Jackson Jambalaya

Priester is a voice of reason on the Council, and it shows in this interview. While I don't agree with him all the time, certainly not on everything, but at least he takes a realistic view on how to deal with the multitude of problems facing the city.

Nobody can provide answers to all of them, because the answers don't exist (unless one could get those 50,000 people who have moved out to move back into the city, which of course isn't happening). But it is nice to hear a reasonable voice discussing the issues - and certainly not screaming and shouting racism at each and every turn.

@Pete Perry,

You stole my thunder! I totally agree with your comments. I would also say the gentleman conducting the interview was professional, asking legitimate questions, looking for in depth answers and not trying to "stir the pot."

Pete blames, in part, flight. Why am I not surprised. What a cop out.

3:59, "I" did not blame flight. I commented on Priester's having brought it up as a cause. Pay attention before you start casting aspirations, Anonymous.

why isn’t this guy the mayor??

Because he's too cerebral for a third of this city; the ones who reelect Stokes and buy into Chokeme's "Free the Land" radical nonsense.

Once he took a cheap shot at PRESIDENT Trump, notice he didn't even have the common decency to call him by his elected title, so preister will not be addressed properly......anyway, I stopped right there watching the interview.
I seem to recall government shutdowns BEFORE President Trump took office.
And to Pete, I think your 50,000 number is a bit off....more like 100,000.
But for 3:59 PM to get his panties in a wad about white flight, how would you describe Jackson's current problems?

@5:56 you are the first person to bring up race.

Am I the only person who can see he is literally a pin head? Doesn't seem to affect his intelligence though.

I attended st Andrews with Priester. He attended Stanford later on. Practiced in San Francisco law firm. Yes Mississippi or city of Jackson blacks don't vote in large numbers. He went to ivy league undergrad not alcorn or JSU... so that's a issue for him as a viable city wide election.

Unfortunately...in today’s racial-divide society, black people cant agree with a white person or risk being called Uncle Tom. That puts everyone in a tough spot...especially those trying to solve the crisis that is Jackson.

I'm not going to cast aspirations but will throw out an aspersion. Pete seems to suggest a cure might be for 50,000 people to move back to Jackson. What the hell would that accomplish?

There are two ways to water down a sociological realty to neutral or average. One way is to toss a lot of underachievers in with achievers (as in a community or a school district) and hope they will cause the pool to average out. The other way is to toss a lot of achievers into a pool of underachievers and hope they will cause the pool to average out. All either does is turn everything to a particular shade of dull and the result is a prescription for average at best (or socialism).

Perry seems to believe the second 'cure' would be preferable.

I will stand by and wait for Perry (as always) to scream that that's either not what he said or not what he meant in 3..2..1.

If he's that damned brilliant and apart from the fray, why did he wind up back in Jackson, Mississippi sitting in a City Council seat? He could at least open a restaurant in Flowood.

@ 7:14 PM
Seems to have a reading disorder or just can't handle the truth?

8:44 Perhaps accidentally, perhaps not, you just hit on Jackson's big leadership problem. For the past 50 years or so it has become routine and expected for the best educated and most talented of young Black adults to leave Jackson and never look back. Most do just that. That's the advice they get and the example they follow. Especially in Jackson. It's part of Mississippi history and culture. At Jackson State no one expects to see the the top third of any graduating class hang around Jackson or remain in Mississippi. Mississippi does not represent a future to these people, only a desperate past. The only influx is the poor and uneducated from Mississippi's rural areas who still see anything, including Jackson, as an improvement over their deplorable condition. Every now and then, a talented intellectual type will take a wild chance and return to Mississippi, even Jackson, as a crusader but will find himself regarded like a Martian come to earth. I wish the councilman well, but he's got an uphill battle all the way. Blacks are distrustful of his motives and whites demand he be superman.
Uphill battle.

Council Erkel Priest Head!

Priester said that the city would have to sue some of its own contractors.
Are they “Certified”?
Asking for a friend.

OK pseudonymous at 8:42 - here's your wish.

If the 50,000 (or whatever the number might be - that Priester mentioned having moved out of Jackson) were to move back in - which of course is what I said, not your misstatement of just "any" 50,000, over or underachievers - then the tax base would increase. The real estate market would level or improve. The businesses located in Jackson would probably increase both by those that moved back and by the purchasing that those individuals would add in the marketplace.

There are plenty of other benefits if the population that has moved out were to return - most of whom were taxpaying residents.

I would agree that one could increase the population without increasing the tax base - with the resulting lowering of the base. But (saying without screaming) the premise was for a return to the population that existed when Jackson was a 200,000 population city as opposed to the current 150,000+. If you think that the result would fit your narrative, I'll be glad to hear your retort whether it deals with the premise as originally proposed or if you choose to stick with your rewrite.

I too turned off the interview when priester was disrespectful to the greatest president America has ever had.
I was not as impressed with his communicative skills as one may expect from one with his paper; a clear example of affirmative action. The little interviewer was several bricks short of a load.

Ole Pete at 4:07 has done what Pete always does best - convolutes the narrative to fit his disorder. That post could easily have been written by Bernie Sanders or Louis Farrakhan.

The solution, naturally, is for those who escaped to move back into the zoo, thereby forfeiting the safety and literal lives of themselves and their families. But, they will be considered martyrs in Ole Pete's book, since they sacrificed all for the common good.

It will later be said that they gave their all but contributed to the tax base, ushered in a return of booming business, shopping and sno-cone stands would increase exponentially and walking and jogging trails would equate with those found in Ridgeland. The Yellow Brick Road strategy has worked.

We'll call it Ole Pete's Plan (Or maybe Ben Allen II). And all these sacrificial thousands will go down the shit tubes just like everybody else in the city whether the figure is 50,000 or Pete's suggestion of a much higher figure.

Sometimes I think Ole Pete is that truck driver who ran for governor. Casting asperations indeed.

Pete: If you move out of your house due an incurable infestation of termites, roaches, fleas and snakes but you later decide to move back in. When you get there, what will you do about the infestation that caused you to leave? Or are you just happy to be back home?

We get it, 12:32am, you don't like black people, especially educated ones.

Calling Trump the greatest president America has ever had speaks to your own lack of educational attainment.

April 13, 2019 at 1:05 PM . Well said. You are EXACTLY correct. Why would any of Jackson's best and brightest, black, white, or brown move back to a place where every positive move is met with opposition and frustration. Can one imagine having to deal with the likes of Kenny Stokes day-in and day-out?

@10:29 AM tell us who YOU think has been the greatest president.

For you who pick on Pete... he's man enough to post with a face and stand by his comments.. unlike you wimpy, cartoon piss-ant.

Pete comments here anonymously too. He only dropped his name here on this one so Priester would know who exactly was publicly kissing his butt.

12:32 and 2:18 Unlike your critic, I understand your estimation of Mr. Trump as the greatest president of all. Greatness has nothing to do with positive or negative attainment but with the actual impact of a person's actions. Attila, Chairman Mao, Stalin, and Hitler were all great leaders, each debatable as being among the greatest of all time. Mr. Trump in his short tenure has shown he has similar abilities and his impact may yet outstrip them all.

If Kenny Stocks was white he’d be a racist.

@9:32 - He ain't and he is.

10:46PM, you must have not gotten the memo.