Real Mississippi Stories the Mainstream Ignored

by JFP Staff
December 2, 2009

JPS Troubles with Federal Tutoring Funds
In July, the JFP reported that Jackson Public Schools may have misspent federal funds during the 2007-2008 school year. According to district and state documents, JPS paid a Jackson tutoring company at least $100,000 more than it should have, given enrollment records. Further investigation revealed that in 2008, a JPS employee had raised concerns that the overbilling actually exceeded $400,000.

Jackson Violent Crime Drops More Than 10 Percent
Absent from most hyperventilating headlines of crime stories has been the hard fact that violent crime is down in Jackson, as it was during Johnson's last administration. (It spiked when Melton was mayor and is dropping again.) Across all categories, violent crime has decreased 10 percent from 2008. Homicides have fallen nearly 40 percent.

Barbour's Fuzzy Math On Education
Announcing his Nov. 3 budget cuts, Barbour claimed that education accounts for over 60 percent of the state budget. While K-12 and higher education together make up 62 percent of the state's general fund spending, they only account for 48 percent of the budget when you add in earmarked state funds like those for transportation, and only 29 percent when including federal funds.

The Better Jackson PAC's Campaign Against Johnson
The JFP was the only media outlet earlier this year to discover and then report the existence of the Better Jackson PAC, a political PAC that was funding then-Councilman Marshand Crisler's campaign for mayor, but was not registered with the city clerk's office and had not filed campaign reports (until after we revealed their identity). When the belated reports showed up just before the election, we learned that much of the money came from the pro-Two Lakes crowd. The money was used for scary campaign glossy fliers mailed to homes in North Jackson using outdated Morgan-Quitno "dangerous" rankings to try to scare people into supporting a candidate who had said he was fully behind the controversial land grab known as Two Lakes.

Two Lakes
The development of a lake project along the Pearl River will have a hefty financial impact local property taxes. Property owners might expect to pay about $22 million annually to pay down the principal on a theoretical 5 percent TIF bond on a $235 million lake plan discussed by the local Levee Board—a nearly 13 mill increase per home. The plan, championed by oilman John McGowan, has morphed several times and is in serious trouble with the U.S. Corps of Engineers. The Corps has said for months that no lake plan has a chance, but other media seem to be holding out as much hope as McGowan, routinely holding back the full story, including about the plan's massive eminent-domain component.

Barbour and Tort Reform
Gov. Haley Barbour regularly misrepresents the impact of tort reform in reducing health-care costs. Barbour, the new Republican Governor's Association chairman, says health-care reform must include more immunity for physicians and hospitals from malpractice suits, but he ignores reports from the Congressional Budget Office explaining that lowering malpractice premiums 30 percent would reduce overall health-care costs by less than 2 percent. Barbour also overstates tort reform's effect in the state.

KBR and Coal Plant
Texas-based KBR, a company tainted by allegations of electrocuting Iraqi soldiers with poor wiring, could get a Mississippi Power contract to build a controversial $2.4 billion lignite-burning plant in Kemper County. KBR Engineering and Construction had inspected the building that shocked U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth last year, and found serious electrical problems 11 months before Maseth's death. KBR ignored the faulty wiring because the company contract did not cover "fixing potential hazards."

The Peters/DeLaughter Saga
Former Hinds County District Attorney Ed Peters got off with immunity this year, after telling authorities that he helped corrupt Hinds County Judge Bobby DeLaughter (his former assistant DA) in a case involving convicted attorney Richard Scruggs. But Peters has been all over a number of suspicious decisions, such as DeLaughter's 2007 decision not to prosecute a cop who ran a red light and killed a man. Peters represented the cop at the time. The two men together have been involved in questionable cases for many years, including the prosecution of Cedric Willis for murder charges on questionable evidence. Bizarrely, no mainstream media, save the Jackson Advocate of years ago, however, seemed willing to touch Peters even as they bought every bit of hype thrown them about other politicians (such as former DA Faye Peterson and Mayor Harvey Johnson).

Corey Maye and Stephen Hayne
Reason editor Radley Balko covered these stories (see page 13) as Mississippi media ignored them. Maye received a death sentence for killing a Prentiss policeman. Medical examiner Hayne testified against Maye, and Balko then investigated Hayne. Maye has a new trial; Hayne no longer serves as Mississippi's autopsy expert, although localities are rehiring him, even as defense attorneys are scouring his cases.

Cost of an Execution
No one really knows what it costs Mississippi to execute someone, and the state's media don't bother to ask about the costs or the effectiveness. In other states, media are reporting that the costs are in seven, eight, even nine figures, given the additional legal and correctional expenses, and the fact that less than a third of all prosecutions seeking death actually get it. Here in Mississippi, the story is one-sided.

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