Mac Haik tries to stop Gluckstadt

GLUCKSTADT — Residents here are furious with the two Mac Haik auto dealerships seeking to halt incorporation efforts.

In a Facebook group for Gluckstadt, proponents of the incorporation effort sounded off against the dealerships.

"The sad thing about Mac Haik is that he had the opportunity to be a part of a great community that has been here for over 100 years," Kerry Minninger wrote. "Instead he has chosen to be an opponent to the citizens of Gluckstadt."

He added in another post, "Apparently he wants our money but doesn't want to support our community."

Henry Davis said the community has been here much longer than the dealerships.

"What was he thinking, it would stay in the county forever?" he wrote. "Move somewhere else, I'm sure someone else would buy those buildings and love to be in Gluckstadt."

Others called for boycotts of the dealerships and vowed not to be customers.

Mac Haik and the city of Canton filed separate petitions with the Mississippi Supreme Court last week in an attempt to stop the Gluckstadt incorporation.

Mac Haik's petition for interlocutory appeal seeks to reverse a judgment on Chancery Judge James Walker on March 29 that said Gluckstadt incorporators had met their burden of proof to proceed with a full trial scheduled for later this summer.

Haik argues in its petition that the incorporators did not receive the signatures of the necessary two-thirds of qualified electors in the proposed area and only used a partial voter roll. Haik's petition argues at best, that the incorporators received 62.9 percent of the required votes.

"Respectfully, it is undisputedly clear that the Trial Court's rulings in this action are based on conjecture and speculation, rather than a preponderance of the credible evidence presented at trial," the petition states.

The city of Canton, in its petition for interlocutory appeal, called in to question the same required signatures of two-thirds of qualified electors. The City argues that Walker's ruling was "based on pure speculation and an unproven methodology."

At the heart of its argument is some 130 voters who were deemed "moved aways" on the Jan. 21, 2017 filing date with no specific evidence to suggest otherwise. Also, an undisputed group of "missing" inactive voters is called into question.

A five-week trial is scheduled to begin in August if the Supreme Court denies the petitions filed by Haik and Canton.