Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann issued the following statement and pictures.
Secretary Hosemann Teams Up With ‘Revitalize Mississippi’ to
Restore Properties to the Tax Rolls and Eliminate Blight in Jackson
Jackson, Miss.—A clean residential property with a mowed
lawn is a great improvement over an overgrown lot topped with a long unoccupied, crumbling structure.
Secretary
of State Delbert Hosemann and Dr. Jim Johnston, founder of the
non-profit “Revitalize Mississippi,” announced an effort to tackle
this reality and improve neglected neighborhoods at a press conference
today. Secretary Hosemann simultaneously announced the commencement of
an online auction of 611 tax-forfeited properties in south Jackson.
The
goal? Eliminating blight, breathing new life into Jackson communities,
and returning tax-forfeited properties to the tax rolls to increase
revenue for the city, county, and schools.
 |
| Before and after photos of
a State-owned tax-forfeited property
in Jackson cleaned up by the non-profit organization Revitalize Mississippi.
|
“When
one of our tax-forfeited properties is restored to the tax rolls, we
want it to stay there,” Secretary Hosemann said. “Revitalize Mississippi
is helping us find buyers who are invested in their neighborhoods for
the long haul.”
Since
late 2016, Revitalize Mississippi has worked with the Secretary of
State’s Office to ready tax-forfeited properties for purchase.
When a person connected to the community applies to the State to
purchase a parcel and indicates on their application they are working
with Revitalize Mississippi, the organization cleans up the lots and
performs demolition, if needed, at no cost to the buyer
or the State. The State then reduces the sale price of the property to
the buyer “to account for the cost of clean-up and removal.”
See Miss. Code § 29-1-57.
“This
is a grassroots program aimed at long-term success and sustainability,”
Dr. Johnston said. “The citizens we have worked with have a
great vision for their neighborhoods, and Revitalize Mississippi wants
to help them achieve it.”
Newly-elected Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba is on board.
“Working
together with organizations like Revitalize Mississippi, we can move
Jackson forward,” Mayor Lumumba said. “I am encouraged by the
commitment I have seen here today to ensure all of our communities are
safe and healthy places to live and work.”
To
date, Revitalize Mississippi has cleaned up 48 State-owned lots and
performed 16 demolitions of deteriorated homes or other structures
on State-owned lots. Demolition includes asbestos inspection and
abatement. Another 190 applications related to State-owned properties
remain on a wait list for clean up or demolition.
For more information about Revitalize Mississippi, visit
www.revitalizeMS.org, or e-mail
jim@revitalizems.org or
andy@revitalizems.org.
More About the Jackson Auction
Bidding
is now open in the online auction of 611 properties located in Jackson,
south of Interstate-20 and west of the Pearl River. The
parcels are valued at an estimated $6.4 million, and money raised
should be distributed to cities, counties, and schools.
Bids may be submitted online in the current Jackson auction on the Secretary of State’s
online auction portal until
Wednesday, August 16, 2017, by 11:59 p.m. CST.
To place a bid, a user is required to register online. Users may view
property details such as parcel location, pictures, and an auction map.
Other information, such as auction dates, bid notices, and
market values of property are also available online. Successful bidders
will be notified by e-mail as soon as possible after the auction
closes, and payment of the bid amount must be paid within
fifteen (15) days of notification.
Alternately,
buyers are permitted to pay a “Buy It Now” price on any parcel in the
auction, which allows them to purchase a property more
quickly instead of waiting until the end of the auction. “Buy It Now”
payments are due five days after receipt of notice from the Agency.
In
recent years, successful auctions in Bay St. Louis, Greenville,
Greenwood, Hinds County, Jackson, McComb, Meridian, Pearl River County,
Rankin County, Waveland, Vicksburg, and Yazoo City
have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Mississippi schools,
municipalities, and counties.
6 comments:
Dr. Jim Johnston has braved some very unfriendly political waters to build
a nonprofit grassroots organization that can "Revitalize Mississippi" blight.
Now if the politicians will follow through and support this effort! Congrats to Dr.
Johnston and the donors to his nonprofit.
Getting the Mayor and state officials together on the same page - any page - would be a HUGE first step in stabilizing Jackson.
By my count, he's worked with 4 mayors now to this point. A lot of folks would've lost interest by now. Not Jim Johnston. Jackson needs more like him. The world does too, for that matter. Thank you, Jim!
Good to see Chock-Lite sign on, but, would he have if it would cost the city a dime?
Got it backward 920, its good to see Dilbert sign on. But would he have done it if he couldn't at least get a couple of good press releases out of it?
Think this is a great program and glad Gilbert didn't try to keep it bottled up any longer than he has, a timeframe that can be measured in years. Not specifically this concept but in general working with anybody about getting rid of these drug havens on the tax forfeit property lists. Cudos to Johnston for putting this together, and will give a pat on back to Delbert for working thru the deal.
Our new mayor is showing up in all sorts of appropriate places to show that he is aware of and working on solutions to City problems - blight, as shown in this instance, potholes, as shown when he stood over the demonstration of the material from the Gluckstadt corporation, and infrastructure, when he showed up on site at a recent main break. And that's just the few that I caught while flipping through news channels.
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