Jackson mayor elect John Horhn has picked a solid transition team: Kane Ditto, a former two-term mayor of Jackson and successful real estate developer; Robert Gibbs, a former circuit judge and senior partner with the Gibbs Travis Law Firm; and Bishop Ronnie Crudup, senior pastor of New Horizon Church International. This bodes well.
Eight other “at large” transition team members are State Representative Zakiya Summers, State Senator Sollie Norwood, Johnnie Patton, former National Democratic Committeewoman, convenience store owner Surinder Singh, TrustCare President Warren Herring and entrepreneurs Patricia Reese and Gabriel Prado and labor advocate Brenda Scott.
Everyone in the metro area should be rooting for Horhn to bring competent professional management to the core of our metro area.
Mississippi is in the heart of the fastest growing region of the richest nation in the history of the world. States around us are growing. Mississippi should too.
Jackson is the capital of Mississippi. It is smack dab in the center of our state. It is by far the largest metro area. Mississippi growth will be hindered if we have an embarrassing downtown. The whole state needs to join together and turn downtown Jackson from a laughing stock to a showplace.
A starting point would be for Horhn to do a nationwide search and find a competent city manager and then give that manager the authority to do his job.
Horhn has been a state senator for decades. He is a competent politician. But he has never run a city. It would be naive of him to think he could suddenly develop a skill set that takes decades to accomplish. Horhn could no more do that than do brain surgery.
Hopefully, his transition team will convince Horhn of the necessity of hiring a top-notch city manager. This will cost a lot of money. But it will be worth every penny.
Recall that the water crisis cost Jackson a million dollars a day and continued for seven weeks, it was fixed when federal water czar Ted Henifin took control.
Henifin makes half a million a year but he’s worth every penny. I’m for hiring the best city manager in the country and paying that person whatever it takes, even if it’s a million per year.
Just consider how much sport teams pay for star athletes. They have to. Sports is 100 percent competitive and you have to win to make money and star athletes produce victories. If a star quarterback is worth 10s of millions, a star city manager surely is worth a million. A star city manager could positively affect the lives of 10s of thousands of city residents, indeed, the entire state.
House speaker Jason White recently stated that one of his goals is to help turnaround Jackson. This is a monumental change from a decade or two ago, when Republican leadership was more than happy to let Jackson decline while they pointed fingers and said I told you so.
Governor Tate Reeves and Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann also advocate helping Jackson turn around. The Republican leadership, indeed the whole state, is finally realizing that Mississippi cannot succeed if its core is rotten.
Look at booming Nashville, Little Rock and Birmingham. These cities were all struggling and now are growing like crazy, bringing growth to their entire states. We should follow this model.
There are some very positive signs. The murder rate in Jackson is on track to drop by half. The new state Capitol Police force is evidence of state leadership, as is the Capitol Complex Improvement District and the new state-created Jackson court.
Here is another simple way the state can help Jackson, further consolidation and improve the metro area: Agree to pay the city money to take over the airport. Make a deal. Perhaps the money could be designated fund to help pay for a top-notch city manager.
The Jackson airport is the first impression businessmen and investors get when they come to Jackson to investigate business opportunities. When the escalators are broken for a year, hardly any shops are open and the airport looks dingy, what kind of message does that send to potential investors?
The state could also take over Thalia Mara Hall or at least help fund its upkeep. We simply cannot afford to have a dilapidated state capital.
I recently heard Liz Brister, the new president of Downtown Jackson Partners, talk about downtown revival. Brister is a great hire and will get things done. She said the key to downtown revival is to have at least 2,000 people living downtown. We currently have 800.
Two thousand downtown residents is the threshold number to have a grocery store, drug store and other signs of retail life.
The new owner of the old Deposit Guaranty Building is planning to turn Jackson’s tallest building into a residential facility with 200 units. Only a thousand more people to go.
The state should consider building incentives for downtown residential buildings to achieve Brister’s 2,000 downtown residents goal. That should be priority number one. Downtown high-rise residential buildings are the key.
Priority two should be ensuring Jackson has at least one cool, vibrant street with shops and restaurants open on weekend nights where tourists and people can walk around. Capitol Street is the obvious choice.
This is what young college graduates and professionals want. They are who we need to attract. With a new mayor, state support and visionary thinking, this can be accomplished.
We need a mayor who will work with state leaders as equal partners. We need a top-notch city manager. We need a supportive city council. We need the support of our biggest employers. We need the support of Madison and Rankin residents. Working together in a non-partisan role, this objective can be accomplished and transform our state.
