Jackson Jambalaya

The public comments were as interesting as usual at Tuesday's meeting of the Jackson City Council.  A comment about the nomination of James Stanley to the JMAA Board of Commissioners almost turned into a food fight. Watch the video for yourself. 



So much fail, let me count the ways.

1. Brother Bell says the roads into Jackson are packed with traffic every day at morning and afternoon rush hours.  People making their money in Jackson and taking their money out of Jackson.  Um, perhaps Mr. Bell should actually come watch the traffic.  The traffic is much lighter than it used to be.  I've yet to sit through more than one light cycle at the Pearl Street intersection with North State Street at 8:00 AM for the last few years.  I can remember when the Pearl Street exit was backed up to the interestate.  Too many businesses have moved to the burbs and taken the traffic with them.

2. Brother Bell chastises Rankin for making demands for how its money is spent on the water system and opposes the concept of regionalization.  He even cites Walmart as an example, stating that customers don't get to make demands on Walmart. This little statement fails on so many levels. Ask any Walmart supplier who the real boss is in their relationship with Walmart.  The "customer" makes demands on those suppliers all the time and if they don't yield to those demands, Walmart will go to another vendor.  Customers can force Walmart to honor their demands with their feet.  Walmart probably has the best inventory and sales reporting software system in America.  If customers don't like price, products, or service, they are free to shop somewhere else- and Walmart will almost immediately know it.

Here is where you don't get it, Mr. Bell.  Ayn Rand loved to write "check your premise".  Mr. Bell's premise is that Rankin County is a captive customer.  He said Jackson should give it good service but Rankin can't make any demands.  He forgets that Rankin is seeking to replace Jackson with another supplier- itself.  Jackson's system does have competition: a future one built by Rankin County.  Regionalization means Jackson shares the costs with others.  Rankin County is paying Jackson several million dollars a year.    Mr. Bell thinks Rankin County should be a customer and not a shareholder with skin in the game.  Once again, someone from Jackson is screaming "me,me,me" while everyone else has moved away and moved on.

Oh, don't forget that Mr. Bell was the public works director in a previous administration even though he was not a licensed P.E.  Of course, qualifications rarely mean anything to that crowd. 

3. The airport. Oh this was too rich.  Ridgeland or Madison doesn't have many, if any, blacks on their boards so all-black boards are ok in Jackson.  Yup, I can hear it now.  Ridgeland wants to kick blacks out of Ridgeland so its ok for Jackson to kick whites out of Jackson.  Mr. Bell urges the Mayor not to appoint someone to the JMAA board of commissioners because he is white.  I daresay James Stanley has a better resume than the last twenty nominees to the board but that little fact seems to be forgotten.

Then there is Mr. Dekeither Stamps.   He advocated postponing appointing anyone to the board until after the legislative fight over the airport is over.  Yeah, that is real leadership.  The former soldier and combat veteran wants to delay appointing leadership while in the middle of a battle. If a sergeant or captain goes down in combat, a replacement immediately assumes his position.   Mr. Stamps knows this and is just trying to play politics.  Period.