Jackson Jambalaya

I still cannot believe we have a zoo. It is in a "bad" part of town? If they want attendance to increase they may need a safer location. Collins, MS has a zoo... I can see it from the hwy.

I don't go to the zoo because I don't like driving my kids through bombed out looking parts of town, with dealers standing on the corners, pants sagging.
I also don't like seeing miserable animals. The last time we went my daughter asked me why the animals were so sad.

She's still hunting for those park rangers....

It's Mrs. Stokes' "understanding" that there aren't any elephants. How about paying a visit before mouthing off on the issue?
The same is probably true about all those posting about how terrible the zoo is. Like the rest of the city, our zoo ain't what it used to be. But our kids love it, and we're fortunate to have what we have.

The zoo is pitiful. They spent all that money on the tiger exhibit, yet the other animals are suffering in a cage. I also hate driving through the ghetto to get there. We would love to invest money in the zoo but it would take millions to salvage it. Nothing better than a great zoo for kids and ours used to be a good one. Now it's a mere step up from the creepy "zoo" in Collins.

What $25MM? Define.

Don't replace the leadership of the zoo. Just make the animals wear fashionable hats.

This will bring about book and movie deals. Cars will be lined up from the zoo entrance to Woodrow Wilson. They will come from far away, maybe even Iowa, to see the hats.

"If you wear them, they will come."

Even better, we could do a "Hats on Parade" like we did years ago with the catfish statutes, only now with hats.

Rome burns and LaRita continues to play that same old, tired fiddle.

Collins zoo was shut down by the state last year.

Rome burns and LaRita continues to play that same old, tired fiddle.

She has nothing else to offer.....just useless noise.

The reporter says "the state's only zoo." WRONG. Hattiesburg has a zoo.
http://www.zoohattiesburg.com/

We went to the zoo last year with my son, last time we will do that. It was a proper reflection of where Jackson has been going for sometime. Having herd stories of the Zoo and Livingston park next to it from its "glory days" it was a sad reminder...

was it really ever open

Jackson Zoo has been a dump since the late 90s. Refitting only throws good money after bad but, hey, that is what they do in Jackustan. Keeping this POS zoo afloat doesn't even make the Top 10 of priorities. If the Chuckster bails out the zoo you'll know that NOTHING has changed vis-a-vis Harvey J. except that Lumumba is going to tax and spend the last few meager drops out of the turnip. BTW, the "temporary" prop tax increase ain't never going away.

Surprise! Surprise! Mrs Kennuff Stokes wants new leadership at the zoo. I'm sure it wouldn't be because there is a white woman in charge. But I bet that she already knows exactly who would be perfect for the job. First, and probably only, qualification: must be non-white.

I don't go to the zoo and won't go to the zoo unless it is moved to a nicer safer location. A person puts their life and possessions in danger going to the zoo. But then again a person puts their life and possessions in danger by going into Jackson for any reason.

Over the last 37 or so times my wife and/or I have taken our children to the Jackson Zoo, I'm pretty sure that we have not been shot at, robbed or even accosted. Is it better than New Orleans/St. Louis/Memphis zoos? Of course not. But the kids love it anyway. They have kid friendly days with shows, speakers, entertainment from time to time. The additions of the tiger, bear and mountain lion exhibits are nice, but most of the rest are lacking, to be nice. The yearly pass basically pays for itself if you go to another zoo with a reciprocal agreement. Get over it - go to the zoo and enjoy, or don't.

Tell you what 4:22 PM, kick in more of your money to support the Zoo since you frequent it so often but don't expect the endangered tax base in the shrinking broke city to keep footing the bill.

4:22 Kids would like to do a number of things that are dangerous and if they do them they will bring harm to themselves - That's why they have parents to protect them!!!! And, that includes going to the ZOO!!!!

who needs elephants. put laRita in an exhibit. heavy mammal with odd features....

Congrats to Kingfish for jumping in late on the tail end of a non-story.

If you want to either move the zoo or make it go away for good, I say let the elephant with a funny hat have her way with new leadership. Zoo no more within a year while we take the current leadership and plan a proper one in a safe location if desired and enjoy safely.

It's clear those knocking the zoo have never been there. My family and I are zoo members, we go 10 or so times a year and it is always a wonderful experience. Never a problem of any kind. Its amazing that a facility that good is even in a benighted zone like MS. For all you brave souls that are afraid of the area, be sure to wear your gun on your hip, that way you can compensate, er... feel safe.

It's in a crummy neighborhood. Build it somewhere else. The Children's Museum seems to be doing well. Stop being in denial. If your tax base stays away... then you have a problem. Do they take EBT cards?

Congrats to Kingfish for jumping in late on the tail end of a non-story.

Thanks for reading and commenting on this tail end late "non-story". Cheers.

It's clear those knocking the zoo have never been there.

It is clear you are prone to bouts of hyperbole.

If you truly believe the Jackson Zoo is "a facility that good" it becomes quickly obvious you've never set foot inside the gates of any good or even average zoos.

How much have you contributed to the zoo in the last 5 years beyond your family membership?

I bet the Zoo manager is WHITE!

I see the zoo closing and telling my grandchildren..."I remember as a kid going to the Jackson Zoo seeing all the animals and loved seeing monkey island and the snake exhibit. Now let's load up the car and head to New Orleans to see the Audubon Zoo since ours is closed."

7:27 It's very clear that you are smoking something more than tobacco.

"It Speaks"

" It is not known if Judge Green composed a poem in their honor. "

Damn Kingfish, you're on a roll.

I love it.

There is such rich irony in a Stokes weighing in on the zoo.

Did WAPT post any video footage of AR-15s are have they given up including that in just about every story? I gave up watching them a few weeks back.

"it's to my understanding we don't have any elephants"

That shows how much she has supported the Zoo herself. The elephants have been gone for 3 years.

6:40AM "...Stokes weighing in on the zoo."

And where else is a lady to get herself weighed? Yes, you can go out to the nearest truck stop and use their scales: but with the elephants gone, the scales used to weigh them are just sitting there, going to waste. I think this is an excellent example of repurposing obsolete assets.

The Jackson Zoo, like Memorial Stadium, Smith Wills, and Lake Hico, is a relic of a bygone era. Operating it successfully now is simply beyond our grasp. The catastrophe of the Saints-Colts pre-season game several years go convinced me that it simply makes no sense to try and do these things anymore.

11:12, you mention The Saints-Colts pre-season game as being a catastrophe. I tried looking that up, but got nowhere. Can you give us a summary of what went wrong? There seems to be little or nothing about it within easy googling. So the more details you can give, the better.

Sure. The Saints held their training camp at Millsaps for a couple of years after Katrina, and then scheduled one of their pre-season games, against the Colts, at Memorial Stadium. For those of us with memories of Ole Miss and State SEC double headers at that beautiful facility, the prospect of another big-time football game was wonderful.

Sadly, the people in charge of the Stadium totally botched the entry process, and tried to funnel 45,000 or so people between two turnstiles so they could inspect every handbag and confiscate every umbrella. I got there with my two kids an hour before kickoff and didn't make it to my seat until the end of halftime. There were 20 other turnstiles available, but not utilized. the four cops in charge of admission acted like imperious little storm troopers. Thousands and thousands of people who paid good money for tickets were treated terribly.

It was boneheaded stupidity not to open the other gates, but that's how Jackson works now. You couldn't pay me, or them, to attend another event at Memorial Stadium. Our reach exceeds our grasp, but it wasn't always this way. Like I said, back in the day Ole Miss would kick off at 11:30, finish the game, then State would kick off in the evening - a well-oiled machine. The human infrastructure necessary to pull something like that off is long gone, and will never return.

Ditto with Lake Hico. Ditto with Smith Wills. Ditto with the Jackson Zoo.

So the more details you can give, the better.

The better for whom?

The game was a fiasco. Accept it or not.

On the Saints-Colts game, you forgot the "no tolerance for umbrellas" policy that was enforced. The weather was threatening so a number of people brought their umbrellas, but that was AGAINST THE RULES. However, the brilliant stadium management did not have a method in place for people to store or check their umbrellas before entering.

People were either forced to walk all the way back to their vehicles to store their umbrellas and get in the back of the line or dump them beside the gate. There was a huge pile of umbrellas at the gate. I imagine most folks just said "Screw it" and bought a new one.

Lake Hico has been poorly managed for years. It was leased to Entergy and I think they still have the rights to it. Some local residents tried to get the lake reopened to the public to allow people to walk and fish and use the lake for some methods of recreation, but it never happened.

Smith Wills has been a joke for years. Remember when Ben Allen was on the radio breathlessly touting the plan to put a dome on it for an arena football team? Thank goodness the city didn't fall into THAT trap (the guy proposing that project was a grade A crook, for the record).

So what does the city do with old, decaying facilities? We do one of three things: Give it to JSU or sell it to them for pennies on the dollar (Memorial Stadium, the Telecom center, the old Allstate data center), OR the city buys it for next to nothing (Metrocenter, the old Sears building downtown), OR some black megachurch buys it for a song (Shady Oaks CC, Ellis Isle).

JSU has connections. They can get grants to re-hab, but would probably be more interested in expanding Madison, and into Rankin County.

1:07 and 1:45, THANK YOU! Now I know what was meant by 'catastrophe'. I did finally find mention of the game on, MsNewsNow. A woman from Vicksburg was describing paying 75 Dollars per ticket, to discover that there were no seats for those tickets. They were treated shabbily, and missed half the game, before being shown to assigned-but-vacant seats.

The gist was that there was a greatly-reduced likelihood of that family's EVER spending over TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS to attend another event in Jackson.

Your explanations helped me understand why so many sports and sports-related venues are desperate to locate in Madison. Nobody here particularly wants them, considering what segment of society will be attracted by them. And we kept saying, "But you've got all those perfectly-good facilities right down the road in Jackson! Why move HERE? The site-work is done. The infrastructure is in place. Why not just upgrade what's already there?"

Now I know why. Jackson has truly degenerated to the point of THIRD WORLD IDIOCRACY. The basic assumptions one makes about infrastructure and event management in the Civilized World can no longer be made in Jackson.

Seventy five Dollars is more than a lot of people spend on a month's groceries. Someone spending that kind of money should be treated with deference, and care should be taken that their experience is pleasant. I can't imagine spending that kind of money to sit and watch other people doing something (particularly something pointless). But if I DID spend that kind of money, I'd expect to be treated like royalty - not like a head of cattle being funneled into a slaughterhouse.

And as for, "So the more details you can give, the better.
The better for whom?
The game was a fiasco. Accept it or not." from
August 28, 2013 at 1:16 PM :

Better for those of us trying to get an accurate picture of the world around us. We're called "realists". Those of you who prefer the 'Peter Pan School of Reality' can stand around chanting "I believe in Jackson! I believe in Jackson! I BELIEVE! I BELIEVE!" ... and maybe Tinkerbell won't die, after all! Good luck with that.

"The game was a fiasco. Accept it or not."

Hon, maybe in your little world, people endlessly discuss the details of every sporting event. For others among us, it was just another something being plugged on the news for a while. A growing number of people, particularly young high-IQ males, view sports with a mindset ranging between complete disinterest and absolute unalloyed hatred. I had to ask, to determine whether 'catastrophe' meant the game went badly, or ticket sales were disappointing, or something more interesting. In this case it WAS more interesting: people paying premium prices for tickets were treated like political detainees being herded into a stadium for "processing".

1:45
I clearly remember when Ben Allen had that crook on the Larry and Ben show. What I remember most is that that was the day I lost all respect for him. Ben Allen was ridiculing and verbally abusing anyone that called in and questioned their big plan. True colors shined through then and nothing has changed. What a prophet.

4:03, what sports related venue is trying to move to Madison. That claim is about as absurd as you saying that many people spend less than $75 a month on groceries (maybe in 1960). I hate to single you out, because you certainly aren't the only one on here saying things that are more based on looking for a target than on fact.

So say what you want about Jackson being irrelevant, but it is still not as irrelevant as you extreme conservatives are in national elections! Ha! Ha! Ha!

"Seventy five Dollars is more than a lot of people spend on a month's groceries. "

So, "a lot" of people spend less than $20 per week on groceries.

Hmmmm.

Name two.


PS JPD "directing" the traffic was the first catastrophe people had to deal with that day. There were estimated to be 10,000 umbrellas abandoned outside the stadium that day. The four of us would not have paid $300 to see a game, even with Peyton Manning, so the prices were less than you stated.

The only other major event that venue hosted in the last ten years was an N'Sync concert, courtesy of local member Lance Bass. This city is totally incapable of putting on a major sports or entertainment event.

"This city is totally incapable of putting on a major sports or entertainment event."

Like Elton John a couple of months ago, right?

Support the zoo y'all! The tiger exhibit rocks, there's a new splash pad, the train and carousel are fun- the kids love it! YOU'LL BE FINE! Taking my children this weekend.