Friday, April 18, 2025

Truth or Fiction? We Report, You Decide

A little scrum broke out today on social media about the failure of Jackson's animal shelter.  A woman innocently asked: 

Anybody know the scoop on why Lumumba turned down an offer of hundreds of thousands of dollars by a national organization to build or renovate our jackson animal shelter AND offered to send people to help train and run it??

Mayor Lumumba's Chief of Staff, Safiyah Omari (PhD), blistered the post: 


Well, Ms. Omari, let's see if such is true.  Although yours truly never posted the proposed contract, the Kingfish did obtain a copy of it through an open records request.  Best Friends Animal Society offered:


Um, some of those services offered cost money.   The controversy began in 2021.  JJ reported on January 14, 2022: 

It is said one can tell much about a person by how he treats animals.  The same adage applies to the city of Jackson.  The Best  Friends organization inspected the Jackson animal shelter on June 29, 2021.  No words can adequately describe the squalor and neglect discovered at the shelter.  Vet care is forgotten, poorly-trained employees abuse animals through neglect and incompetence, and animals suffer while the city turns a blind eye. The reports major findings are posted below.  Earlier post with findings.

* The annual budget last year was $390,919 (p.1).   The shelter only has five full-time employees: a manager, two field officers, a kennel "tech", and a dispatcher.  The field officers cover the entire city and work banker's hours: Monday -Friday, 8 AM - 4 PM.  There are no official procedures for weekends or evenings.  The kennel tech works a few hours every day.  The staff is poorly trained.  The shelter has volunteers but the city has not used them since May 19, 2021. Best Friends recommended hiring three more staff members per day.  

Many moons ago when water flowed freely in Jackson and the nights were quiet, the shelter had twenty employees.  The Animal Control department had five trucks.  An Animal Control officer and assistant staffed each truck.  In what is a recurring theme in Jackson, the city stripped resources away from Animal Control and let it die on the vine.  30,000 library books, anyone? ...

Filth, Neglect, and the stench of disease are polite ways to describe the Jackson animal shelter.  Hellhole for dogs is another one.  Simply put, the poor dogs are kept in a state of nastiness and agitation thanks to employees who are poorly trained - if trained at all - and have little concern for their welfare.  ....

Best Friends offered to staff and operate the shelter.  The Northside Sun reported: 

“We’ve offered to bring in our own staff free as a director, a manager and kennel staff, if they need it,” Barrett said. “We’ve offered free computers and software and to teach them how to use it. Whatever they need, we could help with just about everything.”

The offer amounts to $100,000 to $300,000 in free services, said Barrett, noting that Best Friends has helped cities across the country. Article.  

Ms. Omari can shriek it's a lie all she wants but the devil is in the details.  The proposed MOU is posted below.  


24 comments:

Anonymous said...

She is getting very bitchy knowing that she will be on the streets shortly without a job.

Anonymous said...

PhD Omari is possibly one of the dumbest and incompetent people on the planet. I once thought she was just a total liar. The. I realized that’s giving her too much of the benefit. She’s mentally slow

Anonymous said...

If this administration isn’t offered cash, the quality of the service doesn’t matter. They only want to do business with those who are willing to kick a little back. Lumbdum and Omari will never succeed in the private sector of employment and rightfully so. How do incompetent people always hold a public office where they can’t just be fired? I will love watching them metaphorically rot. I’m sure they will find ways to mooch off of the less educated. A damn shame, those idiots will give them their last $20, thinking they are doing what is right.

Anonymous said...

Chok is an administrative bafoon; i.e. it's always the other folk that are at fault.

Anonymous said...

I almost posted this on the Chokwe MAGA post.

What Sister R doing?

Anonymous said...

There is no way to tally the amount of total incompetence with which the Lumumba administration has run the City of Jackson Mississippi’s business. That’s the beginning and end of that.

Anonymous said...

They treat their fellow citizens with neglect and disdain. They certainly aren’t going to treat animals any better.

Anonymous said...

Pure evil. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

Anonymous said...

Of all the bad things about Jackson, the animal neglect and abuse that happens here is the worst of it and something most people don't know about and don't want to know about. There's a spot near Metrocenter that is a huge dumping ground for dead dogs in plastic bags. At one point, Animal Control was shooting dogs in the street. A group of us tried to lobby Jackson lawmakers for an ordinance to prevent tying up dogs 24-7 like the one for Hinds County. We were told that black people don't want to be told what they can and can't do with their dogs.

Anonymous said...

The City of Jackson no longer has an "Animal Control" unit. Drive out to the location listed at "Jackson Police Animal Control, 140 Outer Cir, Jackson, MS 39209". It is abandoned and all grown up around it. Lumumba and company are simply total liars. Damndest thing I have ever seen.

Anonymous said...

Monday's press conference should be lit!

Anonymous said...

This is pure EVIL. Lumumba & entire administration will be jobless soon. Hopefully God’s creatures can be saved.

Anonymous said...

No one will drop a "Mission Accomplished" banner for this cluster.

Anonymous said...

@3:22 AM she prolly doin the same thang other USAID grifters were doing when Rubio took over the agency. She was googling “how to set up a swiss bank account and how to hide money”

Anonymous said...

Even if what Omari said was true, why should the city expect outside groups to pay for city services?

I think it's the baseline attitude of the Lumumba administration that if anyone want's to do anything in Jackson, even non-profit, they have to pay.

That probably explains the clumsy opener from the undercover feds. who asked the counsel members "how to get things done in Jackson." They already knew the answer was "open your wallet."

Anonymous said...

yall remember when we foubd out Madison and Rankin were dumping their homeless and mentally ill people in downtown Jackson? Well why dont we start dropping our strays off in their counties?

Anonymous said...

I see Omari doesn’t even live in Jackson.

Anonymous said...

Fake fucking news.

Anonymous said...

True. She lives in Ridgeland because she is terrified of the crime in Jackson. I know one of her neighbors and she isn't exactly loved on their street. Right?

Anonymous said...

"yall remember when we foubd out Madison and Rankin were dumping their homeless and mentally ill people in downtown Jackson?"

I remember when Lumumba said it in November, 2020. But by then I knew not to trust anything he says.

Anonymous said...

Well how about that....Omari tried to do a little gaslighting and outed herself as the liar.

Anonymous said...

But Omari WAS telling the truth. Those dogooders from out in Yankeeland, brought no money TO THE TABLE. You know: money for passing UNDER THE TABLE.

Anonymous said...

Your second paragraph reminded me of the situation in 'Voyage of the Damned', where selfish, corrupt Cuban officials refused to allow the disembarkation of people WITH VISAS, unless sufficient bribe money was offered to those officials. Ultimately, that situation was made possible by the unseen hand of Nazi Germany. The corruption in Jackson, on the other hand, is made possible by the unseen hand of a different totalitarian regime, across a different ocean. In BOTH cases, the removal of constraints against criminality, resulted in criminal behavior.

Anonymous said...

At least her trash get pick up on the regular!


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