This one's here because, for no reason whatsoever, this is one of my favorite short pieces - and Karen Parker is one of my favorite Jacksonians. If you're ever there, go see her.
New Vibrations owner Karen Parker describes the idea behind her store:
“We call this a store of spiritual and cultural diversity. I wanted to bring things from around the world to Jackson. I wanted to bring things of a spiritual nature to Jackson. It was really important to me to bring the tools and things that people use in different religions.”
New Vibrations opened two months ago on State Street in Fondren. Its bright purple exterior and its location between the Fondren Corner building and Treehouse have brought considerable traffic to the business. Some came following positive word of mouth, some came during Arts, Eats, and Beats, and some simply found it.
“People are beginning to search these days, stepping away from their basic religions, and beginning to open themselves up,” Parker said. “The world is a smaller place than it ever was before. I’ve always felt that we all call God different names, and he or she had different faces in different religions, but that we all pray to the same God and that it’s really important for us to see ourselves talking to – and about – one God and one Creator.”
“I think each person should be allowed their own path to God.” Parker, who was born and raised in Jackson, wanted to let the people of Jackson have some of the same opportunities that she had in determining her own life’s path.
“For us to understand that our diversity and religion is to be celebrated, and not used as a division, I wanted to bring that to Jackson. I found it in my own life really early and I enjoyed reading and studying comparative religion. It’s just always been a fascination to me.”
Parker came from a Christian family, attending both Methodist and Baptist churches while she was growing up. As she grew, she began to attend churches of different denominations, experimenting to find the place where she thought she would be the most content. Now, she says:
“I consider myself an extremely spiritual person, but I don’t put myself in any one religious category.” Her customers do not fit into any one category either.
“Most of the people that come in here consider themselves to be Christian, but they are very interested in other ways of thinking. We have quite a large pagan community here in Jackson and they are huge supporters of mine. They love the things that I have.” What she has is a collection of eclectic items, music, and books.
“I try to make sure I keep things that speak to your spirit or that may be of a religious nature, such as statues of Buddha or Hindu goddesses, or prayer beads. I don’t carry a lot of Christian things, because there are other companies that [do that] and do it very well.”
Instead, New Vibrations carries things like decorative masks, chakra jewelry, crystal balls, Egyptian statuary, karma flags, antique Tibetan singing bowls, natural soap, American Indian jewelry, intention candles, and items to help Feng Shui your home.
“I have things to make you happy and things to give you a spark in your life. I have some Celtic things, I have some things from Bali and Africa, I have some things from different parts of the world.”
“I want to have things that make you happy,” Parker said. “Or make you curious, and intrigue you, and make you question things.” She insists that her store is spiritual, and isn’t representative of what is often called “New Age.”
“I hate the words, ‘New Age.’ I hate them. Everything you don’t understand gets lumped under that heading, and I hate that. I don’t consider myself New Age because I don’t like the words, and I don’t like the connotations those words have. If you’re New Age, then you must be worshipping the devil or something like that, which is ridiculous. Some people may call my store New Age, but I prefer the word, “Metaphysical” – something beyond the physical.”
New Vibrations is Parker’s first business, but she says it is also something more than just that.
“I wanted to have a space – my back room – where people are invited to sit, have a cup of tea or coffee, and talk to each other. Read books about other religions and other beliefs that will open up some conversation between people with different beliefs, so that our intolerance is lessened by communication. I want people of a like mind to gather and talk.” But, she says she knows that conversation and a cup of tea may not be everybody’s cup of tea.
“I understand there are people that aren’t going to be happy with my kind of store. That’s okay. I understand that. If people don’t want to patronize the store, I understand.” But she considers herself fortunate that the business is located in the arts neighborhood.
“I always wanted to be in the Fondren area,” she said. “When I thought about my business, I always conceptualized it here. I wanted the energy here. I wanted the feel of it. This is like a gift from God.”
Showing posts with label business-related non-fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label business-related non-fiction. Show all posts
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Metal Finishing Services - Feature
I did some work for a business paper run by a pretty well-known Libertarian, Jack Criss. Though politically we didn't agree, I liked the way he had writers shine a light on the various businesses and businessmen of central Mississippi. I found that it's easy to write about anyone who is passionate about what they do. Everyone I interviewed for MBC was passionate about their work. I picked this piece, because the field in which he works seems dull to those of us who don't understand it, but so necessary and worthy for those who do.
David Church isn’t afraid to spread himself a little bit thin. Unlike some businessmen whose ‘eyes on the prize’ philosophy forces them to focus on one particular role in business – one hat to wear – and whose single-minded determination causes harm to their home life and health, Church is perfectly comfortable wearing those different hats. Husband, father, antique car hobbyist, and avid bicyclist who laments the lack of places to ride a bicycle inside the city of Jackson – he is all of these things. He is also president of Metal Finishing Services, office principal for Criterium Engineers, president of 750 Boling Street Partners, an officer of the Hawkins Field Industrial Park, and a working electrical engineer. Given his choice on what he would rather do, he responds:
“I prefer to be working on my own cars or riding my bicycle. Those are my vices.” In fact, it was one of his interests that led him to opening the doors to Metal Finishing Services.
“It was the old car hobby. I’ve been into cars ever since high school and I never grew up,” Church says. “The first car ever restored was a ’55 Ford; I still have it. In fact, I finally did one for myself and just restored that very car.” Church points to a photo of a 1955 Ford Mainline 2-door sedan, and admits that owning Metal Finishing Services gives him a head start on restoring those cars.
“We do paint stripping, de-rusting, and powder coating for industrial businesses and other customers,” Church says, “like antique car restorers. They’re a big part of it. We take [the auto bodies] down and get all the paint and rust off so they have a good start on it.” This is no shade-tree operation. The company works with several major industries: automotive, aerospace, military, and marine, among others.
“We do some gigantic diesel engines,” Church says, “like for tugboats and railroad locomotives. We can do up to a 20-cylinder electromotive diesel.”
“We do industrial paint rejects. Anyone who operates a conveyorized painting system is going to have a reject rate. We try to reclaim those for people. We also strip paint line hangers that go through the line over and over again and get a buildup of paint.”
In addition to stripping the rust and old paint off everything from old Volkswagen bodies to nine or ten-ton locomotive diesel engines, Metal Finishing Services utilizes powder coating, an alternative to spray painting metal bodies and parts, but one that can still be done in virtually any color and with any type of finish.
“You spray a dry powder that is electrostatically attracted to metal parts,” he says. “You put it in an oven and it melts the little particles and fuses them over the surface. It doesn’t put out any pollution like solvent-based paint and it’s much, much more durable.” He displays several recently coated items, all in red or black. Each is free of any sort of paint flaw, smooth, and with a uniform finish. As proud as he is of the quality of his company’s powder coating, he grows even more animated when he describes their newest offering.
“We’ve got a new service now that is, to my knowledge, the only place in the country that this combination is available,” he says. “We work regionally with car restorers in a 300-400 mile radius. Now after we de-rust their car bodies and strip all the grunge off, we have an arrangement with one of the Tier 1 Nissan suppliers, Systems Electrocoating. They prime all the truck frames for Nissan and they’ve built a special rack. We can now send up a car body – your Volkswagen or ’57 Chevy body – and have it immersed in this water-based primer that’s really high-tech. It’s like an eight million-dollar plant up there. It is totally immersed. [The body] gets in all the little nooks and crannies that you just can’t get with a spray gun. It’s a very good quality primer and you can paint on top of it with whatever you want.” He says the reason why the combination is only available through Metal Finishing Services is simple:
“Systems won’t do it for anyone but us, because there is no way anyone else can get it clean enough. If you were to contaminate their bath, that would be a major problem.” Getting those auto bodies, paint line hangers, and electromotive diesel engines clean enough is a matter that requires elbow grease, ovens to oxidize the paint, and three huge chemical tanks to remove the rust. It also often requires a single item to go through the process numerous times – until Church and his employees are satisfied.
It may sound like a toxic place in which to work, but it is not. We strolled through the plant, and were not disturbed by so much as a foul odor. Church insists that having a healthy, environmentally sound business is of major importance.
“We are environmentally friendly,” he says, ticking off points on his fingers. “We recycle our rinse water. The ovens have incinerators on the stack to burn up any smoke that comes out. Instead of discharging almost 2000 degrees, we recover that heat and heat up our chemical tanks with it. And the powder coating doesn’t use any solvents.”
Church, who currently lives in northeast Jackson with his wife, Allison, and his children Haley and Andy, has lived in Jackson since the third grade. At an early age, he seemed to have an idea of the career path he would follow.
“I always liked to tinker with electronics and stuff, so I went to a two-year program at Hinds Community College and got a technology degree. I did well, and I liked it and wanted to learn more, so I went to Mississippi State and got an E.E. degree.” He was working for Mississippi Power & Light as an engineer in 1981 when he discovered Redi-Strip, a national company that did paint stripping and de-rusting. He visited franchises and their headquarters in Los Angeles and made the move to open a franchise in midtown Jackson; he quit his job at MP&L to do so. He ran Redi-Strip until 2002, when he decided to amicably part from the national company and go his own way.
Before embarking as Metal Finishing Services, Church found his operation had completely outgrown his midtown location and sought to find space in which to work. During that time he discovered 750 Boling Street, which had been the site of the old Challenger plant.
“The ownership reverted to the city of Jackson and they took bids on it,” he says. “We placed a bid that had too many contingencies. The city rejected it. The other bid was way too low and they rejected that, too. We got together with the other guy and came in together to change it up and buy it. The bank actually loaned us the money and I couldn’t believe they did. The building was sitting here empty, with a bad roof and a monstrous note to pay. It was scary.”
Both businesses moved into the building and began seeking tenants. They found them; now the building’s space stays between 85 and 90 percent rented. Metal Finishing Services occupies about 10 percent of the building – about 35,000 square feet. Part of that is set aside for Church’s role in Criterium Engineers.
“Criterium provides real estate-related engineering services,” he says. “We do property condition assessments for people considering purchasing a building. It’s like a home inspection, but scaled up for commercial and industrial properties. We do construction inspection for banks. Right now I’m doing a lot of work for insurance companies because of Katrina and Rita.”
“We’re in about 60 cities now,” he says. “The branch office is a small business; it’s just me and my secretary. The beauty of it is that you have other disciplines in different offices. There’s a chemical guy in Mobile, there’s mechanical, there’s lots of structural people. I get called to do electrical work by other branch offices.” In fact, it was his love of engineering that brought him to Criterium.
“Engineers are required to have continuing education requirements to maintain your license. The head of Criterium was here doing a seminar in Jackson. I attended; that’s how I found out about it. I signed right up.” Church speaks happily when he describes the work he does and the different hats he wears.
“I thought that I would be an engineer and only an engineer, but one thing just leads to another.”
David Church isn’t afraid to spread himself a little bit thin. Unlike some businessmen whose ‘eyes on the prize’ philosophy forces them to focus on one particular role in business – one hat to wear – and whose single-minded determination causes harm to their home life and health, Church is perfectly comfortable wearing those different hats. Husband, father, antique car hobbyist, and avid bicyclist who laments the lack of places to ride a bicycle inside the city of Jackson – he is all of these things. He is also president of Metal Finishing Services, office principal for Criterium Engineers, president of 750 Boling Street Partners, an officer of the Hawkins Field Industrial Park, and a working electrical engineer. Given his choice on what he would rather do, he responds:
“I prefer to be working on my own cars or riding my bicycle. Those are my vices.” In fact, it was one of his interests that led him to opening the doors to Metal Finishing Services.
“It was the old car hobby. I’ve been into cars ever since high school and I never grew up,” Church says. “The first car ever restored was a ’55 Ford; I still have it. In fact, I finally did one for myself and just restored that very car.” Church points to a photo of a 1955 Ford Mainline 2-door sedan, and admits that owning Metal Finishing Services gives him a head start on restoring those cars.
“We do paint stripping, de-rusting, and powder coating for industrial businesses and other customers,” Church says, “like antique car restorers. They’re a big part of it. We take [the auto bodies] down and get all the paint and rust off so they have a good start on it.” This is no shade-tree operation. The company works with several major industries: automotive, aerospace, military, and marine, among others.
“We do some gigantic diesel engines,” Church says, “like for tugboats and railroad locomotives. We can do up to a 20-cylinder electromotive diesel.”
“We do industrial paint rejects. Anyone who operates a conveyorized painting system is going to have a reject rate. We try to reclaim those for people. We also strip paint line hangers that go through the line over and over again and get a buildup of paint.”
In addition to stripping the rust and old paint off everything from old Volkswagen bodies to nine or ten-ton locomotive diesel engines, Metal Finishing Services utilizes powder coating, an alternative to spray painting metal bodies and parts, but one that can still be done in virtually any color and with any type of finish.
“You spray a dry powder that is electrostatically attracted to metal parts,” he says. “You put it in an oven and it melts the little particles and fuses them over the surface. It doesn’t put out any pollution like solvent-based paint and it’s much, much more durable.” He displays several recently coated items, all in red or black. Each is free of any sort of paint flaw, smooth, and with a uniform finish. As proud as he is of the quality of his company’s powder coating, he grows even more animated when he describes their newest offering.
“We’ve got a new service now that is, to my knowledge, the only place in the country that this combination is available,” he says. “We work regionally with car restorers in a 300-400 mile radius. Now after we de-rust their car bodies and strip all the grunge off, we have an arrangement with one of the Tier 1 Nissan suppliers, Systems Electrocoating. They prime all the truck frames for Nissan and they’ve built a special rack. We can now send up a car body – your Volkswagen or ’57 Chevy body – and have it immersed in this water-based primer that’s really high-tech. It’s like an eight million-dollar plant up there. It is totally immersed. [The body] gets in all the little nooks and crannies that you just can’t get with a spray gun. It’s a very good quality primer and you can paint on top of it with whatever you want.” He says the reason why the combination is only available through Metal Finishing Services is simple:
“Systems won’t do it for anyone but us, because there is no way anyone else can get it clean enough. If you were to contaminate their bath, that would be a major problem.” Getting those auto bodies, paint line hangers, and electromotive diesel engines clean enough is a matter that requires elbow grease, ovens to oxidize the paint, and three huge chemical tanks to remove the rust. It also often requires a single item to go through the process numerous times – until Church and his employees are satisfied.
It may sound like a toxic place in which to work, but it is not. We strolled through the plant, and were not disturbed by so much as a foul odor. Church insists that having a healthy, environmentally sound business is of major importance.
“We are environmentally friendly,” he says, ticking off points on his fingers. “We recycle our rinse water. The ovens have incinerators on the stack to burn up any smoke that comes out. Instead of discharging almost 2000 degrees, we recover that heat and heat up our chemical tanks with it. And the powder coating doesn’t use any solvents.”
Church, who currently lives in northeast Jackson with his wife, Allison, and his children Haley and Andy, has lived in Jackson since the third grade. At an early age, he seemed to have an idea of the career path he would follow.
“I always liked to tinker with electronics and stuff, so I went to a two-year program at Hinds Community College and got a technology degree. I did well, and I liked it and wanted to learn more, so I went to Mississippi State and got an E.E. degree.” He was working for Mississippi Power & Light as an engineer in 1981 when he discovered Redi-Strip, a national company that did paint stripping and de-rusting. He visited franchises and their headquarters in Los Angeles and made the move to open a franchise in midtown Jackson; he quit his job at MP&L to do so. He ran Redi-Strip until 2002, when he decided to amicably part from the national company and go his own way.
Before embarking as Metal Finishing Services, Church found his operation had completely outgrown his midtown location and sought to find space in which to work. During that time he discovered 750 Boling Street, which had been the site of the old Challenger plant.
“The ownership reverted to the city of Jackson and they took bids on it,” he says. “We placed a bid that had too many contingencies. The city rejected it. The other bid was way too low and they rejected that, too. We got together with the other guy and came in together to change it up and buy it. The bank actually loaned us the money and I couldn’t believe they did. The building was sitting here empty, with a bad roof and a monstrous note to pay. It was scary.”
Both businesses moved into the building and began seeking tenants. They found them; now the building’s space stays between 85 and 90 percent rented. Metal Finishing Services occupies about 10 percent of the building – about 35,000 square feet. Part of that is set aside for Church’s role in Criterium Engineers.
“Criterium provides real estate-related engineering services,” he says. “We do property condition assessments for people considering purchasing a building. It’s like a home inspection, but scaled up for commercial and industrial properties. We do construction inspection for banks. Right now I’m doing a lot of work for insurance companies because of Katrina and Rita.”
“We’re in about 60 cities now,” he says. “The branch office is a small business; it’s just me and my secretary. The beauty of it is that you have other disciplines in different offices. There’s a chemical guy in Mobile, there’s mechanical, there’s lots of structural people. I get called to do electrical work by other branch offices.” In fact, it was his love of engineering that brought him to Criterium.
“Engineers are required to have continuing education requirements to maintain your license. The head of Criterium was here doing a seminar in Jackson. I attended; that’s how I found out about it. I signed right up.” Church speaks happily when he describes the work he does and the different hats he wears.
“I thought that I would be an engineer and only an engineer, but one thing just leads to another.”
Interview with Dr. Ronald Mason, Jr. (President of Jackson State University)
Over about a year, Planet Weekly was doing a series of interviews with the presidents of the local colleges and universities: Belhaven College, Millsaps College, Hines County Community College, Tougaloo College, and Jackson State University. Each school was done by a different writer (which turned out well), and I was assigned Dr. Mason of JSU. It is my belief that he has the most dangerous intellect I've ever seen. He is brilliant and knows exactly what he's saying and doing. I still remain in awe of his brain.
Dr. Ronald Mason, Jr. became the President of Jackson State University on February 1, 2000. In his five years, he has led the school into a period of growth, economic development, and heightened reputation and respect. In this time, Jackson State has reorganized many of its schools and colleges, reached into the community to create a Jackson State-based technology cluster, and begun sweeping programs to increase economic and community development. The student body continues to grow and more and more alumni of this historic institution are making names for themselves in the world of business, public service, and the arts.
Dr. Mason’s inaugural address was “Rivers of History, Rivers of Hope,” in which he spoke of two rivers that came together in Mississippi, one of white history, one of black history. He compared the conflicts and meshing of two vastly different societies as a confluence of rivers that could drown a people or could lead them to a broader, unified river. The confluence was Jackson State University and the state of Mississippi and the one river – our future together. It was a clarion call to all that he was a man with ideas to implement, and that he believed Jackson State was more than just a place; it had a purpose, one that it must achieve.
Before coming to Jackson State, Mason worked and studied extensively in the fields of higher education, community development, and law. He earned his B.A. and J.D. degrees from Columbia and was a graduate of the Harvard Institute of Educational Management. He worked for 18 years at Tulane University, as Vice President of Finance and Operations, and as Senior Vice President and General Counsel. During his time at Tulane, he established the Tulane-Xavier-Loyola-Dillard universities Martin Luther King Week for Peace and brought the school the Amistad Research Center – one of the largest collections of original documents and artwork on the minority experience in the U.S.
In 1996, Mason created the Tulane-Xavier National Center for Urban Community. The center took over New Orleans’ housing authority and the students, staff, and faculty developed model programs to assist the residents through several means, including a Ford Foundation public school reform planning initiative, an Annie E. Casey neighborhood development and family strengthening initiative, and a welfare-to-work initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Planet Weekly met with Dr. Mason at his office, high atop the Administration Tower on the JSU campus, to talk about his five years in office and future plans for the university. Mason proved to be dynamic, passionate, and forthright, with a deadpan delivery and sense of humor.
Planet Weekly: When you first came on five years ago, you spoke about a five-year strategic plan for Jackson State. Has that come to fruition?
Dr. Ronald Mason, Jr.: We did a strategic plan in 2002. It was called “Beyond Survival: the Millennium Agenda for Jackson State University.” It had five broad strategies: Remodel the Learning System, Fully Integrate Technology, Enhance Management and Resources, Tell the Jackson State Story, and Create a Model Living and Learning Environment. We took those strategies, broke them into 24 programs, and broke those up into about 200 action steps. That’s how we’ve been moving forward; we follow the plan.
PW: Are you setting your sights for another strategic plan?
RM: We’re actually in the process of updating the strategic plan now. About every two or three years you have to reexamine one. As far as implementing our plan, I’d give us a good solid “B.”
PW: Will these updates stay the current course or expand in new directions?”
RM: I think the plan did anticipate what needed to be done at Jackson State to transform it into a model urban university, which is what the task was. I think we’ve narrowed the problem down to one now – money. I tell folks we don’t have any problems that money wouldn’t solve. The key for us is to be able to do something never done before at Jackson State, and that’s to raise private funds. The trick for us is that we’ve always been given the job to educate, basically, poor people and public servants and most of those poor people are African-Americans. There’s just not a lot of wealth among our alumni, so I have a tricky task: I have to raise money for Jackson State from people who graduated from Ole Miss and Mississippi State.
PW: We know this has been problematic, but are you seeing any increases in funding?
RM: We are and we aren’t. The biggest capital campaign Jackson State had was about $10 million several years ago. Allstate abandoned a processing center on Raymond Road. It’s a 200,000-square foot facility on 30 acres of land. It was worth almost $21 million and we got them to sell it to us for $3 million, which made it about a $17 million dollar donation. This, plus the other cash we’ve raised – we’ve raised about $25 million since we started. We’ve had some successes and what we’ve been selling is the truth: there’s only one university in the largest metropolitan area and capital city in the state of Mississippi – and that’s Jackson State University. Central Mississippi isn’t going to go anywhere until Jackson State rises to the occasion to be what it needs to be for this area. That’s in everyone’s interest, whether you’re white, black, from Mississippi State, Ole Miss, or wherever else.
PW: And what does Jackson State need to be?
RM: We need to be what everyone says they want it to be. The theme of the strategic planning process was “Clarity and Consensus.” Everybody said they wanted Jackson State to be the premiere urban university or Mississippi’s urban university. What that means is that we have to be a bona fide, high-quality institute of higher learning for central Mississippi. For us, it’s a sort of special balancing act we have to play: we’re a historically black institution that needs to serve a mostly-white business community in this area. When I first got here, I thought the disconnect between the business community and Jackson State was that they didn’t like Jackson State. But after while I realized that it wasn’t that they didn’t like it, it’s that they didn’t see it at all. It wasn’t a part of their Mississippi. So part of our job has been to help them see Jackson State, and when you see it, there’s a lot to be said for what is going on here.
PW: So part of the problem is that JSU is a sort of invisible university?
RM: It has been that. The other challenge we’ve had is that they’re not quite sure how to make Jackson State right without making it white. It’s not in their realm of reality that an urban university for Mississippi would also be a historically black institution. But I think we’ve made some progress. I was at a speech the governor made. He said we have two goals for Jackson State. One was to make it the number one historically black college or university in America and the seconds was to make it the premiere urban university – and there is no contradiction between the two. So at least intellectually we’re making progress.
We have some very, very bright students here. They can go to school anywhere. Many of them come from large urban areas; Jackson is probably the smallest. If you go up the railroad tracks to Detroit, through Memphis, St. Louis, and Chicago – that’s where our kids come from. They come from these broken K-12 systems and we’ve had to take them where they are and give them what they need to be successful. That’s the mission we embrace and will always stay true to. We don’t judge by who comes in the door as much as by who walks out.
PW: You have expressed some concerns about Jackson’s K-12 system. Do you feel that the problems are in the curriculum, faculty, administration, student body, or is it pandemic?
RM: Even with the challenges that Jackson Public Schools has, it’s nothing close to what I saw in New Orleans. I did a lot of work in the public school system there. We had kids taking classes in bathrooms; that’s how bad it was.
It’s what you said and more. It has a lot to do with money and the tax base, and the fact that in 1954, all the white folks started these private academies and a lot of their kids aren’t in the system now. That ends up being a challenge for us. What we did was put together our own K-12 academy. We partnered with JPS and created the Mississippi Learning Academy, which is two elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school, all within about half a mile of here. We got some money from the federal government and we got some private money. To attract some bright students to the College of Education, we give them a free ride in exchange for teaching in the Mississippi Learning Academy when they graduate. We rolled it out last year in the elementary schools. We started with 114 kids on the at-risk list and ended up with 7. They raised their test scores by about 25 points on average.
PW: And this goes along with Jackson State’s e-City. What is the e-City?
RM: It’s basically our neighborhood; a five square mile area around Jackson State we call the e-City – the Electronic City. We’ve got some money to do a master plan for it. The short name for the school system we’re putting together is e-City Schools. Our thought is that if you fix the schools, the rest will take care of itself – the housing, the business development. Everybody wants to send their kids to good schools.
RM: Is part of that creating a technology cluster in the area?
PW: We already did it. The e-Center – the abandoned Allstate facility – is the western anchor. If you go out there now, what was an abandoned building is now full of all sorts of high-tech stuff. We have research labs, a digital television station. We have the only tier one commercial data center in Mississippi renting space out there. We’ve got the Mississippi Technology Alliance, a high-tech business incubator. There are 18 businesses incubating out there. On the east is the new TelComm Center and Convention Center. We’re planning a single-family subdivision to our northeast, between here and downtown. Going west, the hope is we’ll incubate the businesses in the e-Center, and they’ll start to locate permanently along Lynch Street. What was once a viable community can become a new viable community, a university neighborhood. We have plans for Lynch Street with restaurants, new student apartments. We just finished one over here. This sounded crazy five years ago, but it’s actually happening as we speak.
PW: Does this give Jackson State an identity as a research and technical school?
RM: Absolutely. There were a lot of surprises I found at Jackson State, and they were all pleasant surprises. I knew the problems before I got here. One thing I saw here was a twist of history. Because of the lack of funding by Mississippi over the years, [JSU] had to go out and get a lot of federal money to build the place. When I got here and saw the stuff funded by the state, like the Public Relations office, it had one person in it. Which is why people never knew anything about Jackson State. But they had all these neat federal centers, all well funded. Among the seven research-intensive historically black institutions in the country – that’s the second level of research universities; the first is research-extensive – for federally funded grants and contracts, Jackson State is number one. We’re not far behind Howard University, which is the only research-extensive school. We’re the fastest growing producer of African-American Ph.D.’s, number two overall behind Howard in Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and number seven nationally, of all white and black schools.
PW: JSU isn’t just a technical school, though. Can you get a good liberal arts education here?
RM: Yes. Two years ago, we opened up the new School of Liberal Arts; we reorganized. Now we have a College of Liberal Arts with a School of Performing Arts and a School of Life and Natural Sciences. That’s our biggest school. But when you talk about research and federal dollars, most of that comes out of the College of Science, Engineering, and Technology. We just opened our School of Engineering three years ago. Now it’s got almost 300 students.
PW: What is your opinion of No Child Left Behind?
RM: If you talk to educators – and remember, the Secretary of Education who just resigned was a Jackson State graduate, which is how we were able to get funding to get this thing started over here – in concept it’s hard to argue with. There is more accountability, competency-based training for teachers. The problem really is the funds for implementation. We were able to pull it off in the schools we’re working in, because we had the money. We had money to train teachers, to redevelop curriculum, and to buy handheld computerized assessment tools, but everyone doesn’t have that. That’s really the complaint from the education community. I don’t think they mind the concept, the accountability, or the subject-based competency for teachers. The problem is how you do it. How do you get every math teacher with a specialty in math and every English teacher with a specialty in English when you’re trying desperately just to find teachers, period. If you’re a teacher from a School of Education, how could you possibly agree with someone who gets a Bachelor’s and a six-week certification course and goes straight into the classroom, when you’ve spent three years just learning how to teach? And you have to learn how to teach; that’s what separates the good teachers from the bad ones. The devil is in the details. As a broad concept it’s hard to argue with, but in the classroom, struggling to find paper and pencils, to also have to stretch to meet these other requirements, so your school doesn’t end up as Level 3 or Level 2, it’s a real challenge. Whether the system will adjust to meet the realities of the situation, it’s hard to say.
PW: What about merit-based pay?
RM: It’s kind of like merit-based hiring. What’s merit, and are the people deciding qualified enough to determine if someone is meritorious enough in the first place? It’s a tough one. Politicians can throw out words that sound great, but it’s the people doing the work every day who have to live the reality of those words, and sometimes there’s a disconnect between the two – like No New Taxes.
PW: What is the current status of Historically Black Colleges and Universities?
RM: As an industry, we’re stronger than we’ve ever been. The leadership across the board is as strong as it has ever been. On the other hand, we have some that have fallen by the wayside, and I think we may see some more, especially among the private schools. It’s very difficult for the privates to survive, just because of the lack of wealth among our alumni. But I think there’s a growing recognition, especially since 9/11, that people we produce for America is a vast, untapped resource. People are struggling to find Americans just to get the work of America done. Out of necessity, they’ll have to look at us. We enroll something like 13 percent of all African-American students, but we graduate something like 30-40 percent. We get them ready to work and that’s what America is looking for right now – workers at all levels. We won’t all make it, but I think the ones that will, will be strong.
PW: Does the fact that JSU is a historically black university keep white students away?
RM: I don’t think that in and of itself. We have these white-only scholarships that come out of the Ayers desegregation case and we can’t keep them away. They line up as long as we give them the scholarships. Apparently it’s not theological why they don’t want to come. What the facilities are like because of underfunding, the quality of life because of underfunding, the availability of scholarships because of underfunding; the more we fix those things, the less and less people will want to drive three hours to go to school when they have the convenience right here.
PW: Why do think JSU is seeing a boom in the nontraditional students?
RM: It’s place-based. Most of them are losing a job, lost a job, or are in transition from one job to another. Our fastest-growing school is our College of Lifelong Learning, which is nontraditional – online courses, certificates instead of degrees, non-credit training courses, those kinds of things. We have a facility off Ridgewood Road. A lot of the white students go there and don’t actually ever see the campus. My sons have two friends, white twins who are at the house all the time. They all like to play basketball. We wanted to come here and play basketball, but they wouldn’t drive here. They assumed if they parked their car here it would get stolen. A lot of people think that; they’ve never been to the campus. They come out here and are shocked. The more people who come here, the less think their car will be stolen, but it’ll take some time. I think we’ve gone from 1.5 to 3 percent white. With other races, we have about 9 percent. Every year, there’ll be more and more. That’s pretty clear.
PW: What is JSU’s enrollment this year?
RM: 8300 total. We jumped 500 this year.
PW: Growth here has been consistent, correct?
RM: Part of it is just demographics; part of it is that we’re just kind of hot.
PW: You’re staying ahead of population growth.
RM: Even with tuition going up. About a third of our tuition goes back into scholarships.
PW: What is tuition currently?
RM: Tuition is $3612 per year. Out of state students pay $4000 [extra]. The dormitory is $2700 and the meal plan is $2000. It’s a good value.
PW: During the past year, we’ve talked to numerous people in the city about development and redevelopment in Jackson. One thing everyone talks about is work at Jackson State. But it’s generally mentioned as ‘work to be done’ or ‘work we hope to see done.’ What doesn’t get mentioned as often is ‘work that is happening.’ Is the work actually happening?
RM: If you don’t see the work, you’re missing it. Right here, we had this old cottonseed oil factory that had been there for 50 years or so – two big, ugly, white storage tanks. We set out a goal of getting rid of the tanks and ended up with a new apartment complex. This was the first new construction in Washington addition in years. West Jackson CDC is building houses along Pearl as we speak. They’ve just announced a new 400-unit single-family subdivision on Raymond Road. We’re putting up a new student apartment facility on campus, with one, two, and three bedrooms. We’re about to build a new campus union right here on the corner of Lynch and Dalton. It’ll have a really great bookstore, convenience store, food court, and bowling alley. A lot of these empty lots around here are ours and we’ll be filling them in as we go. Given the fact that nothing was built here over the last three decades, this is a construction boom. When they finish the parkway from downtown, that’ll take you straight from the central business district right into campus.
Whether I would have done it that way if I had been there back then is another question, but the answer then to urban blight was to buy it up and tear it down – move the people out. Philosophically, I probably would have been against it, but fortunately the question was answered before I got here.
PW: Why aren’t these developments better known? Is it because Jackson State is often seen only from the outside, and the projects are seen as individual ones only?
RM: Certainly if you see it, and you add up all the news stories that have trickled out, the campus has changed dramatically; there’s no question about that. Clearly the part of the city between the campus and the railroad tracks has changed dramatically; there’s nothing there anymore – it’s open land. People would see that if they’d bother to cross the railroad tracks. I think the parkway will take care of some of that. I think as word gets out, which it is, that’ll take care of some of it. Our goal is to make Jackson State a destination, and Jackson needs destinations. By the time we’re done, when Farish Street is there, when the Convention Center is there, when the Civil Rights Corridor or Freedom Corridor – whatever they’re going to call it – from Terry into the campus is there, and there is a new campus union, a pedestrian mall, and we stretch from the campus to the e-Center on Lynch Street, I think Jackson will have exactly what it has asked for: a premiere urban university that is a destination that attracts people to Jackson; not a teachers’ college, not an underfunded challenge that makes successes out of America’s failures. I think we will be the urban university for Mississippi that happens to be black. We can pull that off.
In my inaugural speech, I said this is where the two rivers meet. We’re not going to come out of the confluence of rivers unless we all get together and make it happen. If it happens, it’ll be because we all made it happen.
PW: And you believe it can happen?
RM: I think it’s happening now. Though I’m not sure I believed it when I said it.
PW: So you pleasantly surprised yourself?
RM: I did. In some cases I shocked myself. Some of it is just timing, some of it is initiative, and some of it is hard work. If we just do what I know will in fact happen, we’ll go a long way toward getting us where we need to go. It won’t lock it down; we still have to raise some money. If we can’t do that, all this is a waste of time.
PW: Why did you leave the Tulane-Xavier Center to come to Jackson State?
RM: I’ll give you the short version. I was at Tulane for 18 years. I was Senior Vice President and General Counsel. By 1996, I had run out of things to do three times. I had been there too long.
PW: You were bored?
RM: Yes. I had even asked for Affirmative Action to report to me. I wanted to do something. We came up with this idea of doing some work in the neighborhood. In a conversation with the Secretary of HUD [Henry Cisneros], we ended up actually taking over the Housing Authority in New Orleans. Tulane got $10 million over five years to do university-based programs in the public housing projects. Half of me went to public housing for that. I was basically working two full time jobs for four years. It was out of that project that the center started – the Tulane-Xavier National Center for Urban Community. Candidly, a lot the things we’re doing at Jackson State we tried to do through that center in New Orleans.
PW: You tried?
RM: We tried. The difference is that I wasn’t the president of Tulane; I don’t have anybody to argue with here. It’s still hard work, but there we were institutionally constrained. We’re less constrained here, partly because of who the president is, partly because it’s just a different kind of institution. We are more community-oriented, and we are more part of what goes on around us. Everybody that lives around us went to, or works at, Jackson State.
PW: Is it easier or more difficult working at Jackson State than it was in New Orleans?
RM: It’s more manageable. People in Jackson think they have a lot of problems. We had 750 blighted houses when I got here. In New Orleans, we were dealing with 37,000. It’s a different scale of challenge.
PW: There is a sort of ‘sky is falling’ attitude about Jackson.
RM: And a lot of badmouthing about the city from people who want to make money off of selling property in the suburbs. I think Jackson can be a quality small city. I don’t think I’d like it to be anything else. I go to New Orleans now; it’s crowded, dirty, and traffic-infested. I can’t wait to get back to Jackson.
PW: How did you get to Jackson State?
RM: I was running the center. I had my life set up like I wanted; I was going to work in polo shirts and we had bought a little house and were running the center out of that house. It was good. The new president of Tulane came to me – Scott Cowen; we’re good friends. He called me to his office and said, “Ron, you have to choose. You have to be either the Senior Vice President and General Counsel or the Executive Director of the center.” I said I really wanted to run the center. He said, “I really want you to be the Senior Vice President and General Counsel.” Just about that time, somebody called me about this job. I wasn’t even thinking about [taking a new job]. In fact, I had just turned down a presidency six months before at Chicago State. The weather was a problem.
PW: Did you have any worries about taking the position here?
RM: Not really. I studied it pretty thoroughly; I knew what I was getting into. I was really surprised by the potential this school had that no one knew about – pleasantly surprised. It’s good work here. It’s a labor of love, but it’s a labor. I’ve never worked as hard in my life, but I whistle when I come to work every morning.
Dr. Ronald Mason, Jr. became the President of Jackson State University on February 1, 2000. In his five years, he has led the school into a period of growth, economic development, and heightened reputation and respect. In this time, Jackson State has reorganized many of its schools and colleges, reached into the community to create a Jackson State-based technology cluster, and begun sweeping programs to increase economic and community development. The student body continues to grow and more and more alumni of this historic institution are making names for themselves in the world of business, public service, and the arts.
Dr. Mason’s inaugural address was “Rivers of History, Rivers of Hope,” in which he spoke of two rivers that came together in Mississippi, one of white history, one of black history. He compared the conflicts and meshing of two vastly different societies as a confluence of rivers that could drown a people or could lead them to a broader, unified river. The confluence was Jackson State University and the state of Mississippi and the one river – our future together. It was a clarion call to all that he was a man with ideas to implement, and that he believed Jackson State was more than just a place; it had a purpose, one that it must achieve.
Before coming to Jackson State, Mason worked and studied extensively in the fields of higher education, community development, and law. He earned his B.A. and J.D. degrees from Columbia and was a graduate of the Harvard Institute of Educational Management. He worked for 18 years at Tulane University, as Vice President of Finance and Operations, and as Senior Vice President and General Counsel. During his time at Tulane, he established the Tulane-Xavier-Loyola-Dillard universities Martin Luther King Week for Peace and brought the school the Amistad Research Center – one of the largest collections of original documents and artwork on the minority experience in the U.S.
In 1996, Mason created the Tulane-Xavier National Center for Urban Community. The center took over New Orleans’ housing authority and the students, staff, and faculty developed model programs to assist the residents through several means, including a Ford Foundation public school reform planning initiative, an Annie E. Casey neighborhood development and family strengthening initiative, and a welfare-to-work initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Planet Weekly met with Dr. Mason at his office, high atop the Administration Tower on the JSU campus, to talk about his five years in office and future plans for the university. Mason proved to be dynamic, passionate, and forthright, with a deadpan delivery and sense of humor.
Planet Weekly: When you first came on five years ago, you spoke about a five-year strategic plan for Jackson State. Has that come to fruition?
Dr. Ronald Mason, Jr.: We did a strategic plan in 2002. It was called “Beyond Survival: the Millennium Agenda for Jackson State University.” It had five broad strategies: Remodel the Learning System, Fully Integrate Technology, Enhance Management and Resources, Tell the Jackson State Story, and Create a Model Living and Learning Environment. We took those strategies, broke them into 24 programs, and broke those up into about 200 action steps. That’s how we’ve been moving forward; we follow the plan.
PW: Are you setting your sights for another strategic plan?
RM: We’re actually in the process of updating the strategic plan now. About every two or three years you have to reexamine one. As far as implementing our plan, I’d give us a good solid “B.”
PW: Will these updates stay the current course or expand in new directions?”
RM: I think the plan did anticipate what needed to be done at Jackson State to transform it into a model urban university, which is what the task was. I think we’ve narrowed the problem down to one now – money. I tell folks we don’t have any problems that money wouldn’t solve. The key for us is to be able to do something never done before at Jackson State, and that’s to raise private funds. The trick for us is that we’ve always been given the job to educate, basically, poor people and public servants and most of those poor people are African-Americans. There’s just not a lot of wealth among our alumni, so I have a tricky task: I have to raise money for Jackson State from people who graduated from Ole Miss and Mississippi State.
PW: We know this has been problematic, but are you seeing any increases in funding?
RM: We are and we aren’t. The biggest capital campaign Jackson State had was about $10 million several years ago. Allstate abandoned a processing center on Raymond Road. It’s a 200,000-square foot facility on 30 acres of land. It was worth almost $21 million and we got them to sell it to us for $3 million, which made it about a $17 million dollar donation. This, plus the other cash we’ve raised – we’ve raised about $25 million since we started. We’ve had some successes and what we’ve been selling is the truth: there’s only one university in the largest metropolitan area and capital city in the state of Mississippi – and that’s Jackson State University. Central Mississippi isn’t going to go anywhere until Jackson State rises to the occasion to be what it needs to be for this area. That’s in everyone’s interest, whether you’re white, black, from Mississippi State, Ole Miss, or wherever else.
PW: And what does Jackson State need to be?
RM: We need to be what everyone says they want it to be. The theme of the strategic planning process was “Clarity and Consensus.” Everybody said they wanted Jackson State to be the premiere urban university or Mississippi’s urban university. What that means is that we have to be a bona fide, high-quality institute of higher learning for central Mississippi. For us, it’s a sort of special balancing act we have to play: we’re a historically black institution that needs to serve a mostly-white business community in this area. When I first got here, I thought the disconnect between the business community and Jackson State was that they didn’t like Jackson State. But after while I realized that it wasn’t that they didn’t like it, it’s that they didn’t see it at all. It wasn’t a part of their Mississippi. So part of our job has been to help them see Jackson State, and when you see it, there’s a lot to be said for what is going on here.
PW: So part of the problem is that JSU is a sort of invisible university?
RM: It has been that. The other challenge we’ve had is that they’re not quite sure how to make Jackson State right without making it white. It’s not in their realm of reality that an urban university for Mississippi would also be a historically black institution. But I think we’ve made some progress. I was at a speech the governor made. He said we have two goals for Jackson State. One was to make it the number one historically black college or university in America and the seconds was to make it the premiere urban university – and there is no contradiction between the two. So at least intellectually we’re making progress.
We have some very, very bright students here. They can go to school anywhere. Many of them come from large urban areas; Jackson is probably the smallest. If you go up the railroad tracks to Detroit, through Memphis, St. Louis, and Chicago – that’s where our kids come from. They come from these broken K-12 systems and we’ve had to take them where they are and give them what they need to be successful. That’s the mission we embrace and will always stay true to. We don’t judge by who comes in the door as much as by who walks out.
PW: You have expressed some concerns about Jackson’s K-12 system. Do you feel that the problems are in the curriculum, faculty, administration, student body, or is it pandemic?
RM: Even with the challenges that Jackson Public Schools has, it’s nothing close to what I saw in New Orleans. I did a lot of work in the public school system there. We had kids taking classes in bathrooms; that’s how bad it was.
It’s what you said and more. It has a lot to do with money and the tax base, and the fact that in 1954, all the white folks started these private academies and a lot of their kids aren’t in the system now. That ends up being a challenge for us. What we did was put together our own K-12 academy. We partnered with JPS and created the Mississippi Learning Academy, which is two elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school, all within about half a mile of here. We got some money from the federal government and we got some private money. To attract some bright students to the College of Education, we give them a free ride in exchange for teaching in the Mississippi Learning Academy when they graduate. We rolled it out last year in the elementary schools. We started with 114 kids on the at-risk list and ended up with 7. They raised their test scores by about 25 points on average.
PW: And this goes along with Jackson State’s e-City. What is the e-City?
RM: It’s basically our neighborhood; a five square mile area around Jackson State we call the e-City – the Electronic City. We’ve got some money to do a master plan for it. The short name for the school system we’re putting together is e-City Schools. Our thought is that if you fix the schools, the rest will take care of itself – the housing, the business development. Everybody wants to send their kids to good schools.
RM: Is part of that creating a technology cluster in the area?
PW: We already did it. The e-Center – the abandoned Allstate facility – is the western anchor. If you go out there now, what was an abandoned building is now full of all sorts of high-tech stuff. We have research labs, a digital television station. We have the only tier one commercial data center in Mississippi renting space out there. We’ve got the Mississippi Technology Alliance, a high-tech business incubator. There are 18 businesses incubating out there. On the east is the new TelComm Center and Convention Center. We’re planning a single-family subdivision to our northeast, between here and downtown. Going west, the hope is we’ll incubate the businesses in the e-Center, and they’ll start to locate permanently along Lynch Street. What was once a viable community can become a new viable community, a university neighborhood. We have plans for Lynch Street with restaurants, new student apartments. We just finished one over here. This sounded crazy five years ago, but it’s actually happening as we speak.
PW: Does this give Jackson State an identity as a research and technical school?
RM: Absolutely. There were a lot of surprises I found at Jackson State, and they were all pleasant surprises. I knew the problems before I got here. One thing I saw here was a twist of history. Because of the lack of funding by Mississippi over the years, [JSU] had to go out and get a lot of federal money to build the place. When I got here and saw the stuff funded by the state, like the Public Relations office, it had one person in it. Which is why people never knew anything about Jackson State. But they had all these neat federal centers, all well funded. Among the seven research-intensive historically black institutions in the country – that’s the second level of research universities; the first is research-extensive – for federally funded grants and contracts, Jackson State is number one. We’re not far behind Howard University, which is the only research-extensive school. We’re the fastest growing producer of African-American Ph.D.’s, number two overall behind Howard in Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and number seven nationally, of all white and black schools.
PW: JSU isn’t just a technical school, though. Can you get a good liberal arts education here?
RM: Yes. Two years ago, we opened up the new School of Liberal Arts; we reorganized. Now we have a College of Liberal Arts with a School of Performing Arts and a School of Life and Natural Sciences. That’s our biggest school. But when you talk about research and federal dollars, most of that comes out of the College of Science, Engineering, and Technology. We just opened our School of Engineering three years ago. Now it’s got almost 300 students.
PW: What is your opinion of No Child Left Behind?
RM: If you talk to educators – and remember, the Secretary of Education who just resigned was a Jackson State graduate, which is how we were able to get funding to get this thing started over here – in concept it’s hard to argue with. There is more accountability, competency-based training for teachers. The problem really is the funds for implementation. We were able to pull it off in the schools we’re working in, because we had the money. We had money to train teachers, to redevelop curriculum, and to buy handheld computerized assessment tools, but everyone doesn’t have that. That’s really the complaint from the education community. I don’t think they mind the concept, the accountability, or the subject-based competency for teachers. The problem is how you do it. How do you get every math teacher with a specialty in math and every English teacher with a specialty in English when you’re trying desperately just to find teachers, period. If you’re a teacher from a School of Education, how could you possibly agree with someone who gets a Bachelor’s and a six-week certification course and goes straight into the classroom, when you’ve spent three years just learning how to teach? And you have to learn how to teach; that’s what separates the good teachers from the bad ones. The devil is in the details. As a broad concept it’s hard to argue with, but in the classroom, struggling to find paper and pencils, to also have to stretch to meet these other requirements, so your school doesn’t end up as Level 3 or Level 2, it’s a real challenge. Whether the system will adjust to meet the realities of the situation, it’s hard to say.
PW: What about merit-based pay?
RM: It’s kind of like merit-based hiring. What’s merit, and are the people deciding qualified enough to determine if someone is meritorious enough in the first place? It’s a tough one. Politicians can throw out words that sound great, but it’s the people doing the work every day who have to live the reality of those words, and sometimes there’s a disconnect between the two – like No New Taxes.
PW: What is the current status of Historically Black Colleges and Universities?
RM: As an industry, we’re stronger than we’ve ever been. The leadership across the board is as strong as it has ever been. On the other hand, we have some that have fallen by the wayside, and I think we may see some more, especially among the private schools. It’s very difficult for the privates to survive, just because of the lack of wealth among our alumni. But I think there’s a growing recognition, especially since 9/11, that people we produce for America is a vast, untapped resource. People are struggling to find Americans just to get the work of America done. Out of necessity, they’ll have to look at us. We enroll something like 13 percent of all African-American students, but we graduate something like 30-40 percent. We get them ready to work and that’s what America is looking for right now – workers at all levels. We won’t all make it, but I think the ones that will, will be strong.
PW: Does the fact that JSU is a historically black university keep white students away?
RM: I don’t think that in and of itself. We have these white-only scholarships that come out of the Ayers desegregation case and we can’t keep them away. They line up as long as we give them the scholarships. Apparently it’s not theological why they don’t want to come. What the facilities are like because of underfunding, the quality of life because of underfunding, the availability of scholarships because of underfunding; the more we fix those things, the less and less people will want to drive three hours to go to school when they have the convenience right here.
PW: Why do think JSU is seeing a boom in the nontraditional students?
RM: It’s place-based. Most of them are losing a job, lost a job, or are in transition from one job to another. Our fastest-growing school is our College of Lifelong Learning, which is nontraditional – online courses, certificates instead of degrees, non-credit training courses, those kinds of things. We have a facility off Ridgewood Road. A lot of the white students go there and don’t actually ever see the campus. My sons have two friends, white twins who are at the house all the time. They all like to play basketball. We wanted to come here and play basketball, but they wouldn’t drive here. They assumed if they parked their car here it would get stolen. A lot of people think that; they’ve never been to the campus. They come out here and are shocked. The more people who come here, the less think their car will be stolen, but it’ll take some time. I think we’ve gone from 1.5 to 3 percent white. With other races, we have about 9 percent. Every year, there’ll be more and more. That’s pretty clear.
PW: What is JSU’s enrollment this year?
RM: 8300 total. We jumped 500 this year.
PW: Growth here has been consistent, correct?
RM: Part of it is just demographics; part of it is that we’re just kind of hot.
PW: You’re staying ahead of population growth.
RM: Even with tuition going up. About a third of our tuition goes back into scholarships.
PW: What is tuition currently?
RM: Tuition is $3612 per year. Out of state students pay $4000 [extra]. The dormitory is $2700 and the meal plan is $2000. It’s a good value.
PW: During the past year, we’ve talked to numerous people in the city about development and redevelopment in Jackson. One thing everyone talks about is work at Jackson State. But it’s generally mentioned as ‘work to be done’ or ‘work we hope to see done.’ What doesn’t get mentioned as often is ‘work that is happening.’ Is the work actually happening?
RM: If you don’t see the work, you’re missing it. Right here, we had this old cottonseed oil factory that had been there for 50 years or so – two big, ugly, white storage tanks. We set out a goal of getting rid of the tanks and ended up with a new apartment complex. This was the first new construction in Washington addition in years. West Jackson CDC is building houses along Pearl as we speak. They’ve just announced a new 400-unit single-family subdivision on Raymond Road. We’re putting up a new student apartment facility on campus, with one, two, and three bedrooms. We’re about to build a new campus union right here on the corner of Lynch and Dalton. It’ll have a really great bookstore, convenience store, food court, and bowling alley. A lot of these empty lots around here are ours and we’ll be filling them in as we go. Given the fact that nothing was built here over the last three decades, this is a construction boom. When they finish the parkway from downtown, that’ll take you straight from the central business district right into campus.
Whether I would have done it that way if I had been there back then is another question, but the answer then to urban blight was to buy it up and tear it down – move the people out. Philosophically, I probably would have been against it, but fortunately the question was answered before I got here.
PW: Why aren’t these developments better known? Is it because Jackson State is often seen only from the outside, and the projects are seen as individual ones only?
RM: Certainly if you see it, and you add up all the news stories that have trickled out, the campus has changed dramatically; there’s no question about that. Clearly the part of the city between the campus and the railroad tracks has changed dramatically; there’s nothing there anymore – it’s open land. People would see that if they’d bother to cross the railroad tracks. I think the parkway will take care of some of that. I think as word gets out, which it is, that’ll take care of some of it. Our goal is to make Jackson State a destination, and Jackson needs destinations. By the time we’re done, when Farish Street is there, when the Convention Center is there, when the Civil Rights Corridor or Freedom Corridor – whatever they’re going to call it – from Terry into the campus is there, and there is a new campus union, a pedestrian mall, and we stretch from the campus to the e-Center on Lynch Street, I think Jackson will have exactly what it has asked for: a premiere urban university that is a destination that attracts people to Jackson; not a teachers’ college, not an underfunded challenge that makes successes out of America’s failures. I think we will be the urban university for Mississippi that happens to be black. We can pull that off.
In my inaugural speech, I said this is where the two rivers meet. We’re not going to come out of the confluence of rivers unless we all get together and make it happen. If it happens, it’ll be because we all made it happen.
PW: And you believe it can happen?
RM: I think it’s happening now. Though I’m not sure I believed it when I said it.
PW: So you pleasantly surprised yourself?
RM: I did. In some cases I shocked myself. Some of it is just timing, some of it is initiative, and some of it is hard work. If we just do what I know will in fact happen, we’ll go a long way toward getting us where we need to go. It won’t lock it down; we still have to raise some money. If we can’t do that, all this is a waste of time.
PW: Why did you leave the Tulane-Xavier Center to come to Jackson State?
RM: I’ll give you the short version. I was at Tulane for 18 years. I was Senior Vice President and General Counsel. By 1996, I had run out of things to do three times. I had been there too long.
PW: You were bored?
RM: Yes. I had even asked for Affirmative Action to report to me. I wanted to do something. We came up with this idea of doing some work in the neighborhood. In a conversation with the Secretary of HUD [Henry Cisneros], we ended up actually taking over the Housing Authority in New Orleans. Tulane got $10 million over five years to do university-based programs in the public housing projects. Half of me went to public housing for that. I was basically working two full time jobs for four years. It was out of that project that the center started – the Tulane-Xavier National Center for Urban Community. Candidly, a lot the things we’re doing at Jackson State we tried to do through that center in New Orleans.
PW: You tried?
RM: We tried. The difference is that I wasn’t the president of Tulane; I don’t have anybody to argue with here. It’s still hard work, but there we were institutionally constrained. We’re less constrained here, partly because of who the president is, partly because it’s just a different kind of institution. We are more community-oriented, and we are more part of what goes on around us. Everybody that lives around us went to, or works at, Jackson State.
PW: Is it easier or more difficult working at Jackson State than it was in New Orleans?
RM: It’s more manageable. People in Jackson think they have a lot of problems. We had 750 blighted houses when I got here. In New Orleans, we were dealing with 37,000. It’s a different scale of challenge.
PW: There is a sort of ‘sky is falling’ attitude about Jackson.
RM: And a lot of badmouthing about the city from people who want to make money off of selling property in the suburbs. I think Jackson can be a quality small city. I don’t think I’d like it to be anything else. I go to New Orleans now; it’s crowded, dirty, and traffic-infested. I can’t wait to get back to Jackson.
PW: How did you get to Jackson State?
RM: I was running the center. I had my life set up like I wanted; I was going to work in polo shirts and we had bought a little house and were running the center out of that house. It was good. The new president of Tulane came to me – Scott Cowen; we’re good friends. He called me to his office and said, “Ron, you have to choose. You have to be either the Senior Vice President and General Counsel or the Executive Director of the center.” I said I really wanted to run the center. He said, “I really want you to be the Senior Vice President and General Counsel.” Just about that time, somebody called me about this job. I wasn’t even thinking about [taking a new job]. In fact, I had just turned down a presidency six months before at Chicago State. The weather was a problem.
PW: Did you have any worries about taking the position here?
RM: Not really. I studied it pretty thoroughly; I knew what I was getting into. I was really surprised by the potential this school had that no one knew about – pleasantly surprised. It’s good work here. It’s a labor of love, but it’s a labor. I’ve never worked as hard in my life, but I whistle when I come to work every morning.
Interview with Harvey Johnson (Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi)
I seemed to happier with this piece than most of our readers. I think this was because it was originally planned as one thing, but became another. There really is no one to blame for that; it just happened. I'd been doing a series of interviews on Jackson's Urban Redevelopment. I thought a nifty third part would be talking to the only mayor in history who'd taken an active role in trying to clean up the city. That was the plan. However, we also decided to use the interview to go along with the first issue of a new graphical look, and it was the beginnings of election season. As such, the series was faded into the background and it looked like more of a stand-alone interview. Because of that, I was accused of tossing softball questions at the mayor, which I can't deny. Worse yet, I was a Harvey Johnson supporter, which I won't deny. I wish the interview had come out more like I had originally planned, but I've always been personally pleased with it.
Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson has, in two terms, become one of the most visible mayors in the history of the city. He has elected to take an active role in public education and economic development of the city, pushing to make Jackson the Best of the New South – a city of excellence. Born in Vicksburg, Johnson received his first degree in political science from Tennessee State University and followed that up with a Masters’ Degree in political science from the University of Cincinnati. He has studied toward a doctorate in public administration at University of Southern California’s Washington Public Affairs Center in Washington, DC.
Johnson spent 25 years in the field of planning and community development, served as an assistant professor of political science at Jackson State University, and was a member of the Mississippi State Tax Commission and the Mississippi Gaming Commission. He also served his country as a Captain in the United States Air Force.
In 1997, Johnson was elected the first African-American mayor in Jackson history, a fact that made national headlines. He serves on the Democratic National Committee, the United States Conference of Mayors Homeland Security Task Force, the National Conference of Democratic Mayors, and is president of the National Conference of Black Mayors. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Mississippi Municipal League, the Metro Jackson Chamber of Commerce, and National Urban Fellows, Inc. He has served on numerous other boards, including the American Red Cross of Central Mississippi, Union Planters, and Smith-Robertson Museum. Johnson is a charter member of 100 Black Men of Jackson. He is married to Kathy Ezell Johnson and they have two adult children, Sharla and Harvey III.
We met with Mayor Johnson on December 30, in the busy time between Christmas and New Year’s.
Planet Weekly: The next term of office for Jackson’s mayor is likely to be an important one, with many ribbons to cut on several new projects. Does this affect your continued desire to be the mayor?
Mayor Harvey Johnson: I would like to see a number of projects that have been born, if you will, during our second term come to fruition, but that’s not the only driving force. This is a very rewarding job. I think there are things that still need to be done in the city of Jackson, besides just the physical projects that are going to take place over the next four years, and I’m prepared to do those things. There is a lot of momentum and I’d like to be a part of continuing that momentum.
PW: What sorts of things need to be done?
HJ: I think public education is a very important part of what we have to look forward to. Trying not only to improve the physical facilities we have, but improving other aspects of public education. It needs more supporters in our city. We need to face that challenge and get more people to rally around public education in our community.
PW: How?
HJ: If I had a road map, it’d be done by now. The first thing you do is to try to raise everyone’s awareness that there is a need. Public education impacts so many things. It impacts the ability to attract business and industry to your city, because they want a trained or trainable workforce. It impacts crime, especially if crime is committed by youth. It impacts the stability of the community. Educating young people who will not only go to college and do great things, but will do these great things when they come back home. It is a key to a lot of issues we need to deal with.
PW: What is your role in bringing this awareness to the city?
HJ: The mayor has a bully pulpit. My role is to use that bully pulpit to make people aware of the need to support public education, and how important it is to the future of our city. I have been to every public school in the city of Jackson, some of them two or three times. I’m committed to try to do what I can to make sure people are aware of the need.
PW: How should they support public education, financially?
HJ: Financially is one way. Obviously at some point in time, a bond issue is going to have to be put on the ballot to expand or replace some facilities. There are some other ways to support it. The Adopt-a-School program is a great effort on the part of businesses to lend support. Mentoring is another very important aspect. I think after-school programs are important. A lot of the students in the school system can use that time for recreation, but also for tutoring and studying and basically for staying out of trouble. A better rubric for this whole discussion is Youth Development, not just public education.
PW: What else needs to be done?
HJ: The creation of jobs and the stabilization of our tax base is a critical issue, one that people like to simplify. ‘Just get another Big Box and put it here and you’ll have more sales tax,’ but it’s a larger issue than that. It was just announced that we have a major subdivision being planned for South Jackson. This is an important aspect, not only for stabilizing our tax base, but also creating households and putting them close to the MetroCenter, which has enjoyed some pretty hard times of late.
PW: Residential development does appear to be lagging behind commercial development in Jackson. What should we do to get people to put homes here?
HJ: We have to encourage developers and educate them on what’s happening in our city. We’re doing that. The market that we’re missing is the middle market, and that’s what’s so exciting about the planned subdivision in South Jackson – these are $100,000-$150,000 homes. We aren’t lacking development in the upper scale and we aren’t lacking for affordable homes. But that middle market, where you want a $150,000 house, you have to go outside of the city. That’s what we have to focus on. We reach out to the developers and see how we can incentivize a project. It could be infrastructure – roads, water, and sewers. We’ve been entertaining a lot of proposals on how we can facilitate development with these kinds of homes.
PW: You see this as something that will increase during the next term?
HJ: Oh yes, no question. This is something we’re starting to see the fruits of. There’s been a lot of emphasis on downtown, but we’re also planning on how we can provide incentives to encourage these housing developers to move into our city and do the kinds of things that have been proposed in South Jackson.
PW: The MetroCenter area appears to be the next sort of project. There is already some activity happening there. Is this new subdivision related to it?
HJ: It’s related. It places a significant number of households 10-15 minutes away and that’s what retailers are looking for. In an area of the city where the perception is that people are moving away, it’s good to see new development come, because it means that people are moving there.
PW: Don’t the numbers back up the fact that people are moving away from Jackson?
HJ: The census numbers do indicate a loss of population, but if you look at our building permits, it indicates that new building is very strong here. Over a five-year period, we’ve averaged over $100 million in building permits. I meant the perception of moving away specifically from the West Jackson/MetroCenter area. People are shifting away, but the shift is taking them to South Jackson, the fastest growing area in the city. But obviously there has been a decrease in population from census to census. People are moving into our city from Madison and Rankin [Counties] and surrounding areas, but it’ll take a process to reverse the trend. It didn’t just start in 2000. Our highest population total was in 1970 and it’s been downward since then. That’s common to a lot of central cities throughout the country, so we’re not unique in that regard.
PW: Even so, the suburbs are all growing.
HJ: Yes, yes. But we still represent the trunk of the tree. Someone was at the [City] Council meeting the other day talking about deposits in the area. There may be $6 billion in deposits in the metro area, but $4 billion of that is in the city of Jackson. What impressed me was the scale, that there is still a considerable amount of economic activity in Jackson.
PW: Regardless of anything else, to some Jackson’s biggest problem is crime.
HJ: What the city government focuses on – whether it’s me or the chief – has to be on apprehending those people who commit the crimes in such a way that they receive their just due, and preventing crime to the extend that we can within the system. That’s why we are concerned about after-school programs. We operate nine centers in the city and try to give children something to do. We have a lot of programs that ultimately, we hope, will lead to the prevention of crime. I personally go into those schools and give anti-gun violence messages to those students. I think that crime is a problem throughout the country. I’ve said all along that what we need to be concerned about is making people feel safer and that’s the difficult part. We’re doing that by getting more police officers on the street. When I came into office, we had 350-370 officers and now we have 500, and that’s on top of losing 250 to attrition over those several years. I’ve increased the police budget by 30 percent. We’ve come up with a plan to map out what we can do to reduce crime. We have technology – computers in the police cars, video cameras, and Comstat, a computerized crime tracking mechanism that lets up better deploy our officers. The numbers indicate that crime is down. People sort of pooh-pooh the numbers. If you say that crime is down and your next door neighbor is robbed, you’re not going to believe it. But the fact is that there is a significant drop in crime in Jackson. One indicator is auto thefts. Three years ago we were number six of the top 100 metro areas in auto thefts. The latest report said we were number 74. That’s not getting any play in the papers. When we improve – probably the most significant improvement in the country on just that one indicator – nothing is said about it. It’s very frustrating to get that kind of information out.
PW: There are many who think the biggest crime problem is a backlog in the judicial system.
HJ: We have met with judges, prosecutors, and people from the sheriff’s office to try to get that system improved, and I think it is improving. I think we can use better technology as far as sharing data, and we’re slowly moving into that kind of system. We probably need to move a little faster. I think there’s a much better working relationship between these different tentacles of the criminal justice system. There’s a coordinating committee that we’re pushing for to try to make sure we have ample communication between all the parties in that system. Very early on this year, we looked at our bail system, which was allowing clerks to make decisions about certain offenses without the judges having a say-so in it. We came up with a new system for bailing people out for certain violent crimes. A judge now has to look at that case so you don’t have a sort of rubber stamp.
PW: Which led to some very bad press this year.
HJ: Exactly. We’re improving on that system. Certainly more can be made, but we’re in a better position now to make those improvements because of the level of communication between all parties than we were a year ago.
PW: Development in the city is something you will justly get credit for. There appears to be a real push to continue development and redevelopment. Does the city have room for more?
HJ: When I came into office, I said one of the things I wanted to do was to put Jackson into development mode. Is there room for more development? Yes. We have a fresh plan for downtown economic development strategies. We have a comprehensive plan adopted this year by the city council, an overall master plan for the city. We’ve taken small plans, like the entertainment district, Union Station, the Convention Center, and West Jackson housing, but now we’re in a mode to look at larger plans and how it all pieces together. We’re ready to move ahead and that’s exciting to me. We do need to make sure that deals are pushed by this office. Developers, citizens, and businesspeople need to know that we’re serious about the future of this city and our future hinges on our ability to develop and redevelop.
PW: What sort of identity should the Farish Street entertainment district take?
HJ: My goal with Farish Street is to capture the hope and promise it had 50 or 60 years ago, because it was a self-contained community for African-Americans. It allowed business to be transacted, it allowed entertainment, eating out, going to church; it allowed for all those things. My vision is to try to recapture that and use the entertainment district to anchor that. Another anchor is housing. Certainly another anchor is the religious institutions there. The oldest African-American church in the city is located there. We have a challenge to maintain the district. With the state of the housing, it has been neglected. We have a program we’re putting together to stabilize housing there.
PW: If any project has your name on it, figuratively speaking, it is the convention center. What do you think it will actually do for the city?
HJ: It’s going to create jobs. It’s going to create a venue where people will come to our city who perhaps wouldn’t have had the opportunity to come. But perhaps what it’s going to do is to indicate to the city, the metro area, and perhaps the whole state as to what can be done; what’s possible in the capital city. There are people who think that nothing can happen in the capital city. But with a convention center, with people coming from all over the state, the region, and the nation to this state-of-the-art meeting facility that’s right smack dab in the middle of Jackson, I think this will cause people eventually to stick out their chests a little further. This is something that the people of Mississippi can feel proud about.
PW: Right before election time, we received word about the businesses coming to Farish Street and about agreements being signed regarding the King Edward. Was this fortuitous or was there some planning involved?
HJ: Timing is an important aspect of any endeavor and we have been blessed with good timing, and some of the things that have been planned are coming into fruition. Of course, this was on the drawing board a long time. Did I push to make sure that we could point to that as an accomplishment? I certainly wanted it to happen not two weeks after November 2. If it happened two months before, two weeks, or two days, it didn’t matter to me. But it was important to me that we had some indication that things were moving forward in the city. Again, this comes back from my background as a planner, to say to folks, ‘the plan is fine, but when are we going to get it done?’ That’s what I’m saying to the people involved with Farish Street, the Telcomm Center, the Convention Center people, and it’s what we said about Union Station: ‘Fine, we have the plan, let’s get it done.’ So yes, I was pushing that development on Farish Street as hard as I could to make sure it got done. I’m glad it got done prior to the election, when it happened. Had I not pushed, maybe it wouldn’t have gotten done. I don’t know, but I’m just pleased it turned out the way it did.
PW: Has any sort of management group for the King Edward been selected?
HJ: Not a management group, but the developer has been selected. That will be left up to Historic Restorations. You’re supposing it would be a hotel?
PW: Actually, I’m of the opinion that it will be a mixed-use facility, which I think is a good idea.
HJ: I don’t think it will be a hotel, but I think that HRI will be responsible for it. It’ll be their baby, so whatever other groups or resources they need, they’ll have to come up with.
PW: Certain businesses are rumored to be ready to go in, even though there is no one to run it yet, no one to sign any sort of contracts to bring people in.
HJ: I’ve heard that as well, that businesses are looking to locate there. I’m not sure that the point where we are in this speculation process, whether it’s absolutely necessary to have a management group. What needs to happen first is that kind of interest being displayed, so the developers will feel comfortable spending the money they’re going to have to spend and the city will feel comfortable spending the money that it’s going to have to spend, knowing there is interest out there. I think that kind of speculation is healthy, because we’ve gone from ‘let’s tear it down’ and ‘when are you going to do something about it’ to ‘wouldn’t it be a good idea to have this business here.’
PW: When the King Edward agreement was signed, was it for the entire development or only for the early phases?
HJ: Right now we’re looking at the early phase – the environmental abatement and some limited demolition. With the holidays, I’m really not to sure where we are with that final document that will carry it all the way through to completion, but that will be the next document. When I talked to people a few weeks ago, they said that it would be finished by the end of the year. I don’t know where it is, but it could slip to early January.
PW: What sort of future do you see for the city of Jackson?
HJ: The future looks very good. I think we’re at a point in our history we haven’t been before. We have an infusion of private investment. We’ve had it before, but we haven’t had it in recent years at the level we have now. I think that the citizens of our city believe that we can work together to make our city better. To me, those things indicate that the future is very bright, because people have to believe that the future is bright. Part of my job is to convince people of that, to be a cheerleader and an ambassador and whatever I can be to convince people that we’re moving ahead in the city, that we’re becoming the Best of the New South, and we need to keep working. We have to work at it every day. If we can convince people that we are striving for excellence, and that’s what we’re trying to do, reaching our potential, we’re in good shape and I think that people are seeing that we can reach that goal.
Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson has, in two terms, become one of the most visible mayors in the history of the city. He has elected to take an active role in public education and economic development of the city, pushing to make Jackson the Best of the New South – a city of excellence. Born in Vicksburg, Johnson received his first degree in political science from Tennessee State University and followed that up with a Masters’ Degree in political science from the University of Cincinnati. He has studied toward a doctorate in public administration at University of Southern California’s Washington Public Affairs Center in Washington, DC.
Johnson spent 25 years in the field of planning and community development, served as an assistant professor of political science at Jackson State University, and was a member of the Mississippi State Tax Commission and the Mississippi Gaming Commission. He also served his country as a Captain in the United States Air Force.
In 1997, Johnson was elected the first African-American mayor in Jackson history, a fact that made national headlines. He serves on the Democratic National Committee, the United States Conference of Mayors Homeland Security Task Force, the National Conference of Democratic Mayors, and is president of the National Conference of Black Mayors. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Mississippi Municipal League, the Metro Jackson Chamber of Commerce, and National Urban Fellows, Inc. He has served on numerous other boards, including the American Red Cross of Central Mississippi, Union Planters, and Smith-Robertson Museum. Johnson is a charter member of 100 Black Men of Jackson. He is married to Kathy Ezell Johnson and they have two adult children, Sharla and Harvey III.
We met with Mayor Johnson on December 30, in the busy time between Christmas and New Year’s.
Planet Weekly: The next term of office for Jackson’s mayor is likely to be an important one, with many ribbons to cut on several new projects. Does this affect your continued desire to be the mayor?
Mayor Harvey Johnson: I would like to see a number of projects that have been born, if you will, during our second term come to fruition, but that’s not the only driving force. This is a very rewarding job. I think there are things that still need to be done in the city of Jackson, besides just the physical projects that are going to take place over the next four years, and I’m prepared to do those things. There is a lot of momentum and I’d like to be a part of continuing that momentum.
PW: What sorts of things need to be done?
HJ: I think public education is a very important part of what we have to look forward to. Trying not only to improve the physical facilities we have, but improving other aspects of public education. It needs more supporters in our city. We need to face that challenge and get more people to rally around public education in our community.
PW: How?
HJ: If I had a road map, it’d be done by now. The first thing you do is to try to raise everyone’s awareness that there is a need. Public education impacts so many things. It impacts the ability to attract business and industry to your city, because they want a trained or trainable workforce. It impacts crime, especially if crime is committed by youth. It impacts the stability of the community. Educating young people who will not only go to college and do great things, but will do these great things when they come back home. It is a key to a lot of issues we need to deal with.
PW: What is your role in bringing this awareness to the city?
HJ: The mayor has a bully pulpit. My role is to use that bully pulpit to make people aware of the need to support public education, and how important it is to the future of our city. I have been to every public school in the city of Jackson, some of them two or three times. I’m committed to try to do what I can to make sure people are aware of the need.
PW: How should they support public education, financially?
HJ: Financially is one way. Obviously at some point in time, a bond issue is going to have to be put on the ballot to expand or replace some facilities. There are some other ways to support it. The Adopt-a-School program is a great effort on the part of businesses to lend support. Mentoring is another very important aspect. I think after-school programs are important. A lot of the students in the school system can use that time for recreation, but also for tutoring and studying and basically for staying out of trouble. A better rubric for this whole discussion is Youth Development, not just public education.
PW: What else needs to be done?
HJ: The creation of jobs and the stabilization of our tax base is a critical issue, one that people like to simplify. ‘Just get another Big Box and put it here and you’ll have more sales tax,’ but it’s a larger issue than that. It was just announced that we have a major subdivision being planned for South Jackson. This is an important aspect, not only for stabilizing our tax base, but also creating households and putting them close to the MetroCenter, which has enjoyed some pretty hard times of late.
PW: Residential development does appear to be lagging behind commercial development in Jackson. What should we do to get people to put homes here?
HJ: We have to encourage developers and educate them on what’s happening in our city. We’re doing that. The market that we’re missing is the middle market, and that’s what’s so exciting about the planned subdivision in South Jackson – these are $100,000-$150,000 homes. We aren’t lacking development in the upper scale and we aren’t lacking for affordable homes. But that middle market, where you want a $150,000 house, you have to go outside of the city. That’s what we have to focus on. We reach out to the developers and see how we can incentivize a project. It could be infrastructure – roads, water, and sewers. We’ve been entertaining a lot of proposals on how we can facilitate development with these kinds of homes.
PW: You see this as something that will increase during the next term?
HJ: Oh yes, no question. This is something we’re starting to see the fruits of. There’s been a lot of emphasis on downtown, but we’re also planning on how we can provide incentives to encourage these housing developers to move into our city and do the kinds of things that have been proposed in South Jackson.
PW: The MetroCenter area appears to be the next sort of project. There is already some activity happening there. Is this new subdivision related to it?
HJ: It’s related. It places a significant number of households 10-15 minutes away and that’s what retailers are looking for. In an area of the city where the perception is that people are moving away, it’s good to see new development come, because it means that people are moving there.
PW: Don’t the numbers back up the fact that people are moving away from Jackson?
HJ: The census numbers do indicate a loss of population, but if you look at our building permits, it indicates that new building is very strong here. Over a five-year period, we’ve averaged over $100 million in building permits. I meant the perception of moving away specifically from the West Jackson/MetroCenter area. People are shifting away, but the shift is taking them to South Jackson, the fastest growing area in the city. But obviously there has been a decrease in population from census to census. People are moving into our city from Madison and Rankin [Counties] and surrounding areas, but it’ll take a process to reverse the trend. It didn’t just start in 2000. Our highest population total was in 1970 and it’s been downward since then. That’s common to a lot of central cities throughout the country, so we’re not unique in that regard.
PW: Even so, the suburbs are all growing.
HJ: Yes, yes. But we still represent the trunk of the tree. Someone was at the [City] Council meeting the other day talking about deposits in the area. There may be $6 billion in deposits in the metro area, but $4 billion of that is in the city of Jackson. What impressed me was the scale, that there is still a considerable amount of economic activity in Jackson.
PW: Regardless of anything else, to some Jackson’s biggest problem is crime.
HJ: What the city government focuses on – whether it’s me or the chief – has to be on apprehending those people who commit the crimes in such a way that they receive their just due, and preventing crime to the extend that we can within the system. That’s why we are concerned about after-school programs. We operate nine centers in the city and try to give children something to do. We have a lot of programs that ultimately, we hope, will lead to the prevention of crime. I personally go into those schools and give anti-gun violence messages to those students. I think that crime is a problem throughout the country. I’ve said all along that what we need to be concerned about is making people feel safer and that’s the difficult part. We’re doing that by getting more police officers on the street. When I came into office, we had 350-370 officers and now we have 500, and that’s on top of losing 250 to attrition over those several years. I’ve increased the police budget by 30 percent. We’ve come up with a plan to map out what we can do to reduce crime. We have technology – computers in the police cars, video cameras, and Comstat, a computerized crime tracking mechanism that lets up better deploy our officers. The numbers indicate that crime is down. People sort of pooh-pooh the numbers. If you say that crime is down and your next door neighbor is robbed, you’re not going to believe it. But the fact is that there is a significant drop in crime in Jackson. One indicator is auto thefts. Three years ago we were number six of the top 100 metro areas in auto thefts. The latest report said we were number 74. That’s not getting any play in the papers. When we improve – probably the most significant improvement in the country on just that one indicator – nothing is said about it. It’s very frustrating to get that kind of information out.
PW: There are many who think the biggest crime problem is a backlog in the judicial system.
HJ: We have met with judges, prosecutors, and people from the sheriff’s office to try to get that system improved, and I think it is improving. I think we can use better technology as far as sharing data, and we’re slowly moving into that kind of system. We probably need to move a little faster. I think there’s a much better working relationship between these different tentacles of the criminal justice system. There’s a coordinating committee that we’re pushing for to try to make sure we have ample communication between all the parties in that system. Very early on this year, we looked at our bail system, which was allowing clerks to make decisions about certain offenses without the judges having a say-so in it. We came up with a new system for bailing people out for certain violent crimes. A judge now has to look at that case so you don’t have a sort of rubber stamp.
PW: Which led to some very bad press this year.
HJ: Exactly. We’re improving on that system. Certainly more can be made, but we’re in a better position now to make those improvements because of the level of communication between all parties than we were a year ago.
PW: Development in the city is something you will justly get credit for. There appears to be a real push to continue development and redevelopment. Does the city have room for more?
HJ: When I came into office, I said one of the things I wanted to do was to put Jackson into development mode. Is there room for more development? Yes. We have a fresh plan for downtown economic development strategies. We have a comprehensive plan adopted this year by the city council, an overall master plan for the city. We’ve taken small plans, like the entertainment district, Union Station, the Convention Center, and West Jackson housing, but now we’re in a mode to look at larger plans and how it all pieces together. We’re ready to move ahead and that’s exciting to me. We do need to make sure that deals are pushed by this office. Developers, citizens, and businesspeople need to know that we’re serious about the future of this city and our future hinges on our ability to develop and redevelop.
PW: What sort of identity should the Farish Street entertainment district take?
HJ: My goal with Farish Street is to capture the hope and promise it had 50 or 60 years ago, because it was a self-contained community for African-Americans. It allowed business to be transacted, it allowed entertainment, eating out, going to church; it allowed for all those things. My vision is to try to recapture that and use the entertainment district to anchor that. Another anchor is housing. Certainly another anchor is the religious institutions there. The oldest African-American church in the city is located there. We have a challenge to maintain the district. With the state of the housing, it has been neglected. We have a program we’re putting together to stabilize housing there.
PW: If any project has your name on it, figuratively speaking, it is the convention center. What do you think it will actually do for the city?
HJ: It’s going to create jobs. It’s going to create a venue where people will come to our city who perhaps wouldn’t have had the opportunity to come. But perhaps what it’s going to do is to indicate to the city, the metro area, and perhaps the whole state as to what can be done; what’s possible in the capital city. There are people who think that nothing can happen in the capital city. But with a convention center, with people coming from all over the state, the region, and the nation to this state-of-the-art meeting facility that’s right smack dab in the middle of Jackson, I think this will cause people eventually to stick out their chests a little further. This is something that the people of Mississippi can feel proud about.
PW: Right before election time, we received word about the businesses coming to Farish Street and about agreements being signed regarding the King Edward. Was this fortuitous or was there some planning involved?
HJ: Timing is an important aspect of any endeavor and we have been blessed with good timing, and some of the things that have been planned are coming into fruition. Of course, this was on the drawing board a long time. Did I push to make sure that we could point to that as an accomplishment? I certainly wanted it to happen not two weeks after November 2. If it happened two months before, two weeks, or two days, it didn’t matter to me. But it was important to me that we had some indication that things were moving forward in the city. Again, this comes back from my background as a planner, to say to folks, ‘the plan is fine, but when are we going to get it done?’ That’s what I’m saying to the people involved with Farish Street, the Telcomm Center, the Convention Center people, and it’s what we said about Union Station: ‘Fine, we have the plan, let’s get it done.’ So yes, I was pushing that development on Farish Street as hard as I could to make sure it got done. I’m glad it got done prior to the election, when it happened. Had I not pushed, maybe it wouldn’t have gotten done. I don’t know, but I’m just pleased it turned out the way it did.
PW: Has any sort of management group for the King Edward been selected?
HJ: Not a management group, but the developer has been selected. That will be left up to Historic Restorations. You’re supposing it would be a hotel?
PW: Actually, I’m of the opinion that it will be a mixed-use facility, which I think is a good idea.
HJ: I don’t think it will be a hotel, but I think that HRI will be responsible for it. It’ll be their baby, so whatever other groups or resources they need, they’ll have to come up with.
PW: Certain businesses are rumored to be ready to go in, even though there is no one to run it yet, no one to sign any sort of contracts to bring people in.
HJ: I’ve heard that as well, that businesses are looking to locate there. I’m not sure that the point where we are in this speculation process, whether it’s absolutely necessary to have a management group. What needs to happen first is that kind of interest being displayed, so the developers will feel comfortable spending the money they’re going to have to spend and the city will feel comfortable spending the money that it’s going to have to spend, knowing there is interest out there. I think that kind of speculation is healthy, because we’ve gone from ‘let’s tear it down’ and ‘when are you going to do something about it’ to ‘wouldn’t it be a good idea to have this business here.’
PW: When the King Edward agreement was signed, was it for the entire development or only for the early phases?
HJ: Right now we’re looking at the early phase – the environmental abatement and some limited demolition. With the holidays, I’m really not to sure where we are with that final document that will carry it all the way through to completion, but that will be the next document. When I talked to people a few weeks ago, they said that it would be finished by the end of the year. I don’t know where it is, but it could slip to early January.
PW: What sort of future do you see for the city of Jackson?
HJ: The future looks very good. I think we’re at a point in our history we haven’t been before. We have an infusion of private investment. We’ve had it before, but we haven’t had it in recent years at the level we have now. I think that the citizens of our city believe that we can work together to make our city better. To me, those things indicate that the future is very bright, because people have to believe that the future is bright. Part of my job is to convince people of that, to be a cheerleader and an ambassador and whatever I can be to convince people that we’re moving ahead in the city, that we’re becoming the Best of the New South, and we need to keep working. We have to work at it every day. If we can convince people that we are striving for excellence, and that’s what we’re trying to do, reaching our potential, we’re in good shape and I think that people are seeing that we can reach that goal.
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