Meridian's N-A-A-C-P Education Chair Randle Jennings went before the City Council Tuesday to ask the city to help provide some programs for teens in the summer.

But Mayor John Robert smith says Jennings already received over 12 thousand dollars from the city last year to create an after school program at the Velma Young Community Center and didn't live up to the commitment. Now he says the city wants that money back.

"We were told initially he had the $12,500 and he would be returning it. He has not, did not, and so we now have to recover that money," Meridian Mayor John Robert Smith said.

The mayor says the city has filed a civil suit against Jennings to recover the money.

So where is the taxpayer's money? Randle Jennings says he's refusing to hand it over. Jennings says he used about eight thousand dollars in preparation of the after school program and the remaining four thousand he's purposely sitting on because he wants some answers from the city.

"I'm sure the city is not going to go broke for $12,000 or $4,000 but the question is our children are suffering for $1,000. I'm sitting on the funds. And I'm prepared to be able to even run the program if the city would support the program fully. They have not supported me. They knew the contract agreement as far as what we all agreed to," Jennings said.

Jennings says he was relying on matching funds from other organizations to fully finance the program, but he never received the funds. However, the mayor says that shouldn't have stopped him from returning the city's money.

"I have not breached any situation that I have proposed," Jennings said.

Jennings says the after school program has been put on hold because he's in litigation with the city. And he says it will remain on hold until the program receives proper funding.