By Rupert Howell

Panola supervisors instructed road manager Lygunnah Bean to move forward with clearing two ditches bisecting Curtis Road, similar to what he was reprimanded for this summer during Monday’s First District meeting at the Sardis Courthouse.

Bean was reprimanded earlier this year for working on private property north of Curtis Road just west of that road’s intersection with Macedonia Road. That work drew criticism and a State Audit Department visit due to Bean not first getting board and property owner approval.

At least some of the water came from District Three supervisor John Thomas’s property causing suspicion that the first term supervisor was benefitting from unauthorized work on private property.

Thomas responded that water was draining the way it always had.

“We are going to do it right this time. We know how to do it,” Bean told supervisors Monday prior to their affirmative vote.

The board’s action came after Curtis resident Marcus Pollard who has property in the area affected told supervisors, “ . . . more and more water is coming each rain. I need a large barge under my house each time it rains.”

Bean said that ditches that direct water to Bobo Bayou have not been maintained and water in Curtis Road ditches—, “There is no place for that water to go.”

“We relieved it from the north end,” Bean said of the previous unauthorized ditch clearing and recommended doing the same to the two other ditches.

Asked by Attorney Bill McKenzie about Bobo Drainage District’s role, Supervisor Thomas said that several ditches would be cleared by that agency.

“The drainage district is going to clean a lot of ditches but we got to get water to them,” Bean said and explained, “(drainage) was designed that way. We just haven’t maintained it.”

Bean explained that he would also need landowners’ to agree for him to put dirt cleaned from the ditches somewhere.

“We can’t truck it out of there,” he said.
Supervisors instructed the road manager to begin getting permission from affected landowners.