Jackson Free Press

Eighteen months ago, Darrel McQuirter, the former fire chief of the City of Clinton, beat a candidate backed by U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson and who also had the endorsement of then-Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba, to win a seat on the Hinds County Board of Supervisors. As soon as he joined the board, his colleagues voted him president of the board, and he and a new majority coalition set about what they hoped would be a change to business as usual at the county.

"Even though we represent our individual districts, the body as a whole is suffering," McQuirter said. "My concern was that Hinds County as a whole was hemorrhaging. Until you figure out how to stop that, things will get worse."

On Aug. 4, in the Democratic primary election, McQuirter finished in first place among three candidates and won 44 percent of votes; he faces business consultant and community activist David Archie in a runoff on Aug. 25 for District 2 supervisor. In the meantime, he's also in the middle of tense budget hearings as the county crafts a spending plan for the coming fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

He recently met the Jackson Free Press for an early breakfast at a Clinton restaurant to dish on running for reelection while shaping the county's budget.

What are your priorities—for your campaign as well as the county?

As far as the campaign is concerned, we're running hard. We've got another race to run. We expect to be victorious in it, but right now we're also having to deal with budget hearings. As always, the requests far exceed the county's abilities to cover all the requests. So we're in the process of scaling those down to bring them into budget. We're looking at a $52- to $53-million budget, slightly below what we did last year. We have well over $8 million in requests beyond that $53 million that we're going to have to narrow down.

Our priorities would be to continue to stabilize the detention centers. The next priority would be the emergency-communications system we've been working on that is still under state of emergency. We're also making sure we're cutting the budget by getting rid of some nonessential services and programs, perhaps.

Which programs are being looked at for cuts?

It may be something within a department. If we've had some people who have retired or some vacancies, it's not guaranteed that we'll fill those vacancies. As far as cutting a department, laying off or furloughs, that's not something we feel is going to happen within our budget or within this fiscal time period.

Is the county projecting a deficit?

We just have to make some tough decisions and cut some of the requests. There are few things that we're going to have to fund. We're still operating under a court decree with the Henley-Young juvenile detention center. And now we've got a U.S. Department of Justice report that's more than likely going to result in an additional court decree. We're hoping to have discussions with the Department of Justice to work out an agreement instead of just being handed one.

Does the changeover in sheriff affect the conversations?

We don't know who the sheriff is going to be. Whoever's coming in has to understand that there's a new partner at the table and that partner is the (U.S.) Department of Justice.

Looking back over your tenure, what would you count as accomplishments?

Some things I wish I had done better would be to communicate what the responsibility of the Hinds County Board of Supervisors consists of. I went in, on my part, to bring stability to the board. The second (accomplishment) was to work with the sheriff and law enforcement to address crime issues. We've implemented numerous preventive things to help speed up the judicial process.

One of the critical themes that emerged in your first campaign has re-emerged, that you're too Clinton-centric, too close to Mayor Phil Fisher. What's your response to that?

I think it about it all the time. It's a lie. It's not true, but I can't stop people from saying it. The mayor of Clinton has contacted me twice. The first was to sign a piece of paper to apply for a grant. The other one was a ribbon-cutting ceremony. In roughly 18 months, I've been contacted by the mayor (of Clinton) two times. On the other hand, I've spoken with the mayor of Jackson five times, the mayor of Edwards, Bolton, Learned and Utica, I speak to them every other month. So even though I'm a Cintonian, I spend very little time dealing with the mayor of Clinton on any issue.

It's amazing to me that smaller communities can receive more from the county than the City of Clinton (and) you have two supervisors who live in Clinton.

The City of Jackson gets far more (funding from the county) than anybody, and the City of Jackson have its own funding for roads, which means the City of Jackson double dips.

So for people to say I'm tied to Phil Fisher, I can't help that I live in the City of Clinton. He's the mayor. I worked for the City of Clinton for 30 years; that's part of my life. I don't run from that, I don't hide that.

What's your assessment of the relationship between Hinds County and the City of Jackson as well as the county and the state?

The county and the City of Jackson, both of us are working through some critical issues that are very costly and involve a lot financing, but at least we're coming to the table to talk about them. We haven't worked them all out. There are things that cross over between the two of them that we're going to have to address—the jail, the Henley-Young juvenile detention center, the radio-communications systems.

Jackson is going through some financial issues in their budget hearings that have been well publicized. Right now, what we're doing is trying to keep from doing the same furloughs that they're doing.

... We're disappointed in some things we requested from the state, and we were not funded in any of those areas. We requested more judges, the same thing that Rankin County requested.

We requested assistance with the detention center, seeing that the City of Jackson and Hinds County receive a lot of people who have been released from other (correctional) facilities that we have to address and house. (There is) a problem with mental health as far as getting help for those who are incarcerated and need to come out. Some of the other things we requested help on: help with economic development and the Byram-Clinton corridor (and a) wastewater authority for the same project.

Four years from now, what do you hoped to have accomplished if you get another term?

Four years from now, we hope to have worked with the City of Jackson to have changed the skyline of downtown Jackson—more development, more business going up. I'm hoping to have a long-term road-paving program in four years.

We're hoping to be out from under all court decrees pertaining to the detention centers. We're hoping to have a business operating that employs hundreds if not thousands. In four years, we are hoping to have completed the Davis Road portion of the Byram-Clinton corridor. With that middle section completed, all of a sudden it opens the avenue for Jackson to land the Costcos and the Bass Pro shops. So, a heavy push on economic development. ... Because without the rooftops, we can't pay the bills.

Read an interview with David Archie at www.jfp.ms/2015elections.