About four years ago, Marion’s Tommy Williams attended a Lauderdale County Board of Supervisors meeting and left with more questions than answers.

Specifically, Williams wondered how the body could pass a $14 million bond issue, which occurred on April 1, 2013, after holding two separate meetings on March 26, 2013, with two separate supervisor meetings with the same consultant on the same day to avoid a quorom and a public meeting.

When he wanted to learn more, Williams says he didn’t get anywhere.

Williams took the next step and filed a complaint with the Mississippi Ethics Commission, alleging supervisors had illegally met before the official meeting. The Ethics Commission ruled in Williams’ favor on Jan. 9, 2015, but the county appealed that decision. The matter has yet to be resolved.  

“I asked for nothing in my complaint except for the supervisors to acknowledge they violated the Open Meetings Act,” Williams said during a recent interview. “The objective was to stop the non-transparent ways our supervisors have been governing the county.” 

Some might think laws like the Open Meetings Act only concern journalists, but Williams said any ordinary citizen can challenge the government at any time. 

“Any citizen can file a complaint with the Ethics Commission about an action they think is not legal, be it the board of supervisors or city council,” Williams said, as he clutched a thick file of documents with assorted unbound receipts. “In my action, I said the board of supervisors violated the Open Meetings Act, which means the public’s business shall be done in public.”

Lauderdale County Board of Supervisors attorney Lee Thaggard, who is a partner in Barry, Palmer, Thaggard, May & Bailey, declined comment on the board’s appeal of the case. County Administrator Chris Lafferty also declined comment.

“The case is currently in litigation, so I have no comment on the merits of the case,” Thaggard said.

Williams operated a coffee service business in Arlington, Va., for 28 years and returned home to Meridian in April 2005. He also lived in Florida for 10 years.

“I’ve had experience in the legal arena from running a business for 28 years,” he recalled. “I had a lot of legal matters to deal with. But it’s nothing like dealing with government,” Williams said. “I watched the government from the Potomoc River from living in Arlington. The first thing I got involved with the supervisors was the $14 million bond issue in 2013. It became apparent to me all the mismanagement.”

One question Williams had when he moved back to Meridian was why the city and county hadn’t grown in population since the 1950s.

“‘Meridian had 50,000 population in 1955 and the county had 80,000,” he said. “Now Meridian has a population of 40,000. In the 65 years since I graduated, there’s not been any growth despite all the area’s attributes. I started finding out why and it’s because of all the mismanagement by officials and corruption.”

Wanting to learn more about the lack of growth locally, Williams began attending board of supervisors meetings. It was the $14 million bond issue that accelerated his interest in county government. 

Since then, he’s been a regular fixture at board meetings.

“In the last two years I probably haven’t missed but five or six meetings, including the regular meeting and work session,” Williams said. “If you haven’t got the money to do what you want, they’ve got the attitude of ‘go borrow some.'”

Williams said keeping the government honest is hard work; he estimated he puts in nearly 50 hours a week on the task. 

“All the documentation and postage is pretty big when you do it over a period of time. This is like a job,” Williams said. “I wake up thinking about this.”

For Williams, being a watchdog isn’t just time-consuming, it’s also not cheap. He estimates he’s spent more than $6,500 in the last two years in his effort to make county government more transparent.

Williams is the mouthpiece for Citizens for Responsible Governance, a group that watches local government in action. The group, which numbers around 110 members, has helped with advice and other work. 

“I hope these efforts might help supervisors understand their decisions are more important than what a few say it is,” Williams said. “It was just incredulous to me that the supervisors would pass a $14 million bond issue a year after they passed a $10 million bond issue and never told the public anything about it in the workshop meeting until they passed it on April 1, 2013.”

Williams says the county supervisors treat him well, but he believes they rely too heavily on advisers who are entrenched in the system.

“I want to suggest to them what good management of the area would be. I want to help them understand that the bad decisions have prevented us from growing.

TIMELINE OF WILLIAM’S ETHICS COMPLAINT AGAINST LAUDERDALE COUNTY

– March 2013, Tommy Williams contends the then-board of supervisors met two-on-two with advisers to see if it could bond for $14 million, in addition to the $10 million roads bond that it had begun adding to the budget each year. Williams contended the meetings should have been open to the public.

— April 1, 2013, the board meets and announces it would borrow the $14 million bond without open discussion.

— Jan. 6 2014, Williams complaint with the Mississippi Ethics Commission, saying county violated open meetings law.

— Jan. 9, 2015 – Ethics Commission rules in Williams’ favor.

— Jan. 29, 2015 – Lauderdale County appeals the ruling

— Feb. 2, 2016 – Chancery Clerk files motion to dismiss for lack of prosecution.

— March 2, 2016 – County asks for a status conference. As of this month, that conference has not been held.