Jackson Free Press

Community stakeholders sent a letter to lawmakers on the Health Budget Review Committee asking them to take several steps in working to reform the state's mental healthcare system and focus more community-based mental healthcare.

The letter is reproduced in full below:

Dear Members of the Legislative Mental Health Tax and Budget Review Committee:

We, the undersigned stakeholders, appreciate the concern you have shown by your close examination of the state's mental health budget. But we fear that you and the legislature are ignoring a much more fundamental and dire issue, and what is actually the real problem: Our State's mental health system is antiquated and costly, both in dollars but even more in human lives.

Because our system overly relies on expensive institutional care in state hospitals and other long term care facilities, Mississippi has not developed to scale the types of services in the community that we know will most help people. As a result, many people are torn away from their families and communities. That is unfair to them and violates their basic civil rights. It also deprives us of benefiting from their presence and their contributions. And perhaps most importantly in your examination of the mental health budget, this over reliance on institutional care is why Mississippi is being sued by the Justice Department. In fact, the DOJ has actively promoted community-based services as a means of preventing the needless isolated institutionalization of people with mental illness.

With early and effective intervention, almost all adults and children with mental illnesses can and want to be part of their families, meaningfully contribute to their communities, and work and/or go to school, outside of institutions. It is alarming to us that your budget discussions have started with the assumption that mental health care is best delivered through institutions. That assumption is not true. It is also harmful. You as legislators are in a unique position to transform our mental health system and bring it into the 21st century.

These are some steps that we strongly urge you to take:

• Meet directly with your constituents with mental illness and their families and ask them about their experiences with the mental health system and what would help them live productive lives. We encourage you to hold public hearings throughout the state.

• Visit the Community Mental Health Centers and mental health nonprofits in your district and find out what support they need to deliver these kinds of services. Find out how effectively the money you appropriated is being spent and what support mental health centers need to maximize the impact of the funds.

• Reach out to your counterparts in other states that have transitioned to an effective community-based system to learn how they did it. New Hampshire, Delaware and Georgia are recent examples.

• Partner with the consumer and family organizations that represent people with mental illness. They can and are willing to provide you data, help you gather feedback and …

Verbatim from Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann's office:

Jackson, Miss.—The final numbers are in: the Jackson online tax-forfeited property auction garnered 1,503 bids on 343 parcels. The Southport Mall Shopping Center, an abandoned commercial property at Highway 80 and Ellis Avenue, received the highest bid at $185,000.

The winning bids in the Jackson auction totaled more than $600,000, which should be distributed to the schools, the city, and the county.

Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann launched online auctions in July 2016 to streamline the purchase of properties forfeited to the State for non-payment of ad valorem taxes. More than 1,300 of the bids in the Jackson auction were online.

An online tax-forfeited property auction in Waveland garnered 458 bids on 99 parcels. More than 380 of these bids were online. The highest bid received was $12,500. In all, the winning bids for the Waveland auction totaled more than $120,000.

Successful bidders in both auctions will be notified by e-mail by the Secretary of State’s Office, and payment of the bid amount must be paid within 15 days of notification.

To view other tax-forfeited properties available for purchase, visit the Secretary of State’s tax-forfeited land search here.

If you missed yesterday’s post on Marc Rowe’s Adidas Crossroads of the South basketball camp, be sure to check it out here. That post detailed the morning activities from the camp, which was at Ridgeland High School.

The camp is no stranger to having some of the biggest high-school prospects from Mississippi in attendance. Former camp participants include Mario Kegler, Rodney Hood, Damian Jones, Tyson Carter and the current top recruit in Mississippi, Nick Weatherspoon.

Big names were on display Saturday, Sept 24, at the camp, with players such as Javian Fleming from Canton High School, Ladarius Marshall from Forest Hill High School, Michael Barber of Jackson Academy and Brandon Weatherspoon of Velma Jackson High School in attendance.

The biggest prospect in attendance happened to be Robert Woodard, who is a junior from Columbus High School. He looked like the stud everyone had talked about all morning long when the games began that afternoon.

Woodard plays as impressive as he looks with his 6-foot, 7-inch frame. During the testing period, he posted a 28.1-inch vertical, a 10.85-second shuttle and 4.06-second full-court dribble.

Woodard said he came to the camp because “of the good competition and a great way to get better,” and, he said, “Being here (at the camp) is better than just sitting at home.”

Last season he averaged 20 points and 12 rebounds per game. As good as his game is—and it is only going to get better—Woodard still has plenty to learn.

Learning defensive principles and getting taught more about help side defense is something Woodard said was the biggest thing he learned he could use to help his game this season. But learning to be a better defender will not be the news that guards and forwards wanted to hear about him.

Plenty of teams are already recruiting him, with offers from Mississippi State University, Louisiana State University, Baylor University, Iowa State University, Stanford University, the University of Alabama, Florida State University and the University of Tennessee.

Woodard is just as good in the classroom as he is on the court, with Stanford making a push to sign him. With the school’s admission standards, his grades have to be great to get the Cardinals’ attention.

As far as recruiting is going, Woodard says he is enjoying it. The forward currently hopes to study physical therapy in college.

One of the biggest up-and-coming players in the state is West Point High School star Austin Crowley. The 6-foot, 4-inch sophomore guard came to the camp to play with Woodard, who is his good friend.

Crowley was solid during the morning tests, with a 28.2-inch vertical, a 10.35-second shuttle and a 4.19-second full-court dribble. Last season, he averaged 14 points a game, four rebounds and six assists.

“I came into this camp with a target on my back as one of the top players, and everyone has wanted to test themselves against me,” Crowley said. “I …

There is plenty of high-school basketball talent in the state of Mississippi, but it doesn’t always receive attention. The major focus of Marc Rowe’s Adidas Crossroads of the South Basketball Camp is highlighting those players in our state that teams might overlook. The camp took place this past Saturday, Sept. 24, at Ridgeland High School and featured some great basketball talent from seventh through 12th grade.

“We have wide areas of our state that are really rural areas and a lot of small towns,” Rowe said. “Sometimes those kids get lost in the recruiting shuffle, or the press overlooks kids because they don’t have a chance at some exposure.”

Rowe was quick to note that a major part of college recruiting is the press that a player receives. Now, with websites such as Scout.com and Rivials.com, there are more opportunity to get noticed, but players still need a place to get that exposure.

“I traveled the country to see other camps like this one, but we didn’t have one for our state,” Rowe said. “That’s when I started this. I came back in 2008 to help kids across the state. We have kids from near Memphis from the north and all the way to the Gulf Coast from the south.”

This is the eighth camp that Rowe has held, and it might have been the biggest, as well. Rowe said 40 young athletes had preregistered, and another 60 athletes showed up that morning to take part in the camp.

The morning session consisted of tests for physical numbers and drills to help improve skills.

Players were tested in the vertical jump, shuttle speed, full-court dribble and burst. Each player did all four tests twice. Knowing these times can give upperclassmen numbers to show scouts and college coaches, and it gives younger athletes an idea of where they need to improve.

Watching the children go through the four tests, Rowe’s coaches did their best to make sure each child had the chance to put up the best numbers that he could achieve. That sometimes meant restarting a drill or a receiving a little coaching before the second run.

After the tests, coaches worked the athletes out in drills designed to help ball handling, shooting, defense, footwork and other areas.

Each coach worked his drill repeatedly until the athletes learned how to correctly perform the task. The coaches gave praise and pointers as needed as they ran the drills.

There was plenty to be gleaned from watching the drills. Nearly every young athlete struggled at following through on his shoot.

Most of the players short-armed their follow-through, which meant their shots hit the front of the rim. There were other follow-through problems, as well, such as the athletes not holding form until their shot hit the rim.

Mid-range jump shots stood out as a positive trait if you watched the drills for any length of time. Watching basketball at nearly …

The Jackson City Council is set to consider "removing Constituent Services and associated funding from the Mayor's Office," during a special meeting for Thursday, Sept. 29.

The proposal comes after a week of questions about how the council might maneuver to replenish funds to the Greater Jackson Arts Council, GJAC, after the administration cut about $125,000 from the organization’s allocation, almost a third of their total budget. The GJAC cuts and the closure of Grove Park Golf Course came as a response to the council’s decision on Sept. 13 to take $100,000 from the Mayor’s Office among other amendments to the proposed 2017 budget.

The meeting is set for 9:00 a.m. tomorrow in Council Chambers in City Hall.