Jackson Jambalaya

"Please contact me as soon as possible." So ended an April 19 letter from Hinds County attorney Crystal Martin to Derrick Johnson regarding redistricting. Jackson Jambalaya obtained through a public records request correspondence between Mr. Johnson and Hinds County. Needless to say, the correspondence was rather one-sided as Mr. Johnson did not respond in writing. Mr. Johnson is the President of the Mississippi NAACP.

The Hinds County Board of Supervisors hired Derrick Johnson to submit a redistricting plan to the federal government. The deadline was March 1, 2011. The Justice Department notified Hinds County in a May 31, 2011 letter:

"our analysis indicates that the information sent is insufficient to enable us to determine that the proposed redistricting plan has neither the purpose nor will have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote.... The following information is necessary so that we may complete our review of your submission:" (see documents below for the rest of the letter).

The list is rather extensive in nature as Mr. Johnson failed to provide a great deal of information in his submission.  The Justice Department sent another letter to Hinds County on October 21, 2011. The Justice Department stated in a sentence that was so understated one almost thought a Brit wrote it: "The information provided is not, in all instances, complete and fully responsive to our specific requests."  The Justice Department again asks for a long list of information Mr. Johnson failed to provide:

1. Election returns for all county elections since 1999 and registered voter information for each precinct. Mr. Johnson turned in information that was lacking in population, registered voter, and racial information for each precinct.  He did not even included the race of the candidates.

2. This is the sad part.  Mr. Johnson provided "a listing of the constituent (There he is using big words again) precincts for each plan is contained on the discs which are enclosed."  Um, the Justice Department said no such information was provided by Mr. Johnson:

"We did not receive a disc that contains these precinct listings with the submission received on September 15, 2011.  Instead, we received one disc containing election returns and six discs containing recordings of meetings of the Board of Supervisors."  (Trying hard not to make an editorial comment here.). 

Mr. Johnson did not provide any additional information to the Justice Department until after Ms. Martin sent him several emails in April 2012.  She sent him a short email on April 12 stating she was "getting repeated phone calls with respect to Hinds County redistricting. PLEASE let me know when we get this last submission in." 

Mr. Johnson did not respond.  She sent him another email on April 19:

"I hope all is well with you.  I am writing to advise that I have received numerous calls and inquiries regarding the status of the Hinds County redistricting plan with the U.S. Department of Justice.  There have also been persistent calls and emails from the media regarding the status of the plan.  As you can imagine, members of the Board of Supervisors are very concerned that this issue has not been resolved.  Some of them were under the belief, after speaking with you, that the final plan had been submitted months ago..... Please contact me as soon as possible to discuss this matter." 

Mr. Johnson submitted the information shortly after this email.  It is not known if the information is what was required by the Justice Department. Controversy has arose in Jackson after Mr. Johnson did not sign his contract until the city council threatened to revoke it. Mr. Johnson did not work on the redistricting for months and the city council debated replacing him with another vendor. Earlier post. Wilkinson County withdrew a plan he created after it discovered the plan was very incomplete and drafted in a "slipshod" manner.

Here is the background of this case from an earlier post:

Sooooo............. Hinds County illegally approves a contract for Derrick Johnson to draw new voting lines for Hinds County. Illegal because the contract was not opened up for bidding and the law requires Mr. Johnson is licensed as an attorney in Mississippi if he obtains a no-bid professional service contract. Mr. Johnson has not passed the bar exam in Mississippi or in any other state. Mr. Johnson then charged Hinds County $40,000 for his work. The fee was double what Central Mississippi Planning and Development District charged Rankin and Madison counties - $20,000 apiece.

The Board of Supervisors then held a hearing with no notice posted on the county website, at the courthouse, or in the Clarion-Ledger. The only notice was posted twice in the little read weekly the Jackson Advocate. Mr. Johnson came to the hearing with no maps, little census data, and a ton of rudeness to anyone asking questions. The supervisors then did not make plans available to the public until the day of the final hearing a week later and even then did not provide the map eventually approved by the board until the meeting itself started. Earlier post with maps and video.



Here is the editorial comment from the post about Mr. Johnson and the Jackson City Council a few weeks ago. It still applies:

That was the news, now for the opinion. This meeting only reinforces my view that Derrick Johnson is a con artist. He travels around the state promoting himself as a redistricting specialists. Now it turns out that the Jackson redistricting he brags he did ten years ago was actually a joint project with CMPDD. Anyone want to bet CMPDD did the work while he claimed a check as a "minority vendor"? This was the same Derrick Johnson who according to several Supervisors, told the board he was an attorney when in fact he is not licensed in any state. Video of Hinds County redistricting public hearing. Worth watching again.

The problems with Wilkinson, Hinds, and Jackson show the same thing: refusal to return phone calls, sloppy work when it is actually done, and redistricting plans not even submitted to the Justice Department. Mr. Johnson's action or I should say lack of action, appear to be someone who is in over his head, does not know what to do, and hides. Mr. Johnson appeared at a public hearing last year for Hinds County redistricting with no maps and no data. At the time I thought he was just plain arrogant and trying to pull something shady, now I wonder if the man had no maps because he frankly didn't know what he was doing. He then claimed he had to correct the maps he made because he used the wrong census data, blaming someone else of course.

The contracts for Hinds and Jackson alone are $60,000. It is unknown what the contract is for Wilkinson County. Mr. Johnson saw green and got mean but when it came time to do the work, he is nowhere to be seen. the city should terminate the contract with DL Consultants and move forward with CMPDD since it has already done the work and can have it done in a matter of weeks.