Recent editorials from Mississippi newspapers:
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March 2
The Dispatch on gardening and mental health checks during the pandemic:
It’s been almost a year since COVID-19 arrived in our community.
It’s been a tough year for all of us, and even with the arrival of vaccines, we’re probably months away from whatever we once considered normal.
It’s been a year of grief, worry, stress and disorientation and while the end may be in sight, it’s still something of a hazy image on the horizon.
We are still in the coping phase, which is why we offer the following recommendation.
Go outside, dig into the earth and plant something.
You may be surprised how much it will do for your psyche.
According to psychologists, the benefits of gardening are often underestimated. Most people recognize that gardening is good exercise and that growing your own food promotes a healthy diet.
But psychologists suggest that something else happens to people when they are gardening.
For many, it’s an act of learning to focus on the things we control and accept those things we cannot control. The pandemic has left many of us feeling powerless. In the garden, we have a degree of control that we don’t find in other areas of our lives. In the garden, we don’t have complete control, of course, but we are active participants with the ability to influence the outcome.
Gardening helps us learn, adapt and accept. One rule of gardening is not everything will go as planned. How we respond makes us better, more confident, less prone to give up. Our tomatoes won’t always turn out like the picture on the seed package, and we discover that’s OK, too.
In the garden, we find ourselves in the moment, doing that moment’s work. That’s a powerful stress reducer.
It connects us to the natural world that brings perspective.
There is something powerfully life-affirming in the hours spent in the garden.
So, now that prime planting time has arrived, we urge you to drop by your local nursery, pick out a few vegetables or flowers, along with the other gardening necessities, and get your hands dirty.
At a time when so many things in this difficult year seem to have been spinning out of control, getting down the earth is a great way to refresh the body, mind and spirit.
Online: https://www.cdispatch.com/
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March 1
The Vicksburg Post on the winter weather and updating the city’s water system:
“What a difference a week makes?” That was the phrase many were using late last week as our community was basking in springtime temperatures, with clear skies and, thankfully, clear, ice-free streets.
The week before, we were dealing with several inches of ice on our homes and streets. Power was still out for many in our community and first responders went from patrolling neighborhoods and responding to emergencies to transporting front-line medical workers to the hospital and nursing homes, and patients in desperate need of getting to their dialysis appointments.
From one week to the next saw temperature swings of nearly 50 degrees, giving a good reason other than “the COVID” for some of us to have the sniffles, aches and pains.
But in that week, it also gave us time to look back, take stock and evaluate just how our community handled what is hopefully a once-in-a-generation ice storm.
For many, it was a reminder that when generators next go on sale to get one. It was also a reminder that weather forecasts are not always pie-in-the-sky predictions and to stock up on the essentials before the roads are covered in inches of ice.
It is also a reminder of just how blessed our community is to have its local leadership, emergency services and public servants.
When the roads were beyond dangerous, emergency officials - including top-line leaders such as Police and Fire Chiefs, Sheriff, Emergency Management Directors and others - were on call and at the ready to respond to those who needed rides and those who needed help. This response required all hands on deck and all the hands showed up.
It was also impressive to see city officials, including Mayor George Flaggs Jr., delivering medical personnel to work and back home again.
There were times when Flaggs and others were running needed supplies - including baby formula - to those who were trapped in their homes by the severe winter weather.
While there is plenty to be proud of, there is work that needs to be done to ensure problems that popped up during the storm and after do not show up again. Top of that list is the city’s water service, and it is a problem that has been placed in the spotlight by Flaggs and other city officials.
We agree the city’s current facility is not up to par and if it is not performing to the level that it is supposed to, then it not only needs to be fixed, it must be fixed and quickly. We can no longer afford problems with our city’s water service. It not only affects the lives of our friends and neighbors, but when the water system is down, or when a boil water notice is in place, Vicksburg loses crucial business.
Flaggs has long said the city must invest in the city’s water service, including looking at adding a second facility to meet both residential and industrial growth.
He not only said that again last week after the water system had resumed normal operations but said it long before the winter storm struck and the leaks developed. He was right then, and he is right now.
Elected officials rarely like to see money spent on infrastructure projects because they are often out of sight and out of mind.
In this case, Flaggs has taken a bold step in advocating for that work and the need to invest taxpayer dollars in both the present-day stability of Vicksburg’s water system and the city’s future growth.
Online: https://www.vicksburgpost.com/
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Feb. 25
The Greenwood Commonwealth on improving incentives for new businesses in Mississippi:
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann is leading the charge to simplify and better cost-justify the incentives that Mississippi gives to lure new businesses and help others expand.
It’s a worthy endeavor.
Too often in this state, those in political office - especially whoever is residing in the Governor’s Mansion - tend to want to give away the store, bribing businesses to come to this state with incentives so lucrative that they will never pay for themselves. Sometimes state officials don’t vet the projects well to see whether they are sustainable. Or they award the incentives based on promises of jobs created and wages paid, with little follow-up to see whether those promises are kept or to hold the companies financially accountable.
The Institutions of Higher Learning, the oversight agency for the state’s public universities, also uncovered another problem recently with the state’s incentive plans: There are so many of them and so uncoordinated that not all of them are being used.
Under the legislation that Hosemann is pushing, no new incentive plans would be created. Rather, some would be killed, others would be consolidated, and in general the process would be streamlined so that those seeking incentives and those awarding them would know exactly and in simple terms what’s available. Any business creating at least 10 new jobs and a $2.5 million investment would be eligible to apply.
Most importantly, these so-called MFlex incentives would be awarded based on performance, not promises. And some of them would be tiered so that the more jobs created, and the higher paying those jobs are, the larger would be the rebates and tax credits.
Let’s see if Hosemann’s idea is enacted, and, if it is, how it plays out before rendering any definitive judgment on it. It certainly sounds, however, like a significant improvement over how Mississippi’s economic development deals have been structured in the past.
Online: https://www.gwcommonwealth.com/
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