by Robyn Tannehill, Mississippi Today
May 8, 2025

Editor’s note: Robyn Tannehill is the second-term mayor of Oxford and is unopposed for a third term. This piece is part of an ongoing Mississippi Today Ideas series showcasing perspectives of mayors across the state.

Oxford is experiencing unprecedented growth and the challenges we face are unique in Mississippi.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that in 2023 Oxford had a population of only 27,000 residents. On any given weekday in Oxford, we have more than 80,000 people in town with a student population of 23,981 (an 11% increase from last year) and workforce and visitors totaling approximately 39,000 people a day coming in from surrounding counties. On an SEC home football game, Oxford swells to more than 250,000.

In the simplest terms, Oxford has to be able to provide water and sewer service all year for 300,000 people to be able flush the toilets — even if we only need it for 10 days a year. With a tax base of 27,000, it is difficult to make those numbers work. 

The past eight years have been a rollercoaster in Oxford – from a pandemic that nobody prepared me for to growth that never stops. However, Oxford is a much stronger community with a stronger economy today than we had eight years ago. We are setting records every month in sales tax collections. New businesses are opening across our community, and almost every corner of Oxford is being developed at an incredible pace.

To make all of this work, my staff and I have to think outside of the box.       

When your greatest challenges are the result of tremendous growth in Mississippi, you say ‘thank you’ and you get busy being proactive in your planning. Planning is exactly what my staff, city employees and I have done.

I was told before I was elected in 2017 that our state and federal partners did not provide financial assistance to Oxford. I saw that as a challenge. I quickly learned that Oxford had not been told “no,” but rather Oxford had never told its story and asked for help. My team and I have secured more than $246 million dollars from our state and federal partners in the last eight years. 

That is $246 million that has been and will continue to be invested in transportation infrastructure, water and sewer infrastructure, facility upgrades and capital improvements across our community that our local taxpayers will not have to pay for. It is the result of an investment of time and relationship building in Jackson and Washington, DC. And, it’s the reward for being a community that is planning ahead and being a good steward of the funds we are granted. It also takes give-and-take between our state and federal elected officials, and we have been so blessed with great partners.

Telling our stories and seeking assistance from our state and federal partners is something every community can do. As the chairman of the Mississippi Municipal League Education Committee, I facilitated a session at our annual meeting where staff members from our United States Senate and Congressional offices attended and shared the best ways for our local elected officials to contact their offices. Our state and federal partners often do not know a community’s needs unless a community takes the time to share challenges, needs and concerns.  

Law enforcement is becoming increasingly complex, and the public’s expectations of police officers are becoming more demanding. The city of Oxford and Oxford Police Department have spent hours evaluating our mission, how we serve the community and how we can improve. 

Policing today extends beyond the realm of enforcing laws. Officers are called upon to respond to non-criminal incidents, including many situations that involve mental health issues or people who have no one else to call for help. In these cases, officers are often ill-equipped to handle the call. Afer all, they are not psychologists, psychiatrists or social workers.

We often expect officers to serve as family therapists, medical first responders, homeless advocates, school counselors and dog catchers. Each call is different, and rarely do the calls follow training scenarios; therefore, police officers and police departments must adapt, sometimes on the fly.

As first responders, the Oxford Police Department typically receives the initial call when a citizen is in need or has become the victim of a crime. Our officers respond to more than 1,000 calls per year where victim services are needed, which we define as calls such as domestic violence, sexual assaults, child abuse, harassment and stalking. Wanting to offer the best care for our citizens facing these situations, the Oxford Police Department began evaluating how we can walk hand in hand with our victims and connect them with the appropriate partners who can best serve their long-term needs. 

To meet these needs, we established a Community Response Team within the Oxford Police Department. The Community Response Team is led by a full-time employee who has completed a 10-week FBI Victims Impact Training Program and has a background in social work. This employee is dedicated to victim services, and is accompanied by volunteer officers and staff members of the Oxford Police Department. Our Community Response Team is responsible for identifying cases that could benefit from these services, training our officers to recognize these cases, and connecting our citizens to these services. 

Knowing we have amazing resources in the Oxford community, we invited all of the different victim service organizations to a roundtable discussion. This meeting allowed our police department to put together a comprehensive list of victim services available in our community, and educated our officers on these organizations. We want to operate like the Emergency Room and connect victims to the best resources available. Our goal is to provide a safe place and services needed for victims to help them move forward.

In 2017, my administration established a Safe Site in our downtown business district with the Oxford Polic Department. Uniformed officers are there Wednesday through Saturday evenings assisting patrons who feel unsafe, need assistance in finding a ride home, or would like to be escorted to their car. This Safe Site has become a great way for Oxford Police Officers to meet and build relationships with our citizens, and especially with our student population. 

Realizing that at bar closing time thousands of students are exiting bars at the same time presenting issues with securing safe rides home, my administration established three transportation hub locations in the downtown area with UBER, Lyft and local taxis participating. The rideshare companies direct people requesting rides to one of three sites where cars can stack and be waiting to offer safe rides home. Oxford Police Department has made 100 less arrests for DUI this year since our installation of the hubs. 

Enormous growth requires innovative solutions. Local government is where the boots meet the ground. 

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

The post Mayor Tannehill: Oxford officials view rapid growth, large crowds as opportunities, not problem 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: Centrist

The article presents a largely neutral perspective, focusing on Mayor Robyn Tannehill’s proactive approach to addressing the challenges of rapid growth in Oxford. While Tannehill emphasizes the importance of community partnerships and innovative solutions, there is no overt ideological bias in the language or framing of the piece. The content is more about problem-solving within local governance, rather than promoting a particular political viewpoint. The mention of securing funding and building relationships with state and federal partners suggests a pragmatic, solution-oriented approach without leaning toward any specific political ideology.

by Gwen Dilworth, Mississippi Today
May 8, 2025

Three nonprofits received over $850,000 in federal grants for HIV prevention between 2021 and 2024 but administered only 35 HIV tests during that period, State Auditor Shad White alleges in a report released Monday. 

The report identified reimbursements for alcohol, late-night rideshares, purchases from a smoke shop, the rental of a nightclub owned by one group’s executive director and a declined payment for gift cards. All of the payments were approved by the Mississippi Department of Health, the agency responsible for overseeing distribution of the funding to community-based organizations.

“The lapses identified are unacceptable and not reflective of our agency’s standards or mission,” the health department said in a press release Monday. 

The agency could not produce monthly reports for grant activities or documentation of hundreds of thousands of dollars of expenses, the report said. Nor could it provide all of the funding agreements or say whether the organizations were aware they were required to report testing data, a spokesperson for the auditor’s office told Mississippi Today. 

The grant funding was meant to help states establish and maintain HIV prevention and surveillance programs, and HIV testing was an element of each organization’s agreement. The grants also paid the nonprofits to educate the public about HIV and hire community health workers. 

Mississippi has the sixth highest rate of new HIV diagnoses in the country, and the majority of the state’s prevention efforts are funded with federal dollars. 

“It’s almost like our government hates us,” said Auditor Shad White in a press release. “This kind of spending defies all common sense and is an insult to hardworking taxpayers.”

Lorena Quiroz, the executive director of Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity, said the nonprofit submitted all required monthly reports and expense documentation to the health department. 

Love Inside for Everyone and Love Me Unlimited 4 Life, the other two organizations investigated by the state auditor, did not respond to questions from Mississippi Today. 

None of the organizations referenced in the audit report still have grants or contracts with the health department, and the agency has already taken steps to hire new leadership in its STD/HIV division and tighten management of grants, it said in a press release.

The audit probes a period when the health department’s STD/HIV division was severely understaffed after public health priorities shifted to the COVID-19 pandemic and skyrocketing syphilis cases in the state. Around the same time, the health department began receiving tens of millions of dollars in additional federal funding for HIV prevention efforts as a part of an initiative launched by President Donald Trump during his first term in office to end the domestic HIV epidemic. 

But the funding increases have resulted in only a slight dent in new HIV cases. New diagnoses dropped 5% in the first three years of reported data since the state began receiving the additional federal dollars, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data published by AIDSVu – far from keeping up with the federal government’s ambitious goals of reducing new diagnoses 75% by 2025 and 90% by 2030.

Increasing HIV testing in community settings is one of the plan’s core strategies. 

Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity, a Jackson nonprofit that advocates for immigrant and indigenous communities in Mississippi, was contracted to take steps to become a rapid HIV testing site, but did not conduct any tests because the health department did not provide a phlebotomist, Quiroz told Mississippi Today in an email. 

It is unclear why the organization would have required a phlebotomist, as rapid tests are administered with a finger prick or saliva. Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity did not respond to a follow-up question for clarification. 

Quiroz said HIV testing materials worth $11,412 were lost in a storm that destroyed the organization’s building and roof. The storm occurred in June 2023, one month before the nonprofit’s agreement with the health department ended and 10 months after the supplies were purchased. 

Health department records showed that Love Inside for Everyone, a LGBT+ advocacy nonprofit, performed 35 HIV tests between 2021 and 2024. 

Love Unlimited 4 Life, a transgender advocacy organization no longer in operation, recieved grant funding between 2021 and 2023 for the salaries of two community health workers. Health department records showed that no HIV tests were administered by the organization. 

The nonprofits’ grant agreements also included education and testing events. The auditor’s report called several events “questionable,” including a Latinx pride month and HIV awareness event hosted by Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity that exceeded its proposed budget and included alcohol purchases in a request for reimbursement. 

Love Inside for Everyone used grant funding to rent Metro 2.0, a nightclub owned by the organization’s executive director, Temica Morton, a possible conflict of interest. 

Due to the health department’s lack of grant monitoring, it could not say if HIV testing or awareness activities occurred at the events, the auditor’s office said.

Several federal grants Mississippi relies on for HIV prevention efforts have been cut or destabilized since the Trump administration took office earlier this year. Public health experts have argued these cuts will undermine HIV testing activities. 

White said the audit shows that the Trump administration’s cuts to HIV prevention efforts have been unfairly criticized in a video on Fox News Digital. 

“Our audit shows that when you dig into how this money is actually being spent, it’s not actually helping people with HIV/AIDs, it’s not helping to test people for HIV, it’s instead being wasted,” White said.  

The health department reiterated the importance of community partners to advancing public health goals in a statement. 

“It is important to underscore that these findings do not reflect the value of many nonprofit partners we continue to work with across Mississippi. Partnerships remain critical to our public health mission.”

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

The post Auditor alleges mismanagent of funds by health department 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-Right

The article focuses on State Auditor Shad White’s audit of the Mississippi Department of Health’s management of federal HIV prevention funds, detailing allegations of mismanagement, misuse of funds, and a lack of oversight. The tone and framing of the piece, particularly White’s statements criticizing the health department’s actions and the Trump administration’s cuts to HIV prevention funding, suggest a critical stance towards government inefficiency. However, it also provides the health department’s response, stating the importance of community partnerships and clarifying that not all nonprofit partners are at fault. The overall presentation is fact-based but leans towards a critique of government spending and management, which aligns with a center-right perspective critical of governmental waste and inefficiency.

by Michael Goldberg, Mississippi Today
May 8, 2025

On the heels of the Legislature’s most recent failed attempt to legalize mobile sports betting in Mississippi, a 52-year-old gambling enthusiast named Gary drew a distinction between himself and his fellow bettors: He is a winner, and most of them are losers. 

“To say it honestly, most people are losers when it comes to sports betting because they lose control. But I hope they legalize it because I have control over my gambling,” Gary said. “Certain members of my family call me a degenerate, but I guarantee you I’m not a losing sports bettor.”

Gary, whose full name Mississippi Today agreed not to publish so he could speak candidly about placing illegal sports bets, is among the Mississippi residents who have together placed, according to some analysts, billions of dollars in online sports bets through illicit offshore betting platforms. He is also among the dozens of people who told Mississippi Today, in a written survey and interviews, about what legalization would mean for those who currently bet illegally. 

What emerged is a portrait of the state’s shadow sports betting economy alongside growing concern among experts about the potential for gambling addiction. 

A thriving black market 

The push to legalize mobile sports betting in Mississippi has prompted a debate that has captured the attention of powerful moneyed interests and ordinary citizens alike. It has unfolded in bustling casinos on the Coast, church pews in the Delta and the group text chains of sports-obsessed college students. 

Favorable regulatory and technological shifts have led to rapid growth for the online gambling market in recent years. But the industry continues to be undercut by illegal operators. Online gross gaming revenue in the U.S. topped $90 billion in 2024, $67 billion of which went to unlicensed players, according to research commissioned by the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, a group that lobbies against illegal gambling.

Mobile sports betting statewide has remained illegal in Mississippi, largely due to fears that legalization could harm the bottom line of the state’s casinos and increase gambling addiction. In 2024, illegal online betting in Mississippi made up about 5% of the national illegal market, which is about $3 billion in illegal bets in Mississippi, proponents said that year. 

From the start of the most recent NFL season to about March, Mississippi had recorded 8.69 million failed attempts to access legal mobile sportsbooks in other states, according to materials presented to House members at a legislative meeting.

Those who engage in illegal online sports gambling and spoke to Mississippi Today described a black market that bridges newfangled technologies with the illicit gambling practices of yesteryear. Some use “arbitrage betting tools” and virtual private networks, or VPNs, to bet across the globe on different sites, pitting casinos against each other. Others keep themselves a degree removed from placing bets directly, using “bookies” to place bets on offshore gambling sites.

However people place illegal sports bets, the persistence of a thriving black market and an estimated $40 million to $80 million a year in tax revenue legal sports betting could bring in has prompted a fierce push for lawmakers to legalize the practice. The sports gambling lobby, as it has done in other states, has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Mississippi politicians trying to win the Legislature’s support. 

The Mississippi House in 2023 and 2024 passed legislation legalizing online betting, but it died in the Senate.

Some form of sports betting is legal in 40 states, though only 20 have full online betting with multiple operators, according to Action Network, a sports betting application and news site. Some states have only in-person betting, and some only have a single online operator. Mississippi permits sports betting, but it only allows bets made in person at casinos or bets made with apps on mobile devices while inside casinos. 

That is how Greg, 38, placed his bets in Mississippi.

‘Hyper-targeted victimization’

Greg earned his master’s degree at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi. When he was a student, Greg would make the roughly one-hour drive north to Tunica, home of several casinos along the Mississippi River. The area was one of the first to capitalize after Mississippi enacted the Mississippi Gaming Control Act in the early 1990s, which legalized dockside casino gambling. 

For Greg, driving through the rural Delta landscape to a casino was as a guardrail against over-indulgence, one that has been lost with the advent of smartphones and easy access to offshore betting platforms.   

“That’s a conscious effort, that you think the whole way, ‘is that money you need to be gambling or losing, versus (now) when you’re dialing it up on your phone,” he said. 

Greg has since moved to Kansas, a state that fully legalized mobile sports betting. He now bets on football and college basketball two to four times a week with wagers ranging from $55 to $500. He places bets on three different apps, all of which compete with special promotions enticing him to return. These deals are not typically matched by brick-and-mortar casinos 

“I can’t imagine walking into the Horseshoe in Tunica and them saying, bet $100 cash and we’ll give you a free $50.” 

Online betting is conducive to marketing campaigns that are precise in their execution and relentless in their frequency, experts told Mississippi Today. The rise of mobile sports betting has been accompanied by the introduction of new technologies in advertising and marketing, including those buoyed by artificial intelligence.

“You can absorb their betting patterns and use AI to predict when to send that notification reminding them to place a bet,” said Dan Durkin, an Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Mississippi. “It’s hyper-targeted victimization, let’s just call it what it is.”

Durkin is chair of the steering committee for the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics, an organization that works to promote student well-being in intercollegiate athletics. The coalition has monitored the spread of mobile sports betting as college campuses have become hubs of activity for sports betting and, increasingly, gambling addiction.

According to a 2023 survey conducted by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, sports wagering is pervasive among college students, with 67% of students betting on sports. Nearly 60% of students are likely to bet on sports after seeing an advertisement, the survey found.

And more than 60% engaged in sports gambling are betting on sports using highly addictive “in game/micro bets.” This type of betting allows users to wager on specific in-game moments, such as the next football play or golf swing. That sort of betting would become easier if sports betting is legalized because, under current law, many bettors say they still rely on bookies to place bets on offshore gambling sites for them.

These forms of online gambling, made seamless and accessible through digital apps, can allow addiction to fly under the radar.

Gambling addiction has the highest suicide rate of any addiction disorder, according to the National Institutes of Health. The disorder’s ability to fester in private makes intervention more daunting, Durkin said.

PODCAST: Mississippi citizens often left in the dark on special-interest lobbying of politicians

“If you have a drug problem, you are going to have physical symptoms. If you have an alcohol problem, you are going to have physical symptoms. Gambling disorder can remain hidden for a very long time. Most of the folks that have it stay very functional,” Durkin said.

“Until they’re not.”

‘Gambler is going to find a way to bet’

For some students, the appeal of mobile sports betting stems not from cleverly-constructed digital marketing schemes, but as a source of camaraderie.

Cole, a 19-year-old college student, likes to bet on soccer and March Madness and the NBA Playoffs. He and a group of friends recently placed bets on the Master’s golf tournament

“It’s fun to do with your friends cause you’re all watching the game together, you get that adrenaline rush, and you celebrate together,” he said. “It’s not life-changing money, it’s mostly a social thing.”

Nevertheless, some Mississippi universities have become so alarmed by the rise of online gambling on their campuses, they are taking steps to prepare for increased addiction, even as mobile sports betting remains illegal. In Oxford, the University of Mississippi plans to hire a gambling clinician to help students struggling with addiction, according to The Daily Mississippian.

Influential religious institutions in Mississippi, a Bible Belt state, have long opposed the spread of gambling, a stance many retained as mobile sports betting came before the Legislature.

During the 2025 legislative session, David Tipton, District Superintendent for the Mississippi District United Pentecostal Church, sent a letter to the Mississippi Legislature opposing legalization on the grounds that it would harm young people in particular.

“The introduction of mobile sports betting would represent the most significant expansion of gambling in Mississippi since the legalization of casinos over thirty years ago,” Tipton wrote. “This development would effectively place a casino in the pocket of every Mississippian, creating new challenges, particularly for our youth and young adults who are the most vulnerable to gambling-related harm.” 

READ MORE: House Speaker Jason White, staff treated to Super Bowl by gambling giant pushing for legalized betting

Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the country, and the extent to which that calls for an added layer of caution lies at the heart of the debate between proponents and opponents of legalization.

“I’m a libertarian. It’s not my job to tell people how to live their life,” said Gary, the 52-year-old sports gambler. “If you can’t control yourself, I’m sorry, learn some control. Is that brutal? Probably, yes. If you want help, there’s way to get help. You can self-ban yourself.”

READ MORE: Questions to ask Mississippi lawmakers about transparency, ethics, special-interest money

Gary says every gambler is responsible for managing their own “leak.”

The term often refers to a consistent weakness in a bettor’s strategy, but Gary also uses it to connote a weakness of will.  

“Every gambler has a leak, as we call them. Drugs, women, money, strippers, or the dice table, which was my leak. I could win every sports bet, but I’m going to walk through the casino and go to the dice table and lose money on a dice table,” Gary said.

“The Legislature, in their great, infinite wisdom, where they say they are protecting people, they’re not protecting anybody except casinos. A gambler is going to find a way to bet.”

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

The post 'A casino in every pocket': Mississippi illegal online sports betting thrives as legalization stalls 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: Centrist

This article presents a balanced view of the debate surrounding mobile sports betting in Mississippi. It reports on both the arguments for and against legalization without strongly endorsing one side over the other. The piece discusses the perspectives of individuals, including sports bettors and opponents from religious institutions, as well as financial considerations and public health concerns. While there are references to lobbying and the role of lawmakers, the article primarily focuses on providing a factual overview of the situation without exhibiting clear ideological leaning. The language remains neutral and factual throughout the piece.