Columbus Mayor Gaskin touts successes and ongoing projects
COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Columbus Mayor Keith Gaskin may have less than a year left on the job, but he’s still working on seeing projects through.
On September 24, Gaskin took time out to brief area business and community leaders about the city’s progress.
Gaskin touched on several subjects, including praise for both Columbus City and Lowndes County schools for their recent accountability scores.
Columbus achieved a “B” rating, and the county scored an “A”.
He also touted 2 recent pieces of good news in the business arena: the expansion and new job creation at Burford Electric, and a pending deal with a national retailer eyeing the old K-Mart building on Highway 45.
Gaskin praised the LINK for their help in putting together those deals.
With about 11 months left on the job, Gaskin still has a couple of things on his “to do” list, including a forensic audit of the city’s spending over the past several years.
He said in some areas finances are showing improvement.
“one of the things I’m proud of is the city has – we do have a capital fund in place now. We’ve got about 5 million dollars in that, so we can, in the future, be planning for capital needs throughout the city, so that you’re not taking out bonds. We have about 33 million dollars in debt right now. We need to pay that down. We need to be building a capital fund, so that we don’t go back into that kind of debt again”, said Mayor Keith Gaskin.
Gaskin also invited everyone out to the celebration of a completed city project, the repair to the Old River Bridge.
That will be Sunday October 6.
