CityLab Daily: 'Transit-Oriented Teens' Are Coming to Save Your City

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Where’s the money? There’s something very odd going on in Pelahatchie, Mississippi. Nine months after Ryshonda Harper Beechem took office as the first African-American mayor of the small town, the Board of Aldermen has decided to cut her pay 75 percent, from $1,000 a month to $250 a month, without prior notice, according to the Clarion-Ledger. The vote comes alongside budget cuts for the shrinking town, and board members voted to cut their own pay, too. But other interferences in Beechem’s ability to act as mayor have many residents and observers wondering if there’s a racial dimension to these actions in the majority-white town.