By Billy Davis
Panola County supervisors voted 3-2 at their March 5 meeting to keep Supervisor James Birge in Mississippi during a four-day developmental organization conference in Washington, D.C.

The Washington trip is an annual meeting of the National Association of Development Organizations (NADO), an organization that would include Batesville-based association North Delta Planning and Development.

The “2012 Washington Policy Conference” is set for March 18-21 at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Virginia, according to the national Web site.

Birge was apparently expecting to attend since he represents Panola County government on North Delta’s board of directors along with fellow supervisors Kelly Morris and Vernice Avant.  

Approval of Birge to travel to Washington was included among other items announced by Panola County Administrator Kelley Magee which require approval by the county board.  

The items are usually routine and are approved without discussion and debate, and Birge immediately made a board motion to approve his trip after Magee announced it. A second came from Avant.

Birge and Avant voted in favor of the motion while fellow supervisors John Thomas, Morris and Cole Flint voted against it, defeating it.

After his motion was defeated, Birge looked visibly surprised when he took off his reading glasses and looked down.

 “I didn’t see any sense in spending money we don’t have to send somebody to something that wouldn’t do any good,” Morris, the board president, later told The Panolian.

Just hours after the board vote, Morris himself was leaving for a two-day trip to Washington with other local officials to meet Congressional leaders at the U.S. Capitol.

The purpose of the trip was to meet Mississippi’s senators and representatives to request more funding for the airport industrial park according to Morris. A trip last year secured funding for constructing building pads, he said.

Morris said the delegation included Avant, Batesville Mayor Jerry Autrey, Panola Partnership CEO Sonny Simmons, and Batesville Alderman Eddie Nabors.

The Panola County delegation met with Rep. Alan Nunnelee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, and Sen. Thad Cochran.

“It’s important that you go as a group to show them we’re working together as a group,” said Morris, who said he was completing his third trip to Washington as a public official.

 “It was a hurry-up trip,” Morris said, pointing out the delegation spent only one night in the nation’s capital. “We get our business taken care of and come back home.”

Morris’s expenses for the one-night trip included $393 for round-trip airfare, $411 for a one-night hotel stay, and $24 for food according to Magee, who was responding to a Panolian request for the costs.  

For the NODA conference, rooms at the Marriott cost $240 a night according to the NODA Web site.

Birge, expecting to make the trip next week, said he had contacted Rep. Thompson and set up a luncheon to discuss extending water lines at the North Panola Water Association among other projects.

Birge estimated he has made five trips to the nation’s capital as a public official for Panola County. The NODA conference would have been his first to attend, he said.
“I was surprised,” he said of the 3-2 board vote. “Maybe next time.”