Regime Change at MDOTourism

Butch Brown requires reconfirmation by the Mississippi Senate to continue as Executive Director of MDOT. The Clarion Ledger has actually called for a "regime change" at MDOT, and for Brown's ouster:

"Regime change" became a popular phrase during this decade for the act of removing a person who is perceived to use his or her authority in a manner that's less than altruistic and particularly for those who rule with an iron fist.

It's time for "regime change" at the top of the Mississippi Department of Transportation.

The state Senate should withhold confirmation of Brown's reappointment. MDOT would greatly benefit from new leadership as an agency and the state's Transportation Commission would benefit from breaking up what has degenerated - for whatever reason - into an untenable but reliable 2-1 split on many vital policy matters.

Butch Brown has led MDOT on several misadventures. Brown, Brown and Minor agreed that the 10th floor of MDOT's headquarters in Jackson needed an expansion and renovation of their executive offices and their meeting room at a time when many Mississippians were living in tents on the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

MDOT's present leadership also decreed that the agency needed a $530,000 helicopter - ostensibly because MDOT had an extra half million dollars to spend on law enforcement and also because its leaders said they needed the chopper to search for the elusive mystery tankers of untaxed gasoline supposedly being smuggled into the state.

To date - after what we're sure has been years of aerial surveillance - no such sinister smuggling operation has been uncovered. What a shock!

The latest? MDOT travel records show that over the last four years Director Brown spent $80,316 and Commissioner Brown spent $69,187. Hall has spent $12,638 and Minor spent $44,505. Wayne Brown and Butch Brown took trips out of the country, including Puerto Rico, Brussels, Budapest and Vienna. Wayne Brown even went to Cancun.

The commissioners from the northern and southern districts also seem to agree with Brown that none of them particularly likes working with Central District Commissioner Dick Hall. They voted to move Hall's staff out of the building and into a trailer in Rankin County.

The state Senate can bring "regime change" to MDOT and should do so.

The reasons for ousting Butch Brown go on forever. Whether it is traveling the world on the taxpayer's dollar, or the termination of Harry Lee James, or the political termination of Shirley Rutland, or his determination to bulldoze historic Church Street in Port Gibson in opposition to local wishes and those of their elected Transportation Commissioner.

The Sun Herald has called him "intoxicated by power" with inexcusable arrogance. Even the columnist Bill Minor (not the Commissioner Bill Minor) has been critical of Butch Brown in the wake of Katrina who said Coast folks were "seeing no results and a litany of excuses" and calling Brown's responses "arrogant."

The Clarion Ledger mentioned the helicopter. Consider this from The Magnolia Report:

"I have no idea why the helicopter was purchased or what it's being used for. I know that it's parked out at Hawkins Field. I know that MDOT has a pilot hired to fly it. I've been told it's been used to fly (MDOT executive director) Butch Brown back and forth to Natchez." Central District Transportation Commissioner Dick Hall on the helicopter MDOT bought from the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics

"That helicopter has never been used to fly me to Natchez and if Dick said that, then he's just a liar, a pure and simple liar." MDOT Executive Director Butch Brown’s response to Hall’s allegations.

So then, why did Butch buy the helicopter? To find that illusive gas tanker on the Mississippi River that was bypassing state gas taxes? Yeah, right. They should ask him about that at his confirmation hearing!