Jackson Jambalaya

Can't audit the department that a week later reported a shortfall of several million dollars? Its time for the Mayor to step down, take his appointees with him and turn the City over to someone competent to run it. He has proven again his incompetence.

Is there anyone working for the water and sewer dept. that can read or write? Do all of the employees of that dept. have their hand in the cookie jar? Sounds like it is time to clean house and start over.

Please tell me you meant to print this on April fools day

JJ posted an analysis of the Siemens contract a couple of years ago.

"contact my office." No sir, it's not YOUR office; it belongs to the public to conudct their business timely and professionaly,

Agree with everything said in the first 3 posts.

and here is all who got paid on the bonds:

Malachi Financial Products (Financial Advisor): $182,000
Baker Donelson (Bond Co-counsel): $90,000
Anthony Simon (Bond Co-counsel): $90,000
Hunton & Williams (Disclosure Counsel): $70,000
Mississippi Development Bank: $70,000
Balch & Bingham (Developer's Counsel): $48,000
S&P (Ratings Agency fees): $39,100
Moody's (Ratings Agency fees): $34,000
Trustmark (Paying agent): $9,500
Imagemaster (printing): $3,500
Spence Flatguard (State bond attorney): $3,295
TOTAL: $639, 395

Tony has been more interested in directing his office's time and attention to rigging contracts for his cronies than solving the City's water/sewer, water theft and pothole problems. Where is the FBI when we need them? The FBI and the State Auditor need to step in and clean house.

One of the worst contracts ever. But the professionals aren't the problem: Johnson wanted this baldy pre-election, as did Yarber, Lumumba, Bluntson, Whitwell and MBS (if memory is correct). Even worse, Lumumba and Yarber supported this POST-election. And let's not even post how much various contractors or components cost, who they were, relationships.

The $650k people, like them or not, were never the problem.

the state should mandate a 'city manager" over jackson. someone who has a history of turning around bad situations. we could always ask the people from Detroit who to recommend...

Here is a message I posted on our neighborhood email site. It may give you an idea of where most of the money is located:

There ought to be a story about the status of the Siemens contract in the news about once a week. For what it's worth, I have today emailed Margaret and Mel to make sure that they know that I have spoken with the water department about the fact that I recently discovered that although my bills that came in the mail showed that I had paid the previous month's bill by bank draft, there was no evidence of such payments when I looked back at my checking account records. As expected, that started happening last summer, when the Siemens system went online. Courtesy of "The Great One," Andy Boone, I got a call from a nice lady at the water department. This month the payment was drafted, but I still owe maybe $400. One wonders how many others are similarly situated.

How long will this corruption in the City of Jackson be allowed to continue????? It is blatant, in your face, corruption and mismanagement! Be it theft or waste, these people obviously do not know what they are doing. How bad does it have to get before officials say, "That's enough", clean house and start over with competent management? There must either be some changes made - soon or the City of Jackson will have to be shut down; this can't be allowed to continue without there being extreme circumstances!

You think it is bad? Think about how royally screwed we'd be if Chuckwe Jr., Brother KaliKook and Detroit reject Kwame Kenyatta were pulling the levers.

2:02, just who would clean house? The DA for this area, nope. The AG for the State, nope. The FBI or DOJ, nope. None of these official will touch the corruption of a 90+% black city.It will go on til all is gone which may not be long now.

No one can help Jackson. If anyone tried to help they would find the people do not want their help. The people of Jackson only want money from the white people. For some reason they think they deserve it. Even the money they get go into the pockets of some politician or their buddies.
Can anyone think of anyone, organization, or govt. employee that would say anything against Jackson and it's leaders? That bit R word would be heard around the world.
Let Jackson sink on it's own.

This is a serious issue piled on top to previous serious issues heaped upon what is apparent total lack of competence. I can't jump all over the mayor: He is running a city whose employees could not get jobs at McDonalds.

What is the process to have the city taken over by the state as they have done in a number of bankrupt cities?

Jackson needs to file for bankruptcy protection. That way, a federal judge will appoint someone as a receiver or conservator to run the city in a responsible manner who will not have to answer to the mob.

Oh, how I wish someone could get to the bottom of this Siemens contract and aftermath. It was the largest contract of its type ever signed by Siemens and, I believe, the largest ever signed by the City. It smelled from the beginning and it still smells.

Would someone posting above please edify the public with who might be in the upcoming mayoral race and who would be a reasonably good mayor. We need to know.

Will Jackson ever be able to sell bonds again?

Correct me if Im wrong but, Tony may not get the NE Jackson Hoddy Toddy crowd for fundraising or the site vote this time… I think John Horne would be a good candidate should he choose to run. I also think Priester would make a fine choice for mayor. Stamps wouldn't be bad… Tyrone guy that is on city council seems to do well… However him and Tony are pals so he probably wouldn't run due to that.

Why use Hunton and Williams?

Do you really need to spend that kind of money?

Can Stacey Puckering audit the City of Jackson?

Someone needs to take charge and quickly.

If only the corruption was in Ridgeland where the Mattiace supporters would bully you to move along.

John Horhn? Seriously? You must be new here. Why don't you suggest Lt. Robert Graham of the Jackson Police Department?

"I think John Horne would be a good candidate should he choose to run. I also think Priester would make a fine choice for mayor. Stamps wouldn't be bad… Tyrone guy that is on city council seems to do well…"

In remembrance of Merle, will the person who posted that please have another Tequila Sunrise? That'll make six.

Correct me if Im wrong but, Tony may not get the NE Jackson Hoddy Toddy crowd for fundraising or the site vote this time… I think John Horne would be a good candidate should he choose to run. I also think Priester would make a fine choice for mayor. Stamps wouldn't be bad… Tyrone guy that is on city council seems to do well… However him and Tony are pals so he probably wouldn't run due to that.

Wow.......that post is the most total fail I've ever read. Those characters make Kenny Stokes look bright.

10:47, It looks like to me that the city was audited to some extent and it was so bad that a report couldn't be issued. If you are asking if the State Auditor or someone can find the money, it would seem they could find some of it and could isolate the names of the many that failed in their internal control responsibilities and perhaps even some of those who are stealing.

I feel almost certain that Yarber nor anybody else in Jackson Municipal Government is wise enough to negotiate this labyrinth of mismanagement and thievery. That leaves the question as to who is behind the curtain.

When a CPA can not locate money and records to do proper audit things are bad. Was there not a system of general accounting in place for the last audit.? This is right on the edge on being criminal.

If there was an honest person in Jackson that would make a good mayor they might 5-6 votes. There isn't a place for such a person in Jackson, that is why most of them have moved out.

A firm attempted to audit the New Orleans public school system shortly before Katrina. It gave up and literally said the system could not be audited and that it would be better to start over from scratch. Little did it know....

Anyone that thinks that "Clinton is gonna be Ferguson" Stamps would be a decent mayor is a completer and total moron. I'd vote for Stokes before I would that lowlife, lying, rabble-rousing Stamps.

Listen to Stamps on the radio then decide. He's more than a bit biased against people who don't look like him. Sen. Horne has run before (maybe 2 times) with little interest in him evidenced by the vote. Lumumba would be a bigger disaster than his Daddy and chances are he would live all four years. That "Tyrone Guy" is way too young for the job. Robert Graham of the Board of Supervisors would be a terrible choice. Check out his record. Reeks of cronyism. Remember before Greer and McQuirter? County couldn't make any progress. Wasn't Graham the guy who insisted on the expensive AirWave company that we didn't need and have done fine without?

The water billing probably couldn't be audited because the crazy Seimens on-line billing method was sending out outrageous bills, if you remember the articles I remember. On-line billing is only as good as the system that Seimens installed. Maybe that is why they have dedicated a full-time employee? Do ya think?

Seimens deal is real simple: just good old school kickback with salesmen and local officials. The nice thing about this was there was no intent to do the work right since it would never be checked. The same officials could not claim lack of performance for they are in on it. ( See Rudy in Madison Co.)

All politicians should be audited and weighed before being elected and after serving. Any money made above what they had when elected should be forfeited. Any weight gain should cost them so much per pound.
Maybe we can get rid of the politicians who become fat and rich on the public's money.