Monroe economic development talk gets heated, citizen kicked out of council meeting

The debate over plans submitted by the Southside Economic Development District at Tuesday night's Monroe City Council meeting led to a local citizen being asked to leave the meeting by city marshals.

The discussion involved a resolution regarding the adoption of the district board's 25-year proposal for economic development in the south side of Monroe.

Councilwoman Kema Dawson said she had concerns about the duplication of projects that have already been implemented by the city listed in the SEDD proposal.

"I'm really concerned about, as far as the funding for some of these projects that you're doing, because right now you don't have the funding," Dawson said. "For instance, when you have certain grants, only one particular entity in the city can apply for this grant. So if that grant is not available, where are you going to get the money from to try to do a duplication of what's already done?"

Tony Little, president of the SEDD, replied to Dawson, saying the projects in the proposals would not be duplications but merely extensions to what the city has already implemented.

"Let's just say, in your district if we were going to build a sidewalk down a particular street and the city would only go so far," Little said. "You were at the last board (meeting) that the SEDD had and they said they were only willing to go so far with the sidewalk. It would not be a duplication if we said we would go farther."

South side Monroe citizen Marie Brown voiced her frustrations about the questioning of the proposal, accusing the council of purposely hindering progress in the predominately Black south side community.

"Money is going downtown like water but the fact (is) that we can be able to handle our own finances," Brown said. "Our own thing that we want for ourselves, Districts 3, 4 and 5, seems to be farfetched for you all, this board. When are we going to be able look in our own communities, and you all are saying, 'duplicating,' but what are we duplicating because I don't see nothing done. That is a problem."

Brown then questioned the commitment to their Black constituents of council members Dawson, Carday Marshall and Juanita Woods.

"We elected you all to look out for Districts 3, 4 and 5," Brown said. "Gretchen and Harvey, I'm not even talking to you all because you look out for District 1 and 2. It looks good. So you want this whole city to look the same but at what time do you want Black people to be able to fund and do things for themselves? Stop trying to give us a fishing pole with no bait on it. We can handle our own thing. We built America. You think we can't build three districts."

"You're saying Black folks as if we're not Black," Dawson said.

"Well, I question that, too," Brown said.

"You can get off the microphone with that," Dawson said. "Marshals, you can go ahead and remove her."

The discussion started when Councilwoman Gretchen Ezernack pointed out that some of the SEDD's proposed plans were already in progress with the City of Monroe or other organizations. Ezernack described the plans as unwieldy.

"I don't know where you're going to start," Ezernack said. "What's number one? There was a conflict in some of the narrative about these are our five goals and those are the first five are the ones that are important, but then you went to the goals and that wasn't in the order that they were received."

Little said housing is the top priority in the proposal, but said the corporation can spearhead numerous projects if given the funding.

"We believe we can build houses and tackle crime as well as tackle lighting and deal with other issues in the district," Little said. "If we do not get the housing piece correct. If we do not make Districts 3, 4 and 5 places where people want to live, where they want to open up a business, where they want to raise a family, none of the rest of it means anything. To do that means we have to do a bunch of things."

Dawson said she wants the south side community to flourish but does not want to support a plan that could result in court proceedings.

"If we're going to approve a plan, the plan needs to be in order," Dawson said. "The plan needs to be 100% good because we don't want to have to come back and say, 'Oh, they did all of this for SEDD and SEDD still hasn't done anything, or SEDD has done something illegal.' That's what I don't want coming back on me. I have no problems with approving the plan if it's intact. Right now the plans has some flaws in it and you're trying to tell us, 'Approve the flaws. Go on approve the flaws and we'll fix them later.' That's not how I operate."

Dawson and the council unanimously voted to approve SEDD's 2022 plans with one modification, that no local tax revenue would be used in its proposed micro-lending program.

Follow Ian Robinson on Twitter @_irobinson and on Facebook at https://bit.ly/3vln0w1.

Support local journalism by subscribing at https://cm.thenewsstar.com/specialoffer.

This article originally appeared on Monroe News-Star: Monroe city council debate gets heated, citizen kicked out of meeting