Time for a Full Accounting
As the full truth of the city's considerable budget crisis has emerged, one additional thing about Mayor Frank Melton has come into full reliefhe's doesn't know how to run the city. Couple this with the crime statistics that show Melton doesn't know how to run a police department, and we're forced to recognize thataside from speaking to TV cameras and trashing other public officialsthere's very little that Mr. Melton actually can do.
Metro Chamber: Disavow Attorney Attacks
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Don't Let Stokes Stop Progress
Livingston Village rode in on the violent tendrils of Hurricane Katrina. It's one of those once-in-a-century opportunities made possible through astounding tax credits from the federal government, but the federal GO-Zone legislation that makes it possible comes with a deadline. Nevertheless, the council is smothering the $75 million endeavor, a project that developers say will net $150,000 in sales taxes and another $650,000 a year in ad valorem taxes.
Barbour: What's In a Name?
This week, with the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaching, it's worth noting that the storm is still trying to knock down one more person as it blows its way into the history booksHaley Barbour.
Delay Political?
Last week, four city council members voted to delay a zoning change for a major development initiative near the Jackson Medical Mall, with Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes leading the vote. His concern is drainagewhich, it seems, the city has already addressed. Previously, Stokes complained that he didn't like that Livingston Village would be a gated community.
This Election, Demand Real Answers
Every election season, in the few weeks leading up to a major vote, the Jackson Free Press gets a front-row seat for the way candidates tend to run for office in this state. We hear very little from the candidates in the months before the election, and then about three weeks before the big day, everyone crowds the dance floor like bridesmaids lining up to catch the bouquet.
C-L: This Political Cycle, Try Actual Reporting
We know that asking The Clarion-Ledger not to cover the upcoming primary like it was going to be held in Louisiana Downs is like asking a Palmetto bug to stay off the porch on a warm, rainy Mississippi night. But we have to try.
The 50-State Strategy Should Include Us
A poll recently conducted by the New York Times, CBS and MTV showed that Americans aged 17-29 lean toward the political left. The poll found that 54 percent of young Americans plan to vote for a Democrat for president in 2008, and, overall, that age group gives President Bush a 28 percent approval rating.
Cold Cases Bill Must Pass
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act. That legislation would authorize $10 million a year over the next decade to create a unit at the Department of Justice that would pursue unsolved civil rights cases.
Southwick Must Go
Last week, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee postponed a confirmation vote on Leslie Southwick when it became clear that the committee would reject his nomination. This is at least the third delay since President George W. Bush nominated Southwick last January to the Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, a court just under the U.S. Supreme Court. The Fifth Circuit covers parts of Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.
Close Columbia Training School
This Tuesday, the Juvenile Justice Committee of the Mississippi House of Representatives heard testimony from families and experts about abuse at Columbia Training School, where eight girls were allegedly shackled at the ankles, some of them for more than a week, because another student falsely claimed they planned to escape. One former student also reported that male staff members had solicited sexual favors from girls at the school.
Melton Mismanagement Hits the 'Bottom Line
This week, city officials finally handed in their budget revisions to the City Council, detailing cuts that will be made to city departments in order to reconcile a nearly $4 million deficit. Those cuts represent a sad state of affairsthe manifestation of Mayor Frank Melton's mismanagement of the city.
Seale the 'Last' Case? We Doubt It.
To fill space this weekend in The Clarion-Ledger's package on the James Ford Seale case, reporter Jerry Mitchell returned to a well from which he has drunk in the past with a story headlined "Seale Case Could Be Last of Its Kind." The article is a thinly disguised prognostication that seems to pander to a perceived demographic of readers who are "tired" of civil rights cases being brought to trial. But the article flies in the face of evidence that both the federal government and Mississippians intend to prosecute any of these old civil rights cases when the facts of the case warrant it.
Proposed Work Program a Bust
This week, the U.S. Senate is considering comprehensive immigration reform that includes the creation of a new temporary worker program.
Step Up, Ledger
If you read the JFP's account of the Mayor Melton's "open" meeting with department heads this week (page 6), and then you read the Clarion-Ledger's online account posted Monday, you would have thought our reporters were at two different meetings.
Get the Mayor to 'Do His Job
A common refrain during the build-up to Mayor Frank Melton's felony trials this past month was that "people should just let the mayor do his job.
Ronni's Wild Ride
"Have you ever noticed? Anybody going slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac."
What Will It Take, Council?
The Jackson City Council shirked its duties—and certain council members betrayed their oath of office—Tuesday when a majority decided against investigating whether Mayor Frank Melton took the JPD Mobile Command Center and a group of young men to Ridgeway Street and proceeded to destroy half of a duplex, as neighbors and the house's owner have attested. The story, first reported on the Jackson Free Press Web site Friday, has set off a media frenzy.
The Bottom Line
Frank Melton cannot solve Jackson's crime. That is simply a statement of fact, not a criticism or a denouncement or even a denouement. It is also true that former Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. could not solve crime. Neither could former Police Chief Robert Moore. And current Police Chief Shirlene Anderson can't, either.
Call Him Irresponsible
Mayor Frank Melton's stated desire to take a leave of absence from his job as mayor to become a vigilante lawman and "bring in" a former gang member and alleged murderer was disturbing to us here at the Jackson Free Press. Not only does it sound like the plot line for a relatively rote episode of "Walker, Texas Ranger," (which is, no doubt, a popular show in part because its characters can be counted on to present such "can-do" attitudes on a regular basis), but it also suggests a larger pattern with this particular mayor and his young administration.
Blowin' In The Wind
Last week Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff, I. "Scooter" Libby, was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice in an investigation into how the identity of a covert CIA operative was leaked to the press. This scandal comes one year after President Bush was elected to his second term, and it puts us in mind of two things that happened about a year ago this month.
Focus On The ‘Mayor Stuff'
It wasn't until Friday, five days after Katrina had blown through Jackson, that a visibly uncomfortable Mayor Melton fielded questions about city response from what was a visibly frustrated, angry even, Jackson City Council.
If Melton's ‘Pro-Jackson' ...
We realized late in the production cycle for this issue that the Jackson Free Press is publishing its 100th issue this week. It may only be fitting that we reached such a milestone at the same time that the city of Jackson may be experiencing its most dramatic change since we began publishing—a changing of the guard at City Hall.
Cochran and Lott: Sign On Now
In the wake of the Edgar Ray Killen trial and the media spotlight on Mississippi, another tumult over race and politics boiled to the surface last week when the U.S. Senate passed a non-binding resolution apologizing for years of the Senate's failure to pass Federal anti-lynching legislation.
The Mayor's Race That Wasn't
The JFP started out the election season in January determined to learn as much as possible about both the character and the specific plans of the candidates for mayor of Jackson. Because of the nature of the job of mayor—part business booster, part labor negotiator, part city planner, part "top cop," part statesman—we think that the labels Republican or Democrat are secondary to the mayor being a trustworthy power-broker, a champion against poverty and for education, a proponent of smarter government, and a progressive when it comes to exploring and promoting creative ideas to fuel the cultural renaissance of a city's urban core.
Mr. Barbour: It's Time to Start Governing
It is telling that Haley Barbour was not in the state of Mississippi when he decided to call a special session this past weekend in a gambit to force the Mississippi House to pass Barbour's favored fix for Medicaid's 2005 funding woes this year. Because he couldn't make it back to the state in time, Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck signed the order to open the session.
Barbour: Heed The Will of The People
We feel it's important to ask a serious question of Gov. Haley Barbour—has he returned to Mississippi to govern the state, or just to test his pet ideological theories about what wins elections?
Standing Up for the People
Don't believe the hype. Or, at least look for the balance in it.
During the special session called by Gov. Haley Barbour to pass certain economic-development bonds, Mississippians have been told incessantly by Barbour's office and the state's media that the House of Representatives has been "obstructionist." The drumbeat has been that the House is costing the taxpayers money every day they don't simply pass Barbour's bill and go home.
The Governor Sacrifices His Rook
One burning question from our past two weeks of reporting at the Capitol on the governor's special session is a simple, if surprising, one. Does Haley Barbour really want tort reform?
Calm the 'Runaway' Rhetoric; Do the Homework
As we go to press, it seems likely that Gov. Haley Barbour will call a special session this year to try and push through more "tort reform" measures after failing to reach a compromise with Democratic leadership in the House. The slogan leading up to Gov. Barbour's special session will be that the House leadership is not "allowing the majority to speak." But if general tort-reform liability caps pass, it will be the lobbyists and big industry who are being heard. The "majority" wants health care and jobs. Capping non-economic damages provides neither, and a special session will be a waste of taxpayer dollars on a partisan, ideological enterprise based on rhetoric and sketchy facts.