' (which is where this section of county resides, just so you know). But, I didn't. (also, yes, I used to have another blog before it kept harassing me to use space on my computer and wouldn't let me type of blog posts, which is why I'm here now.) The county guy was kind of creepy and not very friendly, but I had to shake his hand too. I still did not give my name. So, the mayor introduced the room like this, "Welcome everybody. I'm Toby Barker, Mayor of Hattiesburg, though I don't know who would vote for me." and then he grinned at his self-deprecating comment that's meant to make him look like a really swell person. No one in the audience laughed or giggled. I can't tell you what they were thinking, but it might have been along the same lines as me, "Yeah, I don't know who would!"
Though the mayor was only there for about ten minutes of the meeting, the District One guy, from the back of the room, had to jump in and say, "Hattiesburg's not trying to take anything about from y'all. They're just here to make it better." I think without that, most of the people would have kept harping accusatory questions. Things like, "But this has been happening for years." "Are you gonna block our homes?" "Is there going to be back-up sewage?" Sadly a lot of the people had horror stories, which had to be handled by the city engineer after that (as the mayor left and this was the person that was going to be speaking) and when he didn't know, someone from Lamar County had to intervene and say, "Don't you remember blah blah blah that was found at blah blah blah time?" Real comforting. Which ended up being some sort of blockage under the Rails to Trails and they'd found and addressed that already, apparently the city engineer was supposed to know about that, but somehow forgot? But the horror stories were sewage backing up into peoples homes on multiple occasions or geysers of sewage and run-off shooting up out of man hole covers during hard rains. Eep! I don't know when all those lines in my neighbourhood turned green (the city engineer saying they'd already been fixed) because there's been no one in my almost 40 years of living here fixing anything like that. The green line just below my house would have been put in in the late 1980s for the elderly home that was built at the time, perhaps they hooked us onto them? Just last year a man hole cover was put in just outside of our gate to the north for that red X house that was put in. It took them a day. Were we hooked into that? I don't know, but we've never had issues with our sewage backing up because of city/county lines. It's probably because we live on top of a hill. We've had problems with the French Drains that the original builder put in and we've had to get tree roots out of it and dig a ditch for rain water to funnel away from our back yard. And the rain flooding to our backyard (& basement) was a lot worse in my childhood because of the ditch system across the street. But the city or county fixed that in the nineties. Couldn't see the boards all that well and wasn't the only one after the meeting to go and look or take photos. I just wanted to make absolutely certain that what I was seeing on the board meant what I thought it meant. That District One guy, Steve Lampton, acted like I was this stupid simpering 10 year old girl who was bothering him, though he'd said if anyone had questions to not hesitate to call him. He was more "free" than the city engineer, which is why I decided on him. It was an impatient, "Yes?!" that I received from him when he acknowledged that I was there and stopped talking to his buddies. "Yes, I just wanted to make sure I was understanding this right. I'm at _____ Westover Drive, which is here on the map. I'm thinking this means nothing will effect me except for when the four-way stop is closed. Is this correct?" He grimaced and snatched my mobile from me to look at the picture of the map I'd taken, like he didn't think I would know where I live. (& can we say rude, you don't snatch stuff from people!) He didn't have me find it on the map for him, he just wanted to find _____ Westover Drive for himself. Then in a hautey tone stated, "You'll just zip out your drive and down to 4th street no problems!" as in 'what is the problem, why are you asking me questions?!' "Well, except for when the intersection is closed off, of course." he added. Which is exactly what I'd said before! A simple yes would have been sufficient. I hope we don't have issues and have to call him. He's an ass. It was worth knowing that we'd be fine in this big, almost year long mess, but still. The city engineer wasn't too intelligent (he didn't know when the city bought the sewer lines [it was the early 80's, just after we moved here my mom said], nor knew the thing he was supposed to know), the District One guy was an ass, as well as the Mayor, but then I already knew the Mayor was an ass. Are all places this weird and backwards? Probably.
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AuthorA girl from South Mississippi who finds herself in exploration. Archives
November 2019
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