Mississippi Today

‘Be realistic’: Concerned about blight, Jackson’s Ward 7 council candidates learn who’s responsible

Published

4 months ago

March 21, 2025

mississippitoday.org – Molly Minta – 2025-03-21 15:57:00

by Molly Minta, Mississippi Today
March 21, 2025

As far as Mary Alex Thigpen knew, the truckloads of mulch she’d just had delivered would sit at Belhaven’s Laurel Street Park until she could find enough volunteers to spread it.

Thigpen, the executive director of the Greater Belhaven Foundation, then got a call from a neighborhood resident. Employees with the city’s parks and recreation department were putting down the mulch with shovels and rakes.

“It just kind of made me laugh because I didn’t tell anybody at parks and rec about the mulch,” Thigpen said. “But I guess they saw it and thought it was theirs?”

Thigpen’s story illustrates a widespread issue facing citywide efforts to rid Jackson of litter, blight, dilapidated housing and overgrown weeds: No matter how many resources are available, many stakeholders are not on the same page. And not everyone knows who — between the mayor, his departments, the council, local nonprofits or individual citizens — is responsible for what.

“People are tired of waiting for someone else to do it, and they’re starting to do it on their own,” said Ashlee Kelly, a Belhaven resident who has been involved in volunteer clean-up efforts across Ward 7.

That’s the case across the city, but in Ward 7, most of the seven candidates running for council believe that Jacksonians need to get better coordinated when it comes to pursuing quality of life improvements in the city. The 14-mile ward encompassing Fondren, Belhaven and downtown Jackson is one of two council areas this election season where the incumbent has chosen not to run again.

Quint Withers

During a voter forum last month at Millsaps College, five of the seven candidates agreed that city clean-up is important for economic development and crime reduction.

Some of their ideas were ambitious. Democratic candidate Quint Withers, an accountant and Realtor, said he wants to switch the city’s street lights to LED so they last longer.

Bruce Burton, an attorney also running in the Democratic primary, thinks the city should install cameras across the ward to catch illegal trash dumpers.

And independent candidate Ron Aldridge, a government-relations attorney and current chair of Fondren’s Business Improvement District, said the city needs to be working more with its neighborhood associations.

But what will these candidates be able to realistically accomplish if they win? Aldridge told Mississippi Today he knows his ideas do not technically fall under the purview of the city council.

“It doesn’t matter,” Aldridge said. “That’s what I’m gonna do. I’m just telling you. I’m not someone that waits.”

As a voter, Kelly looks to see if candidates have an accurate understanding of these roles and responsibilities. In Jackson, city council candidates often do not realize the statutory division of power between the city and the mayor.

A family at the start of the Museum Trail, an attraction in Ward 7, heading out for an afternoon of biking.

“People make a lot of promises, and they don’t realize there’s really basic functions,” she said. “If you do anything out of the scope, it’s great, but it’s also a part-time job. You have to be realistic about what you can do.”

Under state statute, the mayor of Jackson is the city’s full-time chief executive office, overseeing city departments, appointing department heads and drafting the city budget.

The council, on the other hand, works part time and essentially functions as the legislative branch of the city government. Working together, the council has the ability to write and pass ordinances, subject to the mayor’s veto. Likewise, the council can vote down the mayor’s budget.

For the newcomer, outgoing Ward 7 councilperson Virgi Lindsay’s advice is, “You have to get in there and do it. It is the consummate of on-the-job training.”

For instance, Lindsay said she is frequently calling the city about abandoned houses in the southern part of Ward 7. But as a council person, she has no power to order any city department to tear down the houses.

What Lindsay can do, however, is ensure the city is funding the right departments, which she said the council worked to do by increasing solid waste’s budget.

But in the past, council members have disagreed over the extent of their powers, causing a breakdown in the city’s ability to function. This happened most notably when, during a years-long dispute over entering a new garbage contract, the council and the mayor sued each other, hiring separate attorneys, something a specially appointed judge said should not have happened.

“So, in effect, we have City of Jackson vs. City of Jackson,” Judge H. David Clark said in 2023. “That raises a few problems in itself. George cannot sue George.”

Since the council approved the long-term contract with the mayor’s vendor in 2024, city spokesperson Melissa Payne said there’s been “way less contention between the council and the mayor, and I think he appreciates that and wants to keep it that way.”

Inspired in part by the disagreement, Working Together Jackson, a nonprofit, held a “candidate school” last month about the council’s roles and responsibilities. Two candidates in Ward 7 – Withers and Kevin Parkinson – attended.

Chevon Chatman, a WTJ organizer, said she encourages candidates who win to attend the city’s free legal training on the council’s statutory obligations.

“People don’t know the council is a legislative body and does not have control over the pothole on your street,” she said.

When candidates have an accurate understanding of their roles, Kelly said they can provide more detailed campaign goals to voters.

“When they say education and economic development, I want to squint a little bit because it’s like, where are you going with this,” she asked. “What do you mean by economic development? That’s such a broad term.”

Mississippi Today was able to interview four candidates for Ward 7 by press time: Democrats Parkinson, Withers and Turner Martin, as well as independent Aldridge.

Corinthian Sanders, another Democrat, was unable to speak by press time due to a personal matter. Neither Taylor Turcotte, a Republican, nor Burton, a Democrat, returned multiple calls.

Martin, an employee in the city’s Department of Human and Cultural Services, said his experience writing resolutions helped him understand how power is divided between the mayor and the council.

Specifically, Martin authored a resolution related to the maintenance of the Arts Center of Mississippi, a building downtown that he manages. Based on his experience at the Arts Center, Martin said he thinks the city needs to fill some gaps in its services, especially when it comes to maintenance on its property.

“There’s literally no one I can call,” he said.

When trash builds up outside the Arts Center, Martin said it is not technically the responsibility of anyone in the city to pick it up. The custodians work inside the building, while parks and recreation maintains and trims the landscaping.

“Regardless of how these departments are supposed to work, if it’s not being enforced by the executive branch, there’s very little the council can do,” he said.

Downtown Jackson Partners receives funds through the area’s business improvement district to provide landscaping and other services, but Martin said he does not think they should have to conduct upkeep of city properties. In areas with established improvement districts, property owners pay an extra fee on top of taxes for services aimed at promoting business. The fee is collected by the county and distributed through the city to the district designees, such as Downtown Jackson Partners.

“We have a balcony at Thalia Mara, so if an unhoused individual sleeps on that balcony for weeks because we can’t afford to have full-time security, who’s responsible for that,” he asked. “There’s no one to call except for an organization that already wears so many hats in terms of keeping our downtown beautiful.”

At the same time, Martin said he would like to see the city doing a better job of advertising the services it does provide, such as its monthly “Roll-Off Dumpster Day” at the Metrocenter Mall. Aldridge mentioned this, too.

Parkinson, a former principal of Midtown Public Charter School, said people misunderstand the role of the city council in one of two ways.

“They think that the city councilor is the king or queen of their ward and that by some form of strong authoritarianism or maybe a magic wand, whatever the city council person says for their ward will automatically be done, and that is not how that works,” Parkinson said. “The other way that people mess it up, though, is they say, ‘Well, we have a strong mayor system, so as a city council person, there is nothing that I can do.’”

What the council should do, Parkinson said, is focus on building relationships with each other and with the mayor. But that doesn’t mean going along to get along.

“Unified doesn’t always mean rubber stamped,” he added.

Withers had a similar opinion. He said the city council needs to compromise for the common good, but he doesn’t see that happening right now.

“The council can probably advocate with the administration and help hold hands with the right people,” Withers said. “That role can exist as long as you can talk to those department heads, but my best understanding now is that they’re siloed.”

For example, while code enforcement falls under planning and development, the Jackson Police Department has started a neighborhood enhancement team to help tackle some of the city’s blight.

Parkinson said that it’s great so many Jacksonians are working to fix the blight, but on the bureaucratic side, these efforts are made more complicated by the number of entities involved.

“Even for something as simple as a house we could all agree needs to be demolished … there’s so many partners,” he said. “I think a lot of people don’t realize that a lot of the blighted property is actually owned by the state through tax forfeiture.”

All four candidates said they had canvassed the ward’s 18 neighborhoods, though Aldridge said he has done that primarily through an outreach ministry, not his campaign, that he’s been involved with over the last two and a half years.

They’ve seen the blight with their own eyes, and all concur the issues in the southern part of the ward are greater — and more forgotten about, due in part to population loss.

“There’s an inverse graph of less resources to tackle these things while the issue itself is growing,” Martin said.

Belhaven Heights Park located in Ward 7.

Abandoned shopping center near Terry Road in Ward 7.

Parkinson identified the Savanna Street neighborhood as an area of particular need. The street has burned-out houses, and last year, a tree fell on a man, killing him in his home.

“Two things can be true,” Parkinson said. “There’s a lot of people working really hard and trying their absolute best and are making some of an impact. … And it is woefully insufficient. It needs to be accelerated. We all need to get on the same page. It has to be a priority of the mayor. That’s just a reality. The city council has to support, and we need the state to step up.”

Years ago, Aldridge said he was involved with efforts by nonprofit Keep Mississippi Beautiful and local affiliate Keep Jackson Beautiful to clean the green spaces at the High Street and Pearl Street entrances off I-55, which he said are vital to the city as the first things people see when they drive into downtown — home, he said, to some of the state’s greatest museums.

It was a “total effort,” Aldridge said. The litter was picked up, the weeds were mowed, and the oak tree canopy, which was coming down into the road, was trimmed.

But now, Aldridge said the street looks as if that work never happened.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

Hospitals see danger in Medicaid spending cuts

Published

1 day ago

July 10, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-07-10 15:30:00

by Sophia Paffenroth, Mississippi Today
July 10, 2025

Mississippi hospitals could lose up to $1 billion over the next decade under the sweeping, multitrillion-dollar tax and policy bill President Donald Trump signed into law last week, according to leaders at the Mississippi Hospital Association.

The leaders say the cuts could force some already-struggling rural hospitals to reduce services or close their doors.

The law includes the largest reduction in federal health and social safety net programs in history. It passed 218-214, with all Democrats voting against the measure and all but five Republicans voting for it.

In the short term, these cuts will make health care less accessible to poor Mississippians by making the eligibility requirements for Medicaid insurance stiffer, likely increasing people’s medical debt.

In the long run, the cuts could lead to worsening chronic health conditions such as diabetes and obesity for which Mississippi already leads the nation, and making private insurance more expensive for many people, experts say.

“We’ve got about a billion dollars that are potentially hanging in the balance over the next 10 years,” Mississippi Hospital Association President Richard Roberson said Wednesday during a panel discussion at his organization’s headquarters.

Richard Roberson, Mississippi Hospital Association president and CEO, discusses the impact of what the White House calls “One Big Beautiful Bill,” Wednesday, July 9, 2025, at the Mississippi Hospital Association Conference Center in Madison.

“If folks were being honest, the entire system depends on those rural hospitals,” he said.

Mississippi’s uninsured population could increase by 160,000 people as a combined result of the new law and the expiration of Biden-era enhanced subsidies that made marketplace insurance affordable – and which Trump is not expected to renew – according to KFF, a health policy research group.

That could make things even worse for those who are left on the marketplace plans.

“Younger, healthier people are going to leave the risk pool, and that’s going to mean it’s more expensive to insure the patients that remain,” said Lucy Dagneau, senior director of state and local campaigns at the American Cancer Society.

Among the biggest changes facing Medicaid-eligible patients are stiffer eligibility requirements, including proof of work. The new law requires able-bodied adults ages 19 to 64 to work, do community service or attend an educational program at least 80 hours a month to qualify for, or keep, Medicaid coverage and federal food aid.

Opponents say qualified recipients could be stripped of benefits if they lose a job or fail to complete paperwork attesting to their time commitment.

Georgia became the case study for work requirements with a program called Pathways to Coverage, which was touted as a conservative alternative to Medicaid expansion.

Ironically, the 54-year-old mechanic chosen by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to be the face of the program got so fed up with the work requirements he went from praising the program on television to saying “I’m done with it” after his benefits were allegedly cancelled twice due to red tape.

Roberson sent several letters to Mississippi’s congressional members in weeks leading up to the final vote on the sweeping federal legislation, sounding the alarm on what it would mean for hospitals and patients.

Among Roberson’s chief concerns is a change in the mechanism called state directed payments, which allows states to beef up Medicaid reimbursement rates – typically the lowest among insurance payors. The new law will reduce those enhanced rates to nearly as low as the Medicare rate, costing the state at least $500 million and putting rural hospitals in a bind, Roberson told Mississippi Today.

That change will happen over 10 years starting in 2028. That, in conjunction with the new law’s one-time payment program called the Rural Health Care Fund, means if the next few years look normal, it doesn’t mean Mississippi is safe, stakeholders warn.

“We’re going to have a sort of deceiving situation in Mississippi where we look a little flush with cash with the rural fund and the state directed payments in 2027 and 2028, and then all of a sudden our state directed payments start going down and that fund ends and then we’re going to start dipping,” said Leah Rupp Smith, vice president for policy and advocacy at the Mississippi Hospital Association.

Leah Rupp Smith, Mississippi Hospital Association general counsel and vice president for policy and advocacy, breaks down a timeline for what the White House calls “One Big Beautiful Bill,” during an event to discuss the impact of the law on health care in the state, Wednesday, July 9, 2025, at the Mississippi Hospital Association Conference Center in Madison.

Even with that buffer time, immediate changes are on the horizon for health care in Mississippi because of fear and uncertainty around ever-changing rules.

“Hospitals can’t budget when we have these one-off programs that start and stop and the rules change – and there’s a cost to administering a program like this,” Smith said.

Since hospitals are major employers – and they also provide a sense of safety for incoming businesses – their closure, especially in rural areas, affects not just patients but local economies and communities.

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson is the only Democrat in Mississippi’s congressional delegation. He voted against the bill, while the state’s two Republican senators and three Republican House members voted for it. Thompson said in a statement that the new law does not bode well for the Delta, one of the poorest regions in the U.S.

“For my district, this means closed hospitals, nursing homes, families struggling to afford groceries, and educational opportunities deferred,” Thompson said. “Republicans’ priorities are very simple: tax cuts for (the) wealthy and nothing for the people who make this country work.”

While still colloquially referred to as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the name was changed by Democrats invoking a maneuver that has been used by lawmakers in both chambers to oppose a bill on principle.

“Democrats are forcing Republicans to delete their farcical bill name,” Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer of New York said in a statement. “Nothing about this bill is beautiful — it’s a betrayal to American families and it’s undeserving of such a stupid name.”

The law is expected to add at least $3.3 trillion to the nation’s debt over the next 10 years, according to the most recent estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Hospitals see danger in Medicaid spending cuts appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

This article reports on the negative impacts of a major federal tax and policy bill on Medicaid funding and rural hospitals in Mississippi. While it presents factual details and statements from stakeholders, the tone and framing emphasize the harmful consequences for vulnerable populations and health care access, aligning with concerns typically raised by center-left perspectives. The article highlights opposition by Democrats and critiques the bill’s priorities, particularly its effect on poor and rural communities, suggesting sympathy toward social safety net preservation. However, it maintains mostly factual reporting without overt partisan language, resulting in a moderate center-left bias.

Crooked Letter Sports Podcast

Podcast: The Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Class of ’25

Published

3 days ago

July 9, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @rick_cleveland – 2025-07-09 10:28:00

by Rick Cleveland and Tyler Cleveland, Mississippi Today
July 9, 2025

The MSHOF will induct eight new members on Aug 2. Rick Cleveland has covered them all and he and son Tyler talk about what makes them all special.

Stream all episodes here.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Podcast: The Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Class of '25 appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Mississippi Today

‘You’re not going to be able to do that anymore’: Jackson police chief visits food kitchen to discuss new public sleeping, panhandling laws

Published

1 week ago

July 4, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-07-04 13:00:00

by Maya Miller, Mississippi Today
July 4, 2025

Diners turned watchful eyes to the stage as Jackson Police Chief Joseph Wade took to the podium. He visited Stewpot Community Services during its daily free lunch hour Thursday to discuss new state laws, which took effect two days earlier, targeting Mississippians experiencing homelessness.

“I understand that you are going through some hard times right now. That’s why I’m here,” Wade said to the crowd. “I felt it was important to come out here and speak with you directly.”

Wade laid out the three bills that passed earlier this year: House Bill 1197, the “Safe Solicitation Act,” HB 1200, the “Real Property Owners Protection Act” and HB 1203, a bill that prohibits camping on public property.

“Sleeping and laying in public places, you’re not going to be able to do that anymore,” he said. “There’s a law that has been passed that you can’t just set up encampments on public or private properties where it’s a public nuisance, it’s a problem.”

The “Real Property Owners Protection Act,” authored by Rep. Brent Powell, R-Brandon, is a bill that expedites the process of removing squatters. The “Safe Solicitation Act,” authored by Rep. Shanda Yates, I-Jackson, requires a permit for panhandling and allows people to be charged with a misdemeanor if they violate this law. The offense is punishable by a fine not to exceed $300 and an offender could face up to six months in jail. Wade said he’s currently working with his legal department to determine the best strategy for creating and issuing permits.

“We’re going to navigate these legal challenges, get some interpretations, not only from our legal department, but the Attorney General’s office to ensure that we are doing it legally and lawfully, because I understand that these are citizens,” he said. “I understand that they deserve to be treated with respect, and I understand that we are going to do this without violating their constitutional rights.”

Homeless encampment located in the 1700 block of S. Gallatin Street in Jackson, Wednesday, June 2, 2025.

Wade said the Jackson Police Department is steadily fielding reports of squatters in abandoned properties and the law change gives officers new power to remove them more quickly. The added challenge? Figuring out what to do with a person’s belongings.

“These people are carrying around what they own, but we are not a repository for all of their stuff,” he said. “So, when we make that arrest, we’ve got to have a strategic plan as to what we do with their stuff.”

Wade said there needs to be a deeper conversation around the issues that lead someone to becoming homeless.

“A lot of people that we’re running across that are homeless are also suffering from medical conditions, mental health issues, and they’re also suffering from drug addiction and substance abuse. We’ve got to have a strategic approach, but we also can’t log jam our jail down in Raymond,” Wade said.

He estimates that more than 800 people are currently incarcerated at the Raymond Detention Center, and any increase could strain the system as the laws continue to be enforced.

“I think there’s layers that we have to work through, there’s hurdles that we are going to overcome, but we’ve got to make sure that we do it and make sure that my team and JPD is consistent in how we enforce these laws,” Wade said.

Diners applauded Wade after he spoke, in between bites of fried chicken, salad, corn and 4th of July-themed packaged cakes. Wade offered to answer questions, but no one asked any.

Rev. Jill Buckley, executive director of Stewpot, said that the legislation is a good tool to address issues around homelessness and community needs. She doesn’t want to see people who are homeless be criminalized, but she also wants communities to be safe.

“I support people’s right to self determine, and we can’t impose our choices on other people, but there are some cases in which that impinges on community safety, and so to the extent that anyone who is camping or panhandling or squatting and is a danger to themselves and others, of course, I fully support that kind of law. I don’t support homelessness being criminalized as such,” Buckley said.

One of the homeless in Jackson panhandles at the intersection of U.S. 80 and Gallatin Street, Wednesday, June 2, 2025.

Many of the people Wade addressed while they ate Thursday said they have housing, don’t panhandle, and shouldn’t be directly impacted by the legislation. But Marcus Willis, 42, said it would make more sense if elected officials wanted to combat the negative impacts of homelessness that they help more people secure employment.

“There ain’t enough jobs,” said Willis, who was having lunch with his girlfriend Amber Ivy.

The two live in an apartment together nearby on Capitol Street, where Ivy landed after her mother, whom Ivy had been living with, suffered a stroke and lost the property. Similarly, Willis started coming to eat at Stewpot after his grandmother, whose house he used to visit for lunch, passed away.

Willis holds odd jobs – cutting grass, home and auto repair – so the income is inconsistent, and every opportunity for stable employment he said he’s found is outside of Jackson in the suburbs. The couple doesn’t have a car.

Making rent every month usually depends on their ability to find someone to help chip in, said Ivy, who is in recovery from substance abuse. She said she’s watched problems surrounding homelessness grow over the years in Jackson. Ivy grew up near Stewpot and has lived in various neighborhoods across the city – except for the times she moved out of state when things got too rough.

“There was just moments where I just had to leave,” Ivy said. “Sometimes if you hit a slump here, there’s almost no way for you to get out of it.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post 'You're not going to be able to do that anymore': Jackson police chief visits food kitchen to discuss new public sleeping, panhandling laws appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Political Bias Rating: Center-Right

This article primarily reports on new laws in Jackson, Mississippi, targeting public sleeping, panhandling, and squatting, focusing on statements by Police Chief Joseph Wade and community perspectives. The coverage presents the legislative measures—authored by Republican and independent lawmakers—with a tone that emphasizes law enforcement challenges and community safety, reflecting a conservative approach to homelessness as a public order issue. While it includes voices concerned about criminalization and the need for social support, the overall framing centers on law enforcement and property protection. The article maintains factual reporting without overt editorializing but leans slightly toward a center-right perspective by highlighting legal enforcement as a solution.