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Frank Melton's $6 Million Dollar Plan
Jackson Mayor Frank Melton told a doubtful city council today that he believes his administration has located $6 million in extra reserve funds in the Department of Public Works. Melton said he was not sure if the money, from Public Works' Enterprise fund, was fully established as unnecessary funds, but trumped up the cash as a possible means to duck the combined 15 percent water and sewer increase that he had earlier proposed in order to help balance his administration's budget.
UPDATED: Hosemann Seeks More Power
Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann asked the Legislature for subpoena power last week to make it easier for him to purge the state's voter rolls. Hosemann suggested to the Senate Elections Committee that his office should be able to assume control of any county election commission "found in default," and he proposed a new statute allowing his office to subpoena records, documents and other evidence related to voting in state and local elections. Hosemann also requested new restrictions on the use of assistants for certain voters on Election Day, excluding any people allied with candidates.
Human Rights Movement ‘Still Taking Off'
Sixty years after the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, advocates such as Father Jerome Tobin say the fight isn't over, not even after more than a half century later.
Better Late Than Never
Within weeks of passing a resolution to apologize for lynching, the U.S. Senate is moving to help solve old civil rights cases. U.S. Sens. Jim Talent, R-Mo., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn., recently announced strong support for their Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act (S. 1369) with 22 cosponsors, including Dodd and Talent, already backing the legislation.
[Capitol Report] Open Hands Abound
The House Ways and Means Committee continued the hearing on bond project proposals at a June 16 meeting at the State Capitol. The hearing, part of the preparation for the June 28 special session, was essentially a forum for representatives of state organizations, both public and private, to vent their financial shortfalls for the upcoming year to the House committee.
Bellsouth Looting Competitors?
Hurricane Katrina took down power lines across the Southeast and left hundreds of customers without phone service for weeks. Some customers also say that the telephone company Bellsouth has taken advantage of the disaster to further dominate the phone lines in southern Mississippi and Louisiana, costing customers valuable time and money.
Truant ‘Sweeps' Obscure Progress
After a setback last Tuesday, Jackson Mayor Frank Melton went through with a campaign promise to attack the Jackson Public School drop-out rate and get school-age children off the street. On Friday, Melton organized an attempted police round-up of more than 300 truants and drop-outs, to be carted off to see a judge.
Melton Blazes Into Week 1
Mayor Frank Melton's campaign pivoted on the promise of a safer, crime-free Jackson in the months leading up to his recent election to the office of Jackson mayor. That same promise was the gist of his message to the more than 500-member audience attending his July 4 inaugural celebration behind City Hall.
In The Line of Melton's Fire
For more than a decade, Jackson Mayor Frank Melton spent his career lobbing criticism and condemnation at local political leaders that he felt weren't doing a good job of keeping the city of Jackson off its knees.
Eyebrows Raised Over Voting Decisions
The Mississippi Secretary of State's office announced June 29 that it had made its selection on the vendor to supply the state's voting machines for the 2006 elections: Diebold Election Systems.
‘We Can No Longer Hide'
On March 23, in the middle of a budget stand-off, House Speaker Billy McCoy, D-Rienzi, warned that the state budget will have some holes that will hurt Mississippians if the Senate refuses to work with the House to raise some form of revenue.
High Anxiety
A recent Precinct 4 COPS meeting revealed anxiety over Mayor Melton's recent move to dissolve the Crime Prevention Unit. The unit, employing only one academy-graduated police officer, was recognized at the meeting as a useful tool for the community to use to communicate with the Jackson Police Department.
Anderson Goes Down ‘Perception' Road
After weeks of holding out on crime statistics, Jackson Police Chief Shirlene Anderson handed over two-week-old COMSTAT reports to city council members at the Dec. 20 council meeting. Anderson's initial defense for withholding the numbers was that the figures did not give an accurate portrayal of crime in the city.
‘Destroyed' By The Curfew
Mayor Frank Melton announced Sept. 9 that the emergency curfew issued for the city of Jackson—a curfew that some city officials called "unenforceable"—in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina had been lifted, ending days of businesses closing prematurely and perhaps unnecessarily.
The City vs. The Cops
Last week, the Jackson City Council voted to pay a $34,487 settlement in a suit against a Jackson police officer accused of handcuffing a man before banging and grinding his head against a concrete carport.
Allstate v. Melton
On Aug. 22, Jackson Mayor Frank Melton admitted to Lauderdale County Circuit Court Judge Robert Bailey that he had lied for more than two years about sending a debunked Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics memo to Washington-based Clarion-Ledger reporter Ana Radelat, falsehoods first reported by the Jackson Free Press in July. Plaintiffs in Robert Pierce v. Frank Melton claim the memo prematurely ended the careers of Pierce and Jimmy Saxton, both former pilots at MBN. Incensed, Bailey quickly entered an order three days later striking Melton's pleadings and rendering default judgment for the plaintiffs.
The New Well
Graphic courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy
The U.S. Department of Energy is considering Richton, Miss., as a location for the newest expansion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The reserve, established in 1975 to protect the U.S. from oil supply interruptions, faced its starkest example of how much damage an interruption could pack with the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina. Gas prices, after years of steady ascension, shot up another 30 cents in some regions, so much so that President George W. Bush called upon the release of 30 million barrels of oil from the reserve. The administration has also been looking to expand the reserve, outlining in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 an expansion of the reserve from 727 million barrels of oil to 1 billion.
Dancing Like It's 1984
Developers say the city may have put a project to fund renovations at the dilapidated King Edward Hotel at risk by lingering too long on an application for a HUD loan.
[State Report] Coast Park Open to Drilling?
Tempers are rising in the concerted efforts to open the Mississippi Barrier Islands to gas drilling. An emergency military spending and tsunami relief bill recently signed by the Bush administration carried an unexpected tag-along, an inserted rider that declares the state the owner of the mineral rights and orders the Department of Interior to allow exploration in the national park and directional drilling under it. More locally, it gives energy companies the right to explore for oil and gas inside a beach side national park replete with protected fish and birds, a large array of sea turtles and the Gulf's largest concentration of bottlenose dolphins.
Unions: Watch Your Politicians
In 1948, America stepped out of a world war with an economy still glowing from the explosive heat and an emerging middle class that promised great things for the world. Fueled by the optimism, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed Dec. 10 Human Rights Day, in honor of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Dec. 10, 1948, by the United Nations General Assembly.