Jackson Jambalaya

Metrocenter needs to be torn down, and low income apartments for single moms needs to be built in its place.

For all of the spectacularly lucrative deals he's cut over the years, maybe he's due for a stinker.

I firmly believe that the area will revitalize one day almost without warning. Its been my observation rich folks and poor folks just chase each other around in a large geographic circle, one rises, one falls

Metro area to Northpark, to Madison, to flowed, next is back to metro

Where's Choke? Taking NO accountability here publicly.

Ruh Roh.

Beggars can't be choosy.

He and the City Council both need to hire a bankruptcy law firm. Perhaps they can use the same firm and somehow split the costs.

There is tension between Shock way and this bag-man.

I hope Socrates has personal liability on this bond indebtedness.

10:37 "area will revitalize one day almost without warning". This may be the funniest shit I've ever read. And just like that, suddenly and without warning, the Tarrymore became a Ritz Carleton!

@10:59

Think about gentrification and how suddenly it occurs. One day an area is a wasteland, the next day its booming, that's what I mean.......people only have so much real estate and the circle back to the metro area is coming

Black people just chasing white people in a circle. That’s how you have so much development in the area, but no new population growth.

10:37

Kit up and roll around West Capitol Street, going both south and north. There are hundreds of acres of undeveloped lots, abandoned homes and bombed out roads. Yes, “one day” the costs of these areas will drop so low that they will be ripe for development but one day won’t be a soon one. As long as you have the Marxist Cabal in charge and the streets more dangerous than Afghanistan no one will take that chance.

11:10 is hopelessly full of stupid and sh*t.

Was this a private business deal? Yes? There they’re SOL.

This would be like an oil and gas wildcatter drilling for oil with investors’ money and hoping to hit oil but when it’s a dry hole whining and making excuses.

Business 101: risk is always a risk. Which means for laypeople like Socrates that when you bet money (risk), you either win or lose. I’m guessing Socrates did not take any Econ 101 classes? Instead he must have majored in community organizing.

20% in fees to get the financing, to buy property, to lease to the city. Jackson economics 101.

Ol' Socrates will have to do some serious palm greasing to pull this off, but he does have experience in that area.

Why is this the City's problem? He even said there was a time to walk away from the deal.

Gentrification usually happens when people want to shorten long commutes to work. That and coupled with great housing prices. The problem with Jackson is the businesses have left, too. So being in Jackson is not putting you any closer from home to work; or close enough for the hassle. Probably why East St. Louis will always be what it is.

Now, if you closed access from spillway road, Lakeland drive - really all of Rankin county, then you could probably jumpstart some relocating back to Jackson. I could get behind that.

Mr Garrett and Mr Walker, I appreciate and regret the situation you're in. You tried to help the City. But by your own admission multiple times, you made a bad business decision to buy/lease the mall. That's on you, not the City or any other government entity. If we bail you out here, then we have to bail out every other business whose owner makes a bad decision, and that simply cannot be done. You made a bad business decision, just like I've done before too, but no one bailed me out. I cut my losses and learned from my mistake, and my suggestion is you do the same here. But please don't expect the City to bail you or any other business owner out whenever you make a bad decision. That's not how the real world works.

10:37, you can't make chicken salad out of chicken sh*t.

You wanted to be a landlord. Get out there and find another tenant. Or, was it strictly an inside deal that went sideways? In that case you're a sucker.

Wow, The Tarrymore Hotel. I havent heard or seen that name in over 50 years. On the east corner of Terry road from The Tarrymore there was an Alamo Plaza and the guy that ran it sold jet boats out front.

Maybe area will redevelop and The Zodiac will come back ! !

Harvey Johnson forced him into a bad deal? ROTFLMAO. He and his partners saw a sweetheart deal that, as 10:31 observes, became a stinker. They wanted a trophy asset; they got a trophy wife. Funny how a trophy tends to be cheap and hollow.

Almost immediately Socrates, Leroy and crew held up the City for more money for cabling / other items, then blamed Watkins for misappropriating funds (lawsuits, State Auditor or SOS investigated), and thereafter begged Hinds County for a bailout of RetroMetro (thank you Greer/Morgan, Graham and MCQuirter for saying “no”).

The bottom line: the Metro situation is karma for all the other government deals where Soc and Leroy made money without delivering.

"For all of the spectacularly lucrative deals he's cut over the years, maybe he's due for a stinker."

I don't know much about the guy. What are some of the other "projects" he was on that were spectacularly lucrative?

I imagine Jackson will begin to gentrify once black people start moving to Madison county. Upwardly mobile black migration to northeast Jackson is what drove the initial exodus of white people from the city, and it's what will drive the eventual depopulation of Madison and Ridgeland as well. It's going to take time but these are cycles that operate on the scale of decades, not mere years.

July 25, 2023 at 1:43 PM
Lucrative for him. Not the taxpayer. Subtext should have been obvious.

Wasn't it Garret who, whilst complaining about white criticism of his graft and business shortcomings, said approximately: "Y'all white fokes ran Jackson for 200 years, it's our turn now".

Time to pay the cropper, Garrett.

What I learned from listening to this is there were several con men who decided to go together and con the city out of some money. It worked for a while then they got greedy. Everyone tried to screw each other over. The owners who were trying to screw the city found out the city doesn't pay their bills. The city found out the people they were paying off would not be satisfied with what the city would give them. Now all of the crooks are out of business. This should be a lesson to people. If you go into something where your money is supposed to come from screwing people over do not go into business with people who are planning on doing the same thing to you.

This appears to be a good opportunity to help break the cycle of dependency.

This could be a good opportunity to help break the cycle of dependency.

When they made the deal they thought they were going to fleece the city as usual. That's because they KNEW they had the political hookup. All his business deals have nothing to do with private business...only political hookups. Now he's complaining because he overestimated the hookup and he's got to face the music like any legitimate businessman, which he is not. There are plenty of vacant buildings downtown but they are run by business people who don't depend on government pork to cover their losses. Walker has sold enough burgers to know that there are no guarantees in the real business world. Unless you got the hookup. Welcome to the real world Socrates.

@1:20..you are spot on!
BTW- Soc- where are the receipts for that $2 million you and Leroy have invested? ROTFLMAO

If only Socrates and Walker had gotten some of the $600-$800 million water contracts. They probably would not be suing.

11:10, there's ONE fundamental difference between what you've seen in movies about other cities vs Jackson........

Garrett is a crook. He made a terrible business deal. Metrocenter should be torn down and the land returned to nature. I don't feel sorry for him.

Another bad business deal Socrates was involved in but won’t mention EVER….the Siemens water meter project. His firm was the main project management firm.

Gee, wonder how many other bad deals this buffoon has touched. Seems like he ain’t making any dough without his boys Harvey and Tony helping him out.

Looks like the lawyers and financial advisors all got paid tho. The only surprise is that Porter Bingham didn't get a cut on something like this from that era.

Socrates says the quiet part outloud. Based on his past dealings with the city, he & his business partners fully expected Jackson to channel money to them - tax breaks, whatever - to make them whole. So blatant, so brazen. He's shameless in saying they bought the space to help revive MetroCenter & support the community.

I assume most commenters did not watch the video. Socrates has some very valid points.

Damn and thanks.

Socrates Garrett, not to be confused with his namesake, is just another dime-a-dozen race hustler. Opportunistic and self-interested much like the carpetbagging Lumumbles. Part of the problem not the solution.

This film illuminates why Jackson is dying. Everything about it is sad. The Council is actually a governing body. Look at them. Watch the race hustler Garrett. damn. We are gone. they will never get anything close to a big picture.

If anyone knows how these MBFC deals work you can ascertain who the ultimate lender is here. They will most likely be in the bidness of running an old Belk location in a bad part of town. Not sure that’s very lucrative.

Maybe old Socrates and Leroy can come up with enough money to buy explosives 🧨 to blow the place up!

5:21, I watched the whole video and never saw a valid point, just Socrates grasping for straws to get bailed out of a bad decision. The National Guard tearing up his road and parking lot? That’s laughable, considering the limited extent of that exercise. Lack of water damaging his chillers? If he’s stupid enough to run them with no water, that’s on him.

Funny how the businesses around town kept up with their water pressure and when it went down or out, got water trucks to pump up to the chillers to prevent this very thing from happening.

Damn man, Soc is almost as broke as some of y’all.

Many a woman who's cheated with a married man has been told, "If he'll do it with you, he'll do it to you." After convincing herself that "she's different" and he "loves" her... she eventually learns the hard way.

Pardon me if I'm not sympathetic.

When you try to out-hustle the other hustlers, someday... you're gonna be the one who gets hustled. Suck it up, Soc.

9:16. Because they are responsible and he and his buds are city tit sucking grifters.

It takes a four wheel drive to get to the building!

Time to repurpose the Metro dump into a shooting range and speed racing circuit. The local thugs and gangs need a safe place to play.

He and Leroy put $2.5mil of their own money in this hole and paid $100,000 for property taxes each year! You ever hear the term 'eat up with the dumbass'?

Why not convert it to the new Hinds County prison?