Jackson Jambalaya

Good on you Kingfish. Nice to see someone with integrity.

Child Protective Services (CPS) may technically no longer be 'part of DPS'; however, it cannot be denied that both are inextricably connected at joined hips in every imaginable way. Right down to the telephone system and shared electronic files.

DHS claimed the building was falling into a state of disrepair, violating the lease.

Let's see some documentation to show that the tenant properly notified the landlord of the alleged deficiencies. These allegations sound pretty bad, usually there will be some expert inspection and documentation with pictures when you are talking about a large dollar government contract. Such deficiency notification typically would be expected to be done in writing and in a timely fashion. That will be possibly be the case here?

The landlord said it was renovating the premises while obtaining refinancing from Trustmark.

Let's see some building permits? Possibly the alleged renovation work was inspected and there are inspection records and documentation? Also one would expect some documentation between tenant and landlord for disruptive but allegedly necessary repairs or renovations to an occupied structure. Perhaps there would be evidence of some legal consultation on the tenant side, even if the actual work product might not be provided to the asker.

It also claimed it would not be able to rent out the property if DHS moved.

Typically this would be this claim would be made by the landlord to the tenant in writing. Let's see it.

DHS and Madated suddenly dropped their court fight three weeks after the lawsuit was filed.

If one were to construct a timeline, was this alleged settlement reached before or after the completion of the allegedly necessary alleged renovations?

$leezy bureaucratic shell game to protect the guilty. Is their spokesman "Baghdad Bob?"

8:55 - Where do you live? Are you familiar with Mississippi?

@8:39, Are you kidding? Integrity would be Kingfish driving to the addresses in question and actually checking before he runs a story. This is just CYA.

If the building was in such terrible shape, and not 'occupiable' by DHS, why then is it an OK facility for 'some' of their employees, for CPS employees, and for the Community College employees?

Seems to me that this "emergency" action taken by the previous administration was nothing but a way to get around the bid requirements, and the claims made in an attempt to get out of a long-term contract was pure bullcrap.

But - considering how the last administration ran the programs at DHS, none of the above should be surprising.

What is (or could be) surprising to those that think our new State Auditor is doing a great job capturing fraud and waste - here's a question for you: Why didn't this wasteful expenditure, this 'emergency' declaration, and all the actions taken by DHS in this fiasco come out in their audit? Maybe because it (like much of the MCEC issue) could possible lead a few blocks south to a High Street office? Wondering minds want to know.

When the MDHS employees left 750 N. State Street to move to 200 S. Lamar, there was a one-year emergency lease which DFA approved for MDHS. Seems like John Davis worked some kind of magic over DFA to get approval to leave 750 N. State Street. Whether there was a real emergency remains debatable, since the repairs needed at 750 N. State Street didn't take a really long time. MDHS employees probably could have moved back to 750 N. State Street after the repairs were completed, but they did not. Rather, DFA then approved a 20-year lease for MDHS to stay at 200 S. Lamar through 2039 and CPS employees moved into the old Sheraton at 750 N. State Street, which currently has a lease (as you have reported) that runs through 2031. Under the MOU referenced in your post, MDHS still pays the rent at 750 N. State Street for the benefit of CPS, which occupies most of the building except for some space leased to the Mississippi Community College Board.

Fake News

Can not wait for litigation to start against these phony manipulative sites.

Tick tock

I’m sure the local media (tv,radio,newspaper) will start asking questions any second now. Ha! Imagine how much these crooks would get away with if we didn’t have kingfish

Nancy New and her outfit whether it was Families First or MCEC were occupying the first floor once MDHS moved their people out. Had a fancy setup with little to no visitors.

I'm a lifelong resident of Jackson and need to make a correction to the stories. The building in reference opened as the Jackson Hilton back in the 70s. I know this because my high school prom (Callaway) was held there.

There is no correction. It became a Sheraton and closed as a Sheraton.

In 2017, CPS went out with an RFP (due 2/23/17) for rental space of 30,000 sq ft and they were under a court order to separate themselves from DPS. The original low bidder was not liked by CPS because it was said that they were looking to move outside of Jackson and the low bidder was inside of Jackson, so CPS issued another RFP calling it a BEST AND FINAL RFP and bids due 3/17/17 (giving the Ridgeland space and the Madison space another chance), final selection to be 3/24/17, Lease presented for PPRB approval on 4/5/17, but guess what? The same low bidder was the low bidder again ($11.90 per square ft and other proposals were twice that price), so CPS decides they will go a different way. They didn't want to stay in Jackson and although they could have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars for the hardworking taxpayers of MS that has Jackson as it's capital city, they were going to unethically find a way to get to Madison or Ridgeland. Yes, David Chandler was over CPS and then Jess Dickinson and both appointed by Phil Bryant. The investigation into the corrupt practices of state government needs to broaden to CPS and what was going on there. Wasteful spending and corrupt practices!!!!!! Someone needs to get to the bottom of this!

Dude... can you read?

750 isn't the number of staff there. It's the building address.

Kingfish. Stop trying to conspiracy theory your way into being somehow right.

Anyone mention Deppity Pheel yet?

If not then somethangs wrong!

12;04pm mentioned the good gub Phil. Has anyone added up the number of scandals and corruption involved in his administration? That guy held no one accountable for anything!!!!!! Did he ever even meet with his state agency heads? What a joke!!!!!!

" I'm a lifelong resident of Jackson and need to make a correction to the stories. The building in reference opened as the Jackson Hilton back in the 70s. I know this because my high school prom (Callaway) was held there".


"There is no correction. It became a Sheraton and closed as a Sheraton."

I'm pretty sure it was never a Hilton. But I may be wrong too.

And I'm a lifelong Jacksonian myself.
But I understand the confusion, I knew many kids at Callaway from the mid 70's through the early 80's.

(Ya'll did have the best dime bags north of McDowell Road).

So everything is probably blurry for all of us back then.

LOL.

Manhattan Academy had the best ludes, and Jackson Prep always had the best coke.

9:39 - I am not a lifelong resident of Jackson, but am a lifelong resident of the state and in those old decades had plenty of opportunities to visit our great Capitol City.

Yes, this building (the 750 N State, not a building with 750 employees - but that's another issue) was originally a Hilton - built in the early 70's (1972 or 73) and was new competition for the Heidelberg, Robert E Lee and the King Edward.

In the mid-80's, the Hilton franchise expired and it was converted to a Sheraton, which it remained until it closed in the early 90's.