Jackson Jambalaya

What exactly is that lawn crew doing? I read today in The Clarion-Ledger that the local cemeteries are not being being taken care of as they should be by the city. My question is where is our esteemed lawn crew that Melton hired? In fact, I remember Melton bragging on the radio a few weeks ago on Ben Allen's show about how they had cleaned up a cemetery.

Well, with Melton, you know the drill, keep on eye out for what actually happened. Here we go:

"Mary Landin, an expert on Hinds County cemeteries, said the graveyards have fallen into disrepair because of resources and the public's lack of interest.
"The problem is the city doesn't have the manpower nor the willpower to mow the cemeteries on a regular basis. Some graves have been vandalized, and the workers don't bother to pick the tombstones up. And they certainly don't clean them," said Landin, who published a book in 1988 based on 40 years of her research, The Old Cemeteries of Hinds County, Mississippi, from 1811 to Present......

The cemeteries are suffering from the same budget woes as every other department," City Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon said.
Jackson's Parks Maintenance Division has seven full-time employees, including one superintendent, who are charged with maintaining six graveyards: Cedar Lawn, Elmwood, Greenwood, Lincoln, Mount Olive and Willow Park. The crew tries to cut grass and weeds, trim hedges and clean streets inside each cemetery on an alternating two-week basis. An annual budget of about $270,000 pays for supplies, equipment and salaries. Last year, the division had to ask for $10,000 more."

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070619/NEWS/706190372/1001/news

Of course, this the department responsible is currently run by a "consultant" being paid a very high salary after being rejected by the Jackson City Council as a nominee for the head of the department. This is the same candidate who had no experience whatsoever in working in the field of parks and recreation although he was a good athlete at one time.

One must ask what happened to Melton's lawn crew, those young men that Melton said needed jobs to help them get their lives straight. Well, it helps when their leader is not getting arrested:

"A spokesman for the Hinds County Sheriff's Department confirmed that Frederica Brunson, 23, also known as Jermaine Butler, was arrested today for possession of a stolen automobile and contempt of court. Brunson, who owns the Wood Street Lawn Service, was last arrested Dec. 4, 2005, for armed robbery of the Headliners Barbershop near Wood Street. He was also arrested for rape in 2001.
Brunson's lawn service was financially seeded by Mayor Frank Melton, and the city has paid the service thousands for lawn cleanup over recent months. Brunson told the JFP in March that he took over the service about nine months ago after its original owner, Michael Mayes, reneged on paying the workers. Mayes has since been “picked up” again by police, he said."
.......
Melton had announced that he was helping seed the Wood Street Lawn and Cleaning Service with $5,000 of his own money and asking the city to give them equipment, as well as selling them confiscated trucks for $1 apiece.Brunson said in March, however, that the city has never provided any equipment and complained that the city can take a month to pay his invoices. Melton originally bought them lawn mowers, he said, but they’re gone. “Michael (Mayes) did what he did with it,” he said.
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/comments.php?id=13309_0_51_0_C

I started writing this post not intending to drag the lawn crew into this to such a degree, however, when I read about the cemeteries not being taken care of and hear the mayor on the radio bragging about his lawn crew cleaning them up, it does make me wonder what is going on with this so-called lawn crew. I'm not accusing anyone of anything, I just think its a question worth asking.