Some items appearing on the agenda for tonight's meeting of the Jackson City Council:
32. ORDER APPOINTING ROBERT MILLER, DIRECTOR OF THE PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT, CITY OF JACKSON, MISSISSIPPl.(LUMUMBA)
Mr. Miller worked at the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board. He earned a good marks for the turnaround that took place at the public works department in Louisville, Kentucky. The consensus is that the Mayor made an excellent hire with this choice. The Mayor took this hire very seriously and knew it was probably the most important one he would make. His salary will be $125,992. If he straightens out the infrastructure, double his pay.
34. ORDER Authorizing THE MAYOR TO Execute AN AGREEMENT WITH OCTAGON GROUP, LLC TO PERFORM LOBBYIST SERVICES FOR THE CITY OF JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI (LUMUMBA)
Quincy Mukoro is the owner of the Octagon Group. He was the lobbyist for the Mississippi Municipal League for several years. He worked on the Mayor's campaign. Simple rule of politics: Reward those who helped you. However, Mr. Mukoro didn't exactly bring home the bacon for the MML while he served as its lobbyist. Mr. Mukoro will replace respected lobbyist Worth Thomas. What is interesting is the Mayor is apparently ignoring the advice of his father. Mayor Lumumba (the elder) advocated hiring both a Democrat and Republican lobbyist since the Republicans control the legislature. Too often, local governments treat hiring a lobbyist as a way to reward friends instead of seeing who can get the best deal for their client at the legislature. Mr. Thomas has very respected in Republican and Democratic circles. Mr. Mukoro has all of three clients: Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials, Mississippi Center for Justice, and HOPE Enterprise Corporation.
The maximum compensation is stated to be $135,000. For over ten thousand per month, the city could have gotten some proven achievers such as the Thompsons, Clays, Capital Resources Group, and yes, even Lord Snow. The key word being "proven". JJ has no problem with high salaries if the compensation is justified by the resume. The problem comes when high salaries are paid for mediocre resumes but one does have to reward friends in politics.
35. ORDER CONFIRMING THE MAYOR'S REAPPOINTMENT OF JAMES L HENLEY, JR. TO THE JACKSON MUNICIPAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY BOARD. (LUMUMBA)
36. ORDER CONFIRMING THE MAYOR'S REAPPOINTMENT OF LAWANDA HARRIS TO THE JACKSON MUNICIPAL AIRPORT AUfHORITY BOARD. (LUMUMBA)
These reappointments are pretty much "in your face" actions by the Mayor. The appointments made by his father to the JMAA board drew a great deal of criticism and were cited by Senator Harkins as one of the main reasons for his takeover bill. The Mayor ignored it all and re-appointed these two to the Board.
39. DISCUSSION: HUSTLERS (STOKES)
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Here is a nice project for Mill Street:
Attached you will find an item for the agenda authorizing the Mayor to execute a preliminary engineering services contract with Stantec Consulting, Inc for the Mill Street Project. The City of Jackson has $3,000,000.00 in Mississippi Transportation Commission funds and $ 171,0 00.00 in regional surface transportation project construction funds from MAP-21 to rehabilitate Mill Street from Capitol Street to Fortification Street. The City utilized the MDOT selection procedure to select Stantec Consulting. To begin the project, Stantec was tasked with providing a conceptual preliminary engineering design to determine right-of-way widths, pavement and suhgrade structure and develop design concepts. The design concepts for Mill Street include removing all of the old asphalt and trolley rails, repairing the concrete, and resurfacing the roadway. In addition, bike lanes and organized parking spaces will be provided from Amite Street to Monument Street, a new traffic signal will be installed at Mill Street and Monument Street, a wider sidewalk and organized parking spaces will be in front of the houses between Monument Street and Cohea Street, and a shared use path north of Cohea Street that can be extended north through the Mjdtown neighborhood as part of other future projects.
Stantec is ready to move forward with full design including construction plans and specifications . Stantec has provided a proposed contract with an amount not to exceed $ 190,068. 27. It is the recomme ndation of Public Works that this agenda item be approved.
There is also a proposal to demolish the former Precinct 4 substation by Parham Bridges Park. The demolition will allow Parham Bridges to expand the tennis courts and create an entrance off of Old Canton Road where the former substation resides. Hemphill Construction submitted the best bid of $98,430 to build the new entrance. The demolition will cost $5,000. The Lefleur East Foundation donated $15,000 towards the project.
13 comments:
Meet the new Lumumba, same as the old Lumumba.
Hope he enjoyed making those appointments to the Metro Jackson International Airport. They will be short lived.
Damn Q, you must have a pic of Antar at Billy Mounger's office begging for help or something. I guess he wants to keep you close. Watch out.
If anyone does not see where this train is headed just open your eyes, the brick wall is just ahead.
What about Mill St. from Fortification to Mitchell? I drove from the Union Station to Mitchell a few months ago and that section, with the exception of Norsthside Dr. from State to McWillie, is about as bad as any I've been on in Jackson in the last few years. What good will it do to repair half of the street when the rest looks like it has artillery craters in it? By the way, the recently rebuilt section of Fortification is already showing signs of failure. It seems the reason it took so long to complete the rebuild was because they "found" Yazoo clay (surprise, surprise) and had to do more extensive cut and fill that initially planned. The additional cost also caused the elimination of the landscaped median that was in the initial plan. It now appears the contractor (and inspector) just eliminated the median, did no extra excavation, and then pocketed the extra dollars as a result of the change order.
So his heart and his faith called him to Jackson, ehh?
I think I've heard it all now.
Re: the Airport. I have read the State creates any and all subdivisions therein. Accordingly, Judge Reeves will be held to rule, under supremacy clause, that the State can run the Airport if it sees fit, no matter what the feds say, since the FAA can only do what is authorized by Congress.
Quincy who?
Wasted tax dollars.
Let's see if anyone on city council outside of ward 1 and ward 7 will approve Robert Miller to the position considering that he is white.
No surprise Ward 3 voted against him. But 6:56 a.m. gives far too little credit to other black representatives, who are far more enlightened on race vs. qualifications than I suspect most our neighboring cities in Madison and Rankin Counties.
10:18, obviously you talk much more than you learn. Everything you say about Fortification, Yazoo clay, elimination of the median, etc is baseless. The median was eliminated from proposed ideas four years before the project was built. The delay and extra cost was due to a collapsed storm drainage system that was unknown prior to construction. Thanks though for providing your expertise unrelated to the post.
@930
6:56 here... I live in Jackson and you couldn't be more wrong. I know priester very well and you shouldn't make insecure assumptions. Thank you for your opinion so I could clarify.
come on KF...You of ALL people should be aware of all the problems, corruption, and incompetence with the pumps and infrastructure down in Nola...this aint exactly a smart hire unless this man somehow erased off his resume his time in the Big Sleazy. Makes one wonder why he would take a move down in his career at his age
11:01 - you know not of what you speak.
The pumps etc in NOLA were not the responsibility of this individual; in fact after they failed, the Mayor fired the director, along with the individual responsible for the operation of the pumps. And tried to promote this guy to the job; but he had agreed to come to Jxn the week before.
Not everybody in NOLA is corrupt or incompetent; just like not everybody in Jackson is corrupt or incompetent. That's true for the residents and for those in government positions. True, both have their fair share in government but to consider them all bad is to throw out the baby with the bath water.
This guy's reputation is really good. Don't know how CAL talked him into taking this job, but it appears to be a good move on his part.
Certainly a hell of a lot better than what Tony did; or what Daddy L did with his incompetent hire.
HEY King. What have you got against Henley's reappointment to JMAA? He's a CPA, an attorney, a member of the BAR, a Bankruptcy Trustee and a minister. Probably the most qualifies airport commissioner in the state. What's your beef with Henley? His hair style?
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