No action has taken place on a state-funded project to upgrade an already relatively well-paved northeast Jackson cul-de-sac that runs by a house owned by a Mississippi lawmaker, though officials overseeing the project say they still plan on completing the task.
Rebekah Staples, the chair of the Capitol Complex Improvement District’s Project Advisory Committee, told Mississippi Today after the group’s meeting on Thursday that the project to repave the road will eventually move forward, even though not much progress has been made on it.
“This is a project in which the Legislature has provided funding, and we intend to follow the law,” Staples said.
A 2024 Mississippi Today investigation revealed that House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar, a Republican from Senatobia, helped steer $400,000 in state taxpayer funds to repave Simwood Place in Jackson, where he owns a house.
Simwood Place, located in the relatively affluent LoHo neighborhood of northeast Jackson, is roughly one-tenth of a mile long, with only 14 single-family homes.
State lawmakers and the Jackson City Council member who previously represented the area told Mississippi Today they did not ask state leaders to allocate money for the Simwood Place project.
Lamar did not return a request for comment and has previously declined to answer specific questions about the Simwood project.
A spreadsheet detailing the status of various CCID projects showed the Simwood project was still in the preplanning phase, and the comment on the project status simply said, “N/A,” meaning not applicable.
A spending bill passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Tate Reeves routed several projects through the CCID committee. The advisory committee is housed in the Department of Finance and Administration.
DFA is the primary agency responsible for state government financial and administrative operations, including employee payroll, employee insurance and maintaining state buildings. However, the Legislature has also tasked the agency with overseeing some operations of the CCID.
The peak time for asphalt projects in Mississippi typically runs from late spring to early fall. The Legislature in 2024 routed five projects, including the Simwood project, through the CCID committee.
It’s been one year since lawmakers appropriated the money for these projects, and most of them have either been completed or are ongoing, except for the Simwood project and infrastructure improvements to Jackson State University.
For the JSU project, the spreadsheet says the organization is waiting on an update from the university, while there’s virtually no update or comments on the Simwood project.
Liz Welch, the DFA director, told Mississippi Today that the agency is still planning on completing the Simwood project, but the organization has other infrastructure priorities that it’s currently tackling.
