Jackson Jambalaya

Hope he cleans house.

This ought to be interesting...the first thing I'd ask for is the list of lawsuits pending, then I'd restructure the entire Department to get sworn personnel out of roles civilians can do better and cheaper. Then I'd allow for lateral trooper recruiting among other state and local agencies accompanied by a 4 week intensive training course. I'd restructure MBI and MBN and allow for lateral recruiting, and relinquish the Office of Homeland Security to the Governor's office. I'd leverage technology and data analysis to optimize the financial and back of the house operations, and revise the curriculum at the training academy to include advanced and continuing education courses that would count toward either associates or bachelors degrees.

Burl Cain is a strange hire. 77 years old and was forced out in Louisiana over allegations. We can't do better than that.

Best in the country, really? Cain's time has come and gone - the ACLU will eat him alive if he tries to force inmates to pray and do work details. His history of dubious side deals should be of concern as well. Does DOC Commish require senate confirmation?

3:05 You have a firm grasp of the problems at DPS. Now get out of here with that crazy talk!

@3:08

Of course Tate wanted a man with a proven track record of covering up embarrassing episodes in prisions. Department of Corruption continues.

Burl Cain might be a 'strange' hire as 3:08 alleges, but he also might be an absolute great hire. 21 years experience as the commissioner of the Louisiana Prison System. Yes, he is 77 years old, but yes, he has 21 of those 77 years experience in doing this very job.

Anybody that can run Angola, within the politics of Louisiana, has a damn great chance of being a win.

Certainly a better choice than what we have had with the last half dozen commissioners this state has employed.

Glad to see Mr. Cain here.

Finally, qualifications, not color are being used in hiring.

Just google Burl Cain and see how much crap he caused at Angola then check the crap his son and Daughter in law pulled. That is why neither is employed in La. Willing to bet the son will be employed before too long here in Ms

I understand that Cain has the experience, but in another place in time. Is he really equipped to navigate the minefield of new regulations, consent decrees and ACLU demands. He'll last until he says something objectionable and Tate will be forced to appease the bedwetters.

Please, please fix the train wreck that is the DMV.

So Tindall was Co-Chair on the Task Force that selected Burl Cain and gets appointed to head DPS. MS Politics at its best.

The new MDOC Commissioner was caught red-handed using funds to purchase appliances, big screen tv for him shelf as well as his family members in Louisiana. You would have thought Mississippi would have learned their lesson with this when the former Commissioner of the Dept. of Corrections Chris Epps was arrested. They never learn. This guy will end up in prison a few years from now for defrauding Mississippi.

Another New type

Chris Epps ain’t got shit on this con

Way to screw it up Harry Azzzcrack

Cleaning “house” at any Govt. Dept. is rarely a dream that comes true. Most people come into these positions with little/no experience in the field. Then they rely on the people who need to be removed or shuffled around to tell them how things work. Rarely do they know to bring someone in to help them, a number 2, whom they can trust. Its a vicious cycle.

Reeves still talks about problems with past leadership at MDOC, but he has kept the same deput comm ofComminity Corrections who was a joke of a selection from day 1.

Reeves' expertise is medicine, followed by managing small businesses, followed by how to win friends and influence people.

Next question?

We tell young people to stay in state after they graduate and work. But when we hire, we bring in almost 80 year people from out of state. Very encouraging for all the young grads.

Who's really gonna running DPS? It ain't Tindell. He was a moderate do-boy in the Senate. I can't see him leading much of anything.

305 I second that! A lot!!

The JFP/VIP's have been unleashed.

I think I'm ready to spend $2.46 just to receive instructions about where to troll.

Went to law school with Tindell. Good guy who will do the right thing. Great choice, Azcrack...err I mean Tater.

No wonder my son saw Tater at a fund raiser at a brewery in Louisiana, hosted by Burl 10 months ago, follow the money peeps.

“What we have here is a failure to communicate”.

Tindell needs to walk in and fire the first smart a-- trooper that gives him lip - the higher in seniority the better. He will also need someone smart to watch his back.

If he doesn't kiss the ass of the MHP he wont last 2 years. They run EVERYTHING in this state. The worst agency, by far , in this state. Full of do-nothing high paid smartasses. If he could the best thing he could do would be to GUT the entire agency. keep 2 per county and just enough to do DL's. they have 500 Troopers and about 200 on the road. the rest have cushy jobs all over the state and make a great paycheck. they drive like hell on every road in the state and think they are above the LAW.

One can get an Unemployment check quicker than renewing a driver's license.

And that fact is embarrassing enough.

Politics fellows. Politics. Those positions are just a front. Phil and Haley running this mug. Sit back and chill out. This is MS. Don’t expect great things to happen here. It’s the arm pit of our Nation

No commissioner has run DPS in years. They are just there for optics or a political appointment for resume enhancements. It would take a real crusader to turn that place around. They have politicians in there pockets better than the mafia. Troopers are with the high level state executives as “security” and know all their secrets and also know a lot of secrets about legislators because the have let many of them go. It’s a dark agency.

I’m very disappointed in these appointments, it took Tate almost 6 months to fill these positions and this is the best he could do.? I’m a Tate supporter , not hater but these appointments are going to help Delbert win the Governors race in less than 4 years, what the hell. Whoever is advising Tate is really a bad advisor, A crook and a low life attorney , who can’t make it in private practice and wants to be on government tit, Bet you Tindal doesn’t move his family and will only be in Jackson part time like Santa Cruz, Good luck everybody , this is a Cluster F,

11:44 aka Genius,

You are right Tindal will not do shit at DPS. Tindell will however be a great leader at DPS. He is a good listener, and has the courage to make difficult decisions. To call this guy a low life attorney says more about you and your ignorance because you do not know Sean Tindell. You do not know his story, you obviously have never had a minute of a conversation with the man and you sound like a typical poster on this site- a dumb ass that is probably on break from his shitty job in a cubicle.

I personally know him, have worked with him and am not saying these kind things about him without seeing the proof in the pudding. I sincerely think that we will look back on this appointment and be glad Harry Azcrack choose Tindell. I may be wrong, but if I know Tindell like I know him, I won't be.

8:33 for the win!

@ 5:24pm Exactamundo. Another judge, sigh. Judges have ZERO experience in overseeing and managing a budget. He has also probably never terminated an employee one much less cleaned house....which means he has ZERO managerial experience.

See the old fool Judge Jess Dickinson who "ran" Child Protective Services for one such example of managerial incompetence due to managerial inexperience.

Burl Cain will make Chris Epps and Nancy look like amateurs. The first thing you learn is how to get yours when you work in Louisiana. Burl helped write the book.

Does this mean we will get a prison rodeo?

No one questions his competence. He turned Angola around. The problem is....... ethics.

Typical Reeves

Two garbage appointments that will not improve either agency.

Cain will do whatever Reeves says, agency contracts will go towards Reeves campaign donors. No difference from Epps.

Tindell has NO EXPERIENCE as an actual LEO (Law Enforcement Officer) - so he'll handpick a select few officers to set policy, henceforth the sh*t show at DPS continues.

Waller wouldn't have gone with either of these two future puppets.

Welp, you get what you vote for Mississippi. The sh*t show continues!

So, he knows how to put convicts in 'the hole' for six days and run a labor-gang. I'll take ethics over that any day. An unethical man popping a whip is not worth shit in today's world of oversight, lawsuits and civil rights groups.

It's great that he can double-dip his salary though, being a retiree of the Louisiana system instead of PERS MS - while our leaders will not let a retired school teacher draw retirement and serve in our legislature.

Once again, Tate disappoints.

PS: 'turned Angola around' - that's a huge falling-on-the-floor laugh.

Hiring Cain means Epps has a job waiting for him as a corruption investigator in Tater's Admin just as soon as Tater can get him sprung?

I honestly feel sorry for anyone appointed to either one of these positions; they've been dealt an impossible hand and will have to deal with decades of a culture where mismanagement and misbehavior have been tolerated. Rather than trading on skill and expertise, politically savvy folks at both of these agencies leverage influence on leadership with knowledge of past bad deeds and questionable decision making. Add to that racial tension (whether it exists or not), and you have the perfect recipe for absolutely nothing getting done and for existing issues to fester.

I don't know either of these guys, but I wish them luck and would encourage them to be bold and innovative in their thinking and actions.

My first orders of business would be:

1. Contact the State Auditor and request financial and performance audits;
2. Work with the Attorney General to understand the size and scope of outstanding legal issues and their root causes;
3. Reconsider the role of sworn personnel in administrative roles and find opportunities to hire/promote/transfer qualified civilians into roles not requiring law enforcement status;
4. Seek opportunities to increase diversity of experience within both departments by offering lateral transfers from city/county/other state agencies;
5. Conduct a bottom-up review of people, processes, and technology - so many processes at DPS and MDOC are antiquated and manual and this creates a lag in effective decision making.

Again, I wish these guys the best of luck, and hope they will do right by the taxpayers, employees, and those in custody.

He will hire his son and daughter in law before he hired Epps. Rule #2 in the LA playbook, "take care of your family".

In any role of public service KF - competence includes ethical behavior at all times - and in fact, with a higher expectation of expected ethical behavior.

That's why Mississippi is at the bottom of the nation on every list - utter incompetence across the board in every agency that fundamentally begins with a lack of ethical behavior borne of integrity.

Mississippi corruptors = Mississippians lose.

Sean Tindell is a smart attorney and a nice guy. It's clear he has high ambitions for his future, and rightfully so. It certainly makes sense to give him some type of appointment. (Plus, he is friends with Tate, and that seems to be very important/all that matters to Tate when it comes to appointments.) But is this the right appointment for Tindell? It's alarming that he has no experience managing more than six people and also no public safety background. DPS is a large state agency!

My understanding is he is a former ADA and by that I mean a real one, not someone who moonlighted for six months in a distant county.

One of these appointments is likely to be yet another illustration of why in the US military you don't get to be a full bird colonel without a series of promotions and proving oneself in the progressively more responsible positions.


If the exception works it doesn't prove operating that way is the thing to do.

The other appointment is simply beyond stupid and liable to cost the taxpayers and citizens of the state millions and a lot of bad publicity.

Sean Tindell is a smart attorney and a nice guy. It's clear he has high ambitions for his future, and rightfully so. It certainly makes sense to give him some type of appointment. (Plus, he is friends with Tate, and that seems to be very important/all that matters to Tate when it comes to appointments.) But is this the right appointment for Tindell? It's alarming that he has no experience managing more than six people and also no public safety background. DPS is a large state agency!

Then stick him in at Butler Snow, hell perhaps Mississippi Development Authority, hell DFA, or the AG's Office.

O.k. - lets start being honest and real with each other, regardless of political leanings. Many of us get political appointments, spoils should go to the victor - get that, got it!

But in Mississippi, the political appointments and the levels of cronyism are outta control.

Corrections, Public Safety, Human Services are three agencies that need to be restructured top to bottom, fresh new leadership, highly credentialed, with solid experience turning around and/or improving services.

It's not that damn hard people to get this sh*t turned around.

Tate Reeves needs to be a one-term governor, he needs to be primaried by a Republican that is serious about getting this state on track.

kingfish.....why dont you report on the ''new'' 77 year old MCOC commissioner burl cain , who was recently run out of Louisiana on political corruption charges?
another example of how Mississippi takes the rejects from other states.

Democrats will throw stones at Cain but champion Espy? Shocking, I know. But Espy was never convicted you say, well Cain was never charged and was cleared of any wrong doing by the Louisiana Department of Public Safety. Just saying.

Tindall is just padding his resume for s federal appointment: District Court Judge or US Attorney.

It's coming. Don't worry.

@ 12:!2pm

Then let him pad it via the bench he was sitting on!? Going to DPS doesn't make a lick of sense if he's trying to go that route, especially when Republicans hold down the Mississippi delegation in DC.

Drew to Medicaid, with no experience in that area besides that's where Feel wanted him to go. Now Cain and Tindall!?

Little Lord Fauntleroy is batting 0-3 so far with appointments

I get it, troopers provide executive protection for our most senior elected officials, it only follows that they know the most intimate details of their lives, and have plenty opportunity to bend their ear on issues important to them...with this access comes a lot of responsibility.

The difference between a security professional, and a group of hillbillies who call themselves a security detail, is that the hillbilly will try to use his access to try to influence his protectee and collect potentially embarrassing information to use as leverage - its called integrity, and I've never met a Mississippi trooper on a security detail who had it.

In my former career in the federal government I worked plenty of joint details with these guys and was always surprised at their lack of professionalism and discretion; what I found were big mouth rednecks playing secret service and acting like bullies and bouncers at a honky-tonk.

Just my opinion, but a lot of this situation illustrates that what is considered smart (both intelligent and educated) and competent in Mississippi wouldn't be considered either on a national basis. Plus the "life experiences" of many of those folks is, er, "less than sophisticated." The upshot of it all is that it doesn't take much to appear to be (or actually be) the smartest person in room in many fields in Mississippi. Moreover, many of those that appear, by Mississippi standards, as being smart, competent and sophisticated are terrified of having their shortcomings exposed and are terrified of those who are actually smart, competent and sophisticated. There are very few noted legal scholars, medical experts, scientists, technologists, etc. in Mississippi, no real internal source of them, and few reasons for those from Mississippi to return or those from other areas to come. Basically, getting ahead in Mississippi government is purely a function of connections rather than ability or potential.

Sean Tindell is a good example. He is no more or less than an average Mississippi attorney of average-ish ability and intelligence, with a Mississippi law school education (MC). He is competent enough dealing with basic Mississippi legal issues in Mississippi courts but he wouldn't even be considered a hot recruit as an associate by most large firms outside Mississippi. Even assuming he is honest and ethical he isn't appropriate (by education or experience or intelligence) to do the job he will likely be given just as he wasn't appropriate to appointed to the COA. Except by Mississippi standards. And that's the problem.

Don’t tell 2:32 who’s in charge of Child Protection Services.

@ 2:32...You ran in so many circles you made my head hurt. I assume you sit in a cubicle and have written policy manuals for thirty five years. Change my mind.

2:32, responding to:

3:35 - No one. The whole fiasco was and is nothing more than a reaction to a legal mess. From what I know (which is relatively little) about him, Jess isn't a bad man but he wasn't appropriate to run such an agency, esp. one newly-created under those circumstances. Of course, when Mississippi does look outside its borders, it manages to find folks like Carey Wright and now, Burl Cain. On the few occasions when we are able to attract executive-level competency, we manage to run it off in short order.

3:41 - Not within a remote proximity of accurate. And I don't have the slightest interest in attempting to change your mind about anything - see my post at 2:32 re: "Mississippi standards."

@2:32 speaks the truth!

You can respect, love, and support S.Tindell - but still admit he is not the most qualified person for this new appointment.

@3:35 True words! Harry needs to appoint an actual CPS Commissioner soon, someone with lots of experience. That agency is too important to be run by Dickinson’s former law clerk.

" Tate Reeves needs to be a one-term governor"

Reeves and Trump will be reelected.

Easily !

You may not like that fact, but there's nothing you can do about it.

@4:35 - Since my earlier remarks set you off, can you elaborate (without wise cracks) on just who you're talking about below? I've exhausted a lengthy mental search.

"On the few occasions when we are able to attract executive-level competency, we manage to run it off in short order."

Wait...Maybe you were talking about Chancellor Jones up at UMAA.

The Guv should put a well known in that position,,,The Grim Reaper

@12:42, hopefully the Tindell appointment goes as well as the Snyder appointment. If so, we will be doing better at those two agencies than we have at any time in my lifetime. I've known Tindell to be quite capable and expect him to (at least) be better than any recent DPS head.