Jackson Jambalaya

Those people get paid by the word?

From a group of people who are always complaining about - wait for it - people who do nothing but complain, they sure are spending a ton of time complaining about NOTHING.

Waaaaaaaaah!

In reading the Jackson middle class flight issue on JFP....I love Jackson and the only reason I am going to have to leave is that I have 3 kids in private school. I can not afford to do this much longer. It's not wanting to leave Jackson- it's HAVING to leave.
If there was anyway that Jackson could help pay for private school, I could stay...other than that, I have no options.
I don't think people understand that it's really not a choice for some people - we have to go where the schools are good and free!

The funniest thing that I saw in the thread is Donnerk's comment that what Jackson needs is MORE leaders. What Jackson NEEDS is more DOERS.

But, "Hey! I have a great idea, let's form a committee to discuss forming a discovery commission to plan a work team in order to form a study group to debate whether or not a committee or a group that may or may not exist is called Jackson 2020. (FRANK!!!) What we really, really need is four or five really good leaders to head those specific talkie groups. That is sure to reduce crime, repair streets, lower taxes, and bring businesses into Jackson!1!1!!1!"

Those idiots.

People aren't fleeing to the suburbs because of a lack of jobs in Jackson. Even if you lived here and got a job in Madison or Ridgeland, it's not like you are going to move to be ten minutes closer especially now when housing prices are at an all-time low and mortgage loans almost impossible to get. The problem with Jackson is all the crap you have to put up with from people who don't have a clue what is acceptable behavior. To-wit: two nights ago, a neighbor and her son were having a screaming match in their front yard, yesterday at lunch some trash drove up and parked across the street with their car stereo pumping so loudly my house shook. The ghetto is like kudzu, it consumes everything in its way. Jackson is the next Detroit.

Anon 9:11, you are certainly right on the behavior of those folks, but why would anyone live in Jackson when all of the businesses, even CHURCHES, are leaving?

In Jacksonese, the way to solve that problem is to raise taxes further on the ones that stay, too.

But, what Jackson needs is MORE leaders. And debates about groups (or non-groups) with ambiguous names.

I wonder if anyone recalls the Mississippi 2020 bunch.

While I find many of the criticisms of Jackson to have a base of truth, if not all-out truth, I choose to stay for primarily one reason: I find the suburbs to be boring as shit.

Have you noticed all Ladd talks about is young people or people moving back AFTER their kids are grown? Has no clue about families and their needs.

Let me see, what might drive away families?

Too many JPS schools classified as deficient.
Property taxes literally double that of the burbs.
Crime rate too high. I mean come on, kids are getting robbed at gunpoint waiting on the schoolbus. Do you honestly want to be at work worrying if your child is going to get shot going to school?
Water/sewer rates double that of the burbs.
The amenities continue to shrink in terms of what families need. Two large grocery stores and a few small ones and unfortunately, the two big ones are plagued with crime problems. No movie theaters. You get the idea.

I stay because I don't have children, it's convenient, and narcing out the bad behavior, the illegal personal care homes and the drug dealers is sorta fun even though no one who is PAID to care about that stuff gives a shit. If I had kids, I would move solely to keep from having to pay for St. Andrews. The most liberal human being I know did exactly that. Another person I know who moved from Fondren to the 'burbs said that she was used to hearing shots in the neighborhood but it was when she began to hear shots with no accompanying sirens, it was time to go. (Everyone in Fondren knows that if you leave for a weekend, the price is a lawnmower or if you're me, the $500 bike you just got for your birthday, a lawnmower and numerous power tools). It is hard to have middle class values and live in Jackson. And it is harder when you've been raised by a superliberal family and you have to deal with all the racist feelings that arise from witnessing ghetto behavior on an hourly basis. Most of it appears to be deliberately designed to tell decent people to fuck off. Some years ago, a friend of mine and I drove up to a Chinese restaurant and there were two black women punching each other out in the parking lot. They were both barefoot and one of them was heavily pregnant. We were the only people to call the police. It's kind of funny but the wear and tear on a person just to keep from being a crime victim - it's hard.

Have kids really gotten robbed waiting for the school bus? I've been gone for eight months and the Clarion-Ledger is no longer delivered to my doorstep free of charge anymore. As if they would actually publish that, anyway.

The grocery store situation is a big, big factor to me, but why would someone open a grocery where there are no jobs to motivate people to live in the area? Michelle Obama calls that lack of grocery stores, "food deserts," instead of "lack of leaders."

Kids have been robbed at gunpoint while waiting for the bus. The most recent genius was recognized by the kids and he was picked up when he went home to the apartment complex just down the street. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

He was not a Mensa candidate.

That is just amazing to me. What the Hell is the world coming to when the violent criminals are out during the day?

Or more importantly, when Comcast can't show up to install anything?

Did you ever get your problem fixed?

NO.

Yeah, was over by Clair behind the Mercedes place.

Teens have been robbed at gunpoint on Sheffield right outside JA.

Speaking of crime, anyone heard anything about the apartments across the street from Parham Bridges Park becoming a HUGE problem? I have heard so far of three crimes blamed on teens at those apartments by police officers: JA kids robbed at gunpoint, car stolen on Winchester, and cars broken into at Parham Bridges. One of the cops I spoke to seemed pretty frustrated -- they had picked the kids up for things but couldn't get anyone to keep them in jail for more than a night b/c of age.

Just wondering -- maybe JA will buy those apartments, too, and raze them?

Jackson hasn't become a happy hunting ground for premises liability plaintiff's attorneys for no reason. You should see the 911 reports on some of these complexes.

JA gave thought to not expanding at current location and moving to a safe location but were convinced to stay. Bad mistake..

Instead of giving David Watkins and Timber Falls the store, try this idea.

now that link was/is still a great idea KF. I'm the target household for this discussion, as next year I''ll have two at JA and I'll simply be working for tuition. It's education, folks. That's why the middle class is forced to move out of Jxn. I've been here 35 of 40 years, but am resigned to move so as not to go broke so my kids can get educated.

The link between Section 8 and crime:

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/sep/11/partners-in-crime-research/

The idea behind replacing public housing with vouchers was that if the poor people were spread out, they might adopt middle class values. It doesn't work. And for those who want to bitch about singling out poor people, read this week's New Yorker on the link between poverty and illness.

I found these comments from DL to be most amusing. [emphasis mine]

"Once again, education and positive actions are the answer (and good columns and inspiring speeches and good journalism). It takes everyone's skills, and some things do take time (younger people, for instance, have much less patience for old-style bash-politics and racial one-up-manship, so help is on the way, if we can do the right kinds of things to keep them here). We must inspire people to use their particular set of skills, not join the flight out of a city that you inadvertently depict as hopeless, or royally screwed on every front, or wait for the city to do everything or "buy in" to every idea. That's a losing cycle--even if a lot of people just love to hear it, and post about it, and call into TV stations about it, and so on."

I certainly hope the overuse of conjunctions, commas and parentheses is not an example of DL's education. In addition, I would not consider it an example of the literary skill set required for good columns.

I practically adopted some kids living down the street from me. Their mom was in prison and they had been adopted by their grandparents. For years I took them to Macaroni Grill on their birthdays, we saw every Harry Potter movie the first Saturday it was out, I bought them winter clothes and winter coats, etc. As soon as their mom got out of prison they dropped out of school (I had already ascertained that they were so far behind what I considered to be normal that even if they got a diploma it would be meaningless). The oldest got pregnant at 18. Their house was lost to foreclosure (before everyone else's was so there were no special programs). I was a one-person social work agency but it was too late. By the time I started helping them, they were already doomed.

I used to think all social ills had a solution. I know better now.

boy these comments are really helping the sale of houses in jackson???

Just my personal opinion but... If DHS would take these kids when they were young, I mean young, you might could have an impression. But instead they drag it on and on over years and if they ever do decide to give up on mama and/or daddy it's not until the kids are over half grown and there is no hope. I've seen it over and over and over. Kids learn at an early age what parents teach them and no amount of logic, reasoning, even showing them different matters. Every kid believes their parents over those trying to help them. All DHS does is maybe, maybe find someone to warehouse the kids until they can put them back with mama/daddy, etc. It's not a black/white thing either, it's all races. I personally think it is an education/poverty thing but it will never change for 99% of the kids until some money gets cut off from the parents for drug use, additional kids, etc and the parents HAVE to change. As long as the government keeps supplying an endless supply of money with no check points involved, it will never change. And before anybody says 'they're not getting rich off having kids' I'm not talking about rich by our standards but it's enough to keep buying drugs, cigs, liquor and that is all they are concerned with.

boy these comments are really helping the sale of houses in jackson???

The puppy mills and roadside animal sales are killing home values.

Sorry. I didn't realize this site was devoted to selling houses in Jackson.

Sarcasm aside, you can't solve a problem if you refuse to acknowledge it.

Ladd is ridiculous, noone listens to her dumb ass.

Anyone read/hear the NPR story on Detroit today? It's down to 700k residents and shrinking. It is over. Done. Finito. Jackson is the same thing on a smaller scale. There is no "saving" Jackson. Jackson is not going to have any "comeback." Move on. Invest your lives into a place that has a decent future (i.e. pretty much any of Jackson's surrounding communities). Or just leave MS altogether.

Yes. I read about Detroit and we're on our way there. I always catch myself thinking "what idiot would live in Detroit" and then I remember I live in Jackson and, thus, am guilty of throwing stones in glass houses.

Anyway - go see Tea Albrecht at Lemuria TODAY AT 5 P.M.. Her new book "The Tiger's Wife" is as great as the reviews claim it is.

Detroit's Population Crashes
Census Finds 25% Plunge as Blacks Flee to Suburbs; Shocked Mayor Seeks Recount

DETROIT—The population of Detroit has fallen back 100 years.

The flight of middle-class African-Americans to the suburbs fueled an exodus that cut Detroit's population 25% in the past decade to 713,777, according to Census Bureau data released Tuesday. That's the city's lowest population level since the 1910 census, when automobile mass production was making Detroit Detroit.

The burbs may be boring, but I like boring if it means my kids are safe at school.

CNBC advises against living in Jackson.

Jackson has poor public-transit options, low education-adjusted wages, a high crime rate and an above-average chance of tornadoes ...

As someone who formerly had kids at JA, lived in NE Jackson and worked in downtown Jackson, I can state that since moving to Rankin county, putting the kids in public school and commuting, our standard of living went up tremendously and I never worry anymore about the kids getting held up at gunpoint by the Parham Bridges gang, or having my home or car broken into.

JA should have moved when they had a chance. We would have moved with them.

Those apartments are a huge problem and the police can only do so much. They were fine before they allowed HUD vouchers.

They need to be razed.

Anon 7:58, don't forget about The Advantages across the street from McWillie Elementary, if you want to recognize crime-riddled cesspools. The killings started back in the mid-1990s over there.

From Donna's comments this morning:

"I truly believe this city is held back by the constant obsession with our public officials (Melton was his own problem and the reason we may never have a Convention Center hotel thanks to getting his friends in Texas to buy up the land, but that's a special case)."

Emphasis mine.

... constant.obsession.with.our.public officials ... but.Melton's.a.special.case.

Touche, 10:05.

LOL those self aggrandizing "Pro Jacks" are STILL going at over there

Notice how Torri's experience with the city government after being the victim of a crime just gets brushed aside as "something you have to deal with" in a big city (supported by Donna retelling how she got mugged in NYC), and mocking the idea that a mere citizen could dare expect to meet with the mayor of a grand metropolis like Jackson.

I posted a response just now, but since it'll be June before they approve it, I'll copy it here:

******************************

"Personally, I don't want to pay the mayor to meet with every person who suffers a non-violent crime."

Donna, is that how you summarize Torri's experience? She suffered a non-violent crime, and now demands to meet with the mayor?

My reading of her story indicates that her frustration has more to do with the utter lack of interest shown by JPD to apprehend the criminal, and her inability to find anyone in the city government who cares that JPD failed to do the one primary task assigned to them -- investigating crimes.



Torri -- I feel for you. Someone close to me was mugged at gunpoint in Belhaven neighborhood a couple years ago. I know for a fact that the card stolen from her wallet was used to pay an electric bill to Entergy. Now, I'm no FBI agent, but I'm pretty sure that electric bills have physical addresses and contact information. And yet -- JPD hemmed and hawed about having to file a subpoena to get the billing records from Entergy, and then finally would not respond when asked why they had failed to do so.

I had a drug dealer operating in the house across the street from me. I called JPD and the sheriff's office and it was clear they did not want to get off their lazy asses and do anything. They challenged whether I was capable of knowing a drug dealer when I spotted one even though I'd seen, using binoculars, this guy passing stuff through car windows in exchange for money. I wrote down the license plate numbers of the cars that were pulling up all day. Nobody wanted it. When they say they want community participation, they're LYING. They don't want to bothered. They don't even PRETEND to care.

1:51 -- Stay tuned, Donna's going to check into how citizens should direct complaints or criticisms toward JPD in the most constructive fashion. This should be enlightening.

Putting aside for the moment that it's all a bunch of arguing over who has the best liberal, feel-good psychobabble, here's what gets me:

When Kaze again points out that people of all races are leaving Jackson for "school, crime and job issues," the strongest concurrence DonnerKay can muster is:

"I have never said that some folks don't leave for that reason."

Wow. Looks like we've got a breakthrough!

I am so sick of her. She is so incredibly narcissistic and to claim that she has anything in her best interest other than revenue for her toxic waste publications is a joke. Her problem with the whole Jackson 2020 deal is that it hijacked her "bigger-better-smarter" group that will address the same issues. She wants to be the queen and will step on anyones throat to get there. She did it to VIP (ad nauseum) once she perceived them as any type of potential threat and she does it daily to the Clarion Ledger and Northside Sun. We all know people like this; those that tear other people down in order to elevate themselves. It's such unsophisticated psychology and really REALLY ridiculous..

I applaud Kamikaze and Queen both for standing up to this maniac. As a white female safely residing in the burbs, I still want good things for Jackson and actually WORK in Jackson and spend money there daily.

I wonder what ignoring Miss Ladd
(who as Kingfish noted has not had children nor understands the educational crisis facing families in the city)would do? Probably the same as most all poorly behaved children she'll just kick and scream and bully her way right back to the front of the line to the jungle gym.

Enough already. She is beyond destructive.

*I must say that 4:57 reference to her as Black As Donna made me laugh out loud.

4:56 thank you for your clarity. The more she is IGNORED OR challenged, the louder and more vicious she becomes, but WHO CARES?

(Thanks Kamikaze and Queen601 for exposing her once again)

SHE IS ON NO COMMITTEES, COMES TO NO MEETINGS SHE ALWAYS CRITICIZES, and is in a word, a very self centered, selfish narcissist.

She does a couple of self serving "events" a year, and thinks she is "making a difference".

Other that Wyatt Emmerich, the same ole "same oles" post ad nauseum. PERIOD.

Torrie Nichelle ROCKS.

Who is Donna?

As to this story at this point...see link. Its not a food fight, it is a total meltdown of the narcissistic "private" publication/comment space that wants to participate in the public discourse but cannot because of the two hands over ears and head in the sand.

Gotta laugh when Harpy goes off about Small, Phillips and the convention center hotel effort but then fails to report or mention that the convention center, a project the JFP endorsed, has lost $2.41 MILLION DOLLARS the last two years.

As for learning the purse in your car, I understand. I have hidden mine inside vehicles, too, and every time I do it I know I am taking a risk. When I do, I always find a way to take my credit cards, etc., with me, though. Maybe a fanny pack would help folks in that circumstance -- although your car window could still get broken. My police commander friend in NYC drove a Taurus, left nothing of value in it and never locked his doors so that his windows wouldn't get broken.

posted by DonnerKay on 03/24/11 at 04:07 PM

Translation: Property crimes are out-of-control in Jackson and you should have no expectations of safety. Buy a fanny pack so that your valuables will be on your person when you are robbed at gunpoint away from your vehicle.

Exactly. Why does she get such credit? She has done good things and then she $%#ks it up by exposing her true intent. I've watched first hand. She stands vigilently against domestic violence and then attacks her potentially greatest sister and partner in the fight over at VIP because it threatens her universe. "Screw the victims...OMG...they are about to get into my bank account!!". I never could figure out why she kept bringing up "VIP this and VIP that" and then I did a little homework. Turns out the two women running these publications are probably the two MOST vocal and successful in bringing awareness to the plight. But now they're revenue competitors. So much for synergy. Donna would eat Mary Ann's guts for lunch if it meant keeping her world protected. In the meantime, they fracture the effort and Donna could care less. I've volunteered with Heathers TREE for years and have watched this bizarre dynamic unfold. Look out. If it doesn't benefit Donna, it won't get heard. Watch.

I think most of the above posts miss the point. How many people post on her site, like 5? 10, at most?

Let her have her silly, tiny little fiefdom. She is harmless. In her delusional world, she thinks she is "making a difference."

All of the "hysterical meetings and conversations" Ladd raised hell about said the SAME THING that JSU said at today's Koinonia meeting. Is he being "hysterical" for pointing these out?

"Orey pointed out that Jackson was not the only city in the metro area to see an increase in black population. From 1990 to 2010, Madison County reported a 53 percent rate-of-growth increase in black residents and Rankin County reported an 83 percent increase."

ALSO" "Orey, along with JSU visiting professor Leniece Davis and sociology professor Thomas Kersen, suggested that community members create a coalition to rebrand the city made up of city officials, business elite members, social justice advocates, and citizens of various ages and ethnicities."

SHE WON'T SAY A WORD.

Rebranding the city is a GREAT idea. I suggest, "The Bold New City."

Too aggressive?

My nomination:

"If you like Mogadishu, you'll LOVE Jackson!"

Too much. The JFP's flash mob of one, Tom Head, contributes the following as a reason why people leave Jackson:

63. Rapid suburban development, prompted in part by lower sales taxes.

I love how she moved the entire discussion to her own blog post, claiming there were too many comments. Hmmm.... I seem to remember over 1,000 comments on a post about the use of the N word or was it Don Imus? Guess someone didn't want everyone to see what Kaze wrote.