Jackson Jambalaya

Poff and Stracener have an excuse for everything.

Memberships and Programs revenues are way south while a number of the expense budgets are already blown for the year.

Take away the taxpayer bailout King Kush doled out the doors at the Zoo would be shuttered.

Maybe the Malachi pimps can suggest a biggie debt solution.

signaling is absolutely critical--appoint Watts Chief and pull funding for Zoo--THAT is the right thing to do and wud signal "there's a new sheriff in town"!!!!

let's beat the dead horse: IF the zoo weren't in a bad neighborhood, it would likely have a lot more visitors. no matter what anyone says, people don't want to go to the zoo where dangerous animals reside outside of the gates

The West Capitol Street corridor is VERY dangerous! Tons of shootings and murders on streets two or three blocks from the Jackson Zoo! I guess it's gonna take a zoo patron getting raped/shot/murdered/etc. for the zoo to consider serious changes.

Are the "6 month actual" figures on the left?

On the right. The budgeted for the year is on the left so you are comparing six months (right) to whole year (left).

The zoo is an asset. Get every home and business surrounding it a proper inspection and I promise the majority will fail. The city can condemn these properties if the slumlords don't fix them. Then we get our Mayor on a bulldozer and raze 80-90% of these properties and the crime goes away. If there are no homes for the criminals to wage war on citizens around the zoo they must move elsewhere. On the vacant properties that the city owns after the owners don't pay for improvements and the city does the demolitions, the city can donate these to the zoo for expansion. I know this idea is a long term plan but picking up trash around the zoo has not worked.

I get it. Robert Anderson advocates the creation of a DMZ around the zoo to make it safe.

Lets be fair here- the area around the zoo is very heavily blighted. It is not, however a war zone. I travel through there regularly, and I don't feel threatened.

The people in the neighborhood are overwhelmingly poor, but that doesn't make them violent. There is undoubtedly sporadic violent crime in the area, but some of these comments make it sound like Baghdad.

Their "budget", or forecast, must have been just something submitted on paper, to avoid being shutdown, and obtain government funding. Hard to believe a sane person would have been this far off. I wonder what the comparables are for the previous year.

11:28--do you work as an administrator of the zoo?

http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ms/jackson/crime/

the highest crime rates in jackson are in the neighborhoods that SURROUND THE ZOO.

please at least "google" search crime in jackson before you put your foot in your mouth

KF, if the six month figures are on the right, isn't admission rev. up?

April 30, 2014 at 4:21 PM = clueless

8:15 I do not want a DMZ but a safer zoo and Jackson. Once the blighted properties are gone commercial and new residential buildings can reinvigorate this part of town. It works! This is Urban Renewal 101.

And 8:15 what is the alternative? Continue to allow these acres to remain in squalor? There is a medical parkway planned and combining the zoo is a logical connection.

I still have small children and we have to go to the zoo on field trips. This is a terrible part of town that I would never let my family go to without me. As for the zoo its really not very good and even at $10 it seems to expensive. I am not bashing the zoo just to bash it but you must look at it realistically and it is on a downward spiral. Its just a matter of time and a move needs to be considered. That being said small time zoos maybe a thing of the past. Much more competition these days for your dollar.Most of it has moved outside the city limits of Jackson.

Robert Anderson is living in a pipe dream world. Combining a declining antiquated zoo and a medical parkway is a logical connection? ROFLMAO

8:33 Compare prices between New Orleans and Memphis zoos. Aquariums etc. What do you expect to pay?

9:52 If you cannot link the proposed medical corridor that WILL run from I55 down Woodrow Wilson.past the old Jackson Mall.past Sonny Guy Golf Course. Airport on the right. What is that on the left? OMG Its the zoo! Anonymous clock out.

10:40 You get your money's worth at the Memphis and NOLA zoos - big difference.

True the people are poor, but most of the area is drug infested and gun infested. West Jackson is the closest thing to Detroit, Michigan we have here in Mississippi.

Maybe when the Zoo ceases operation they can turn the facility into an adjunct jail or holding pen.

I actually went today and it is a sad place. Of course no elephants that they had for many years but also the one giraffe was having issues with its leg. Its mostly abandoned,sparce areas. Too bad. If you think the zoo is great then you haven't actually been there.

It would be kinder for the animals to close it. The area is much too dangerous for innocent bystanders. Stopping to get gas or fast food? Outsiders risk being around a strong arm robbery. Why not make the entire enclosure into a 1st class water park, so the families living in that part of town have something to do with their time. It would bring in revenue and be family oriented.

Why not make the entire enclosure into a 1st class water park, so the families living in that part of town have something to do with their time. It would bring in revenue and be family oriented.

Feel free to step up with a business plan and private funding to make it happen. I'm sure the Mayor and City Council would be eager to hear your proposal.

Private funding? How about the community doing something for themselves. Churches, 100 Black Men, fund raisers, grants, the City Council, JPD, JFD, Jackson State, just to name a few. But wait a minute, somebody may-have-to-work to get it. Hand outs only go so far, and are rarely appreciated.