Jackson Free Press

• Downtown Jackson Partners is proud to announce it is partnering with the Town Creek Arts Festival to host Downtown on Display, an open house event for downtown Jackson businesses. It'll be held on October 5, 2013. From 2 - 5 PM, visitors will have the opportunity to take architectural tours, get access to magnificent views, eat, shop, and listen to live music. Read more here.

• We really enjoyed putting together the "Good" issue of the Jackson Free Press last week. If you missed it, be sure to check out the latest PDF edition on the main page. There are always so many solid ideas in it, and some of them are even feasible.

• I'm gearing up today for a tour of the James Eastland Federal Building with architect Roy Decker, who is going to show JFP photographer Trip Burns and me his plans for transforming the downtown landmark into a new mixed-use building to house residents and some commercial businesses. For more information on the Eastland Building, go here.

• In other news, and in case you're a sports fan, the Jackson State football Tigers improved to 2-0 in Southwestern Athletic Conference play with a 35-7 whipping of Texas Southern last Thursday at Veterans Memorial Stadium. The Tigers (2-2) are tied atop the SWAC East standings with rival Alcorn State, which defeated Arkansas-Pine Bluff 21-16 on Saturday.

Mayor-elect Chokwe Lumumba will be sworn in today at noon, but the proverbial cat may be out of the bag on his first announcement after being inaugurated.

On Saturday, Jackson State University put out a press release congratulating Deputy-Chief Lindsey Horton on being named the city's next police chief.

City officials have not confirmed that Horton has been chosen, but Lumumba hinted to television station WAPT to expect an announcement soon after he was sworn in today at the Jackson Convention Center.

Horton would replace Rebecca Coleman, whose four-year tenure as chief ended Saturday.

You can read more about Horton in a 2011 JFP profile here.

Jackson State University is apparently getting serious about building a domed stadium.

The university has launched http://www.jsums.edu/dome/, a site that includes a rendering and includes details on planning that were previously undisclosed. The cost of the 50,000-seat domed stadium is still listed at $200 million, and the site says the JSU administration has identified over $300 million in funding possibilities.

"The stadium is designed for football, basketball, concerts and special events," the site says. "Seating is 50,000 for football, 17,000 for basketball and 21,000 for concerts. It will include 75 sky boxes for rental. JSU's Sports Hall of Fame will be housed on the first floor. The design includes 4,500 parking spaces. Another 2,000 are located in garages downtown where shuttle buses can help on big game days."

The site says JSU currently owns 30 percent of the land on the preferred site.

Brent's Drugs in Fondren is set to host CROSSHATCH, a fundraiser for Fund the Hatch, a mixed-use creative business incubator the old warehouse building at 143 Keener Ave. in Midtown.

The JFP first wrote about the incubator on April 3, 2013, and project's lead promoter/developer/fund-raiser Whitney Grant of Midtown Partners has been working since then to find a workable, self-sustaining system for the building to operate under and the funding to bring it to a reality.

The event at Brent's is set for 8 p.m., Friday, January 10. It will feature music, an arts raffle and drinks and is scheduled to roll 'til midnight.

The Indiegogo campaign for the Hatch has 13 days left, and it's currently raised approximately $4,800 out of the $25,000 goal.

Check it out.

Yahoo! Sports has picked up a story from the Ole Miss student newspaper The Daily Mississippian that details the homophobic actions of at least 20 students, including members of the Ole Miss football team, during a play on campus in Oxford.

From the DM Online's story by writer Adam Ganucheau:

According to the the play's director and theater faculty member Rory Ledbetter, some audience members used derogatory slurs like “fag” and heckled both cast members and the characters they were portraying for their body types and sexual orientations. Ledbetter said the audience’s reactions included “borderline hate speech.”

The play was "The Laramie Project," a play about the aftermath of the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a University of Wyoming student who was gay. Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson were convicted of beating Shepard and tying him to a fence where he was left to die. Both received consecutive life sentences.

Somebody in City Hall is listening.

The city clerk's office has posted the agenda for next Tuesday's City Council meeting, and it looks like Mayor Chokwe Lumumba plans to present two new Jackson Redevelopment Authority board members for council approval.

The first is Kemba Ware, a Data Information Manager at Jackson State University, and the other is attorney Jennifer Johnson. It is unclear which wards they will represent, but as we profiled in this week's cover story, there are three spots open. Neither of the nominees could be reached late this afternoon.

Bishop Ronnie Crudup, the board's chairman, has been out of term since Aug. 13, 2011 and two other members, Brian Fenelon and John Reeves, have been out of term since Aug. 13, 2012 and 2013, respectively.

UPDATE: It looks like the JFP once endorsed Kemba Ware as a young influential in 2005, which you can read here. And it looks like Jennifer Johnson would represent Ward 7, if approved.

The US Human Rights Network has announced it will honor Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba and six others with the 2013 U.S. Advancing Human Rights Award. The Atlanta-based organization describes itself on its web site as "a team of thematic experts, organizers, education specialists, trainers, communications experts, and human rights activists."

It describes the award ceremony, set for Dec. 6-8 in Atlanta, as an opportunity to "recognize and celebrate six visionary people and one organization building and strengthening the human rights movement at the grassroots level."

To be considered, nominees must have had at least five years experience in grass-roots organizing in the area of immigration, environmental and climate justice, workers rights, or access to justice, as well as other areas such as racial justice, women's rights, disability rights, and economic, social and cultural rights.

Other award recipients include Haitian Women of Miami Executive Producer Marleine Bastien, Desis Rising Up and Moving Executive Director Monami Maulik, Texas Latina Advocacy Network Field Coordinator Lucy Ceballos Felix, Navajo Nation Corrections Project Supervisor Lenny Foster, Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign Co-founder J.R. Fleming and Mossville, La. community organization Mossville Environmental Action Now.

The budget for Jonathan Lee's campaign to become next mayor of Jackson has officially topped $400,000 since the start of 2013.

In a report filed Tuesday, May 14, 2013, with the City Clerk's office, the treasurer for Jonathan Lee's political action committee "Friends of Jonathan Lee" says the Lee campaign raised $66,459 since April 11, putting his calendar year-to-date total at $401,019.12.

The report says Lee has also spent $372, 762.08 total, and $65,815.41 of it since April 11, 2013.

The report, which you can read here, shows that Lee received several large donations in the past month, including a $2,500 donation from Guy H. White of Ridgeland and a $2,000 donation from Emmerson Asset Management, LLC. He also received $1,000 donations from The District Land Development Company, Bennchmark Construction Corp., Fondren Place Apartments LLC, Integrated Management Services and private citizens Susan McNease of Jackson, Steven Speights of Jackson, Samuel Lane of Jackson and Deshun Martin of Jackson.

Lee's opponent in the May 21 runoff, Ward 2 Councilman Chokwe Lumumba, also filed his report on time (yay!). His report indicates that his campaign has just topped the $100,000-mark, year-to-date, with $31,957 of that coming after April 11, 2013.

Lumumba has received large contributions in the past month, including a $5,000 from Adekuule Adekuubi (trust me, we are digging trying to figure out who these people are), $2,000 from Burk-Kleinpeter Inc. (an engineering company out of Baton Rouge, La.), $1,500 from himself, $1,300 from New England Contractors LLC (a Jackson business) and $1,000 donations from Adam Shakoor of Detroit, Mich., Herbert Irvin of Jackson, Mississippi Boys Hoops Inc. of Jackson, attorney John Walker of Jackson, J&J Wholesale of Clinton and attorney Winston Thompson of Jackson.

Ward 4 City Council hopeful De'Keither Stamps also filed a report, which you can read here.

Stamps report says he received a total of $4,940 between April 28 and May 11, 2013, from himself, coffee roastery engineer Nikdra Ford and Honeysucker and Honeysucker Inc. He spent $1,931 at A2Z Printing, and split the rest of his spending between Wal Mart, Raceway, Spaceage Marketing and Printing and Poll Watchers. He reports $277 cash-on-hand.

See, it's not hard to follow the law.

Some will remember the story the JFP broke back in May about a lawsuit a student brought against Northwest Rankin High School after she was forced to attend a religious event at the school. Well, the student won in federal court, and Northwest Rankin has a brand new policy on keeping religion out of the school.

In his judgement against the school, Judge Carlton Reeves said the school violated the establishment clause of the first amendment when it made attendance mandatory at the April 10, 2013 program.

The school was also told to pay the legal fees of the student, totaling $15,000.

The American Humanist Association released this statement earlier today:

A judgment has been entered by a federal court in a case brought by the American Humanist Association’s Appignani Humanist Legal Center on behalf of a student at a Rankin County, Mississippi high school challenging the proselytizing religious assemblies it staged for students earlier this year. The lawsuit was filed April 24, 2013 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi against administrators of Northwest Rankin High School in Flowood, MS and the county school district.

The judgment includes an admission of liability by the defendants that they violated the Establishment Clause, the provision of the Constitution that requires separation of church and state. It also requires the school district to comply with a new policy that prohibits future such violations and orders the defendants to pay the plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees.

“A lot has been accomplished and I’m pleased with the outcome of the suit,” said Magdalene “Gracie” Bedi, the student plaintiff in the case. “I'm grateful for the school's maturity throughout this ordeal and I look forward to graduating with them on a positive note. No one should have to question their rights in a public school and I think Northwest [Rankin High School] realizes this now.”

Before filing suit, a letter was sent asking school officials to stop the practice, where a student representative of the Pinelake Baptist Church spoke of finding “hope” in “Jesus Christ,” but the assemblies continued with school administrators insisting the assemblies were “student-led and organized.” According to students present, however, those who attempted to leave were prevented from doing so. At the end of the presentation, the speakers led the students in a Christian prayer. Videos captured by students can be found here and here.

“We are pleased that the school’s administrators have admitted that they violated the Constitution and agreed to continuing court oversight to prevent future violations,” said William Burgess, legal coordinator of the Appignani Humanist Legal Center. “There was clear evidence that these Christian assemblies were endorsed and organized by the school. To continue to deny a constitutional violation had taken place was untenable.”

Jackson State will not play a homecoming game this season. Here's what is happening instead.

In a response to a release from the city yesterday citing decreasing crime numbers you can read about here, the campaign to elect Regina Quinn put out this press release Thursday afternoon:

"Today the Jackson Police Department released statistics stating that overall crime is down 16.2%. As of December 2012, three months ago, the City of Jackson reported 66 homicides, compared to 54 in 2011. Police also said violent crimes were up in 2012, with rape and aggravated assault up 8 percent. The current administration emphasized the fact that property crimes were reduced. Yet, they have offered no strategy to deal with the constant increase in violent crimes in our capital city. What does it say about the quality of life in Jackson when the city boasts a decrease in property crime, and offers no solution to loss of 66 lives? Just this year alone, two young people lost their lives over a dice game. We must take control of crime, especially violent crime. I want you to trust that you can count on Regina Quinn to take Jackson in a New Direction."

A release also included a link to a WAPT report with some background on those homicide numbers. JPD has maintained that it cannot do much about murders aside from solving them, which they have become remarkably apt at doing. Nearly 65 percent of murders in Jackson were solved in 2012, 15 percent higher than the national average of 50, according to WAPT's report.

• The Barnett Reservoir Foundation and the Pearl River Valley Water Supply District will host a Memphis Barbeque Network (or MBN) judging class at the Rankin Reservoir Community Center from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. It's $80 to enter, but this is awesome because A) An MBN team will cook ribs and pulled pork on site, and B) You get to eat it and learn how to judge the results. There are only 30 spots in the class, so check out the web site. The Barnett Reservoir Foundation and Pearl River Valley Water Supply District is holding an MBN contest called "Smokin’ on The Rez" on Nov. 1-2 at Old Trace Park at Barnett Reservoir.

• One of the best kept secrets in Jackson is Blue Monday at Hal & Mal's hosted by the Central Mississippi Blues Society. It's a celebration of the blues, and musicians are invited to come jam. That's every Monday night, 7:15-8:15 Front Porch acoustic hour, followed by CMBS's Blue Monday Band at 8:45 'til 11PM. Check out their web site here.

• One thing I've always enjoyed as a reporter is Friday Forum, an informational meeting held every Friday morning at Koinonia Coffee House. It's co-hosted by former mayoral candidate Jonathan Lee, and always has interesting guests talking about topics of interest. This week's guest is Kathy Times, Vice President/ COO of WhereToGo411.com. Times will be speaking about the State Institutions of Higher Learning's Minority Economic Opportunity Initiative/WhereToGo411 Partnership. Should be fun so come on out.

The response to the question that will be posed to the Jackson City Council next Tuesday (Oct. 22) is something many people are asking: Is the Jackson Redevelopment Authority still worth having?

Ward 3 Councilwoman LaRita Cooper-Stokes has put forward item No. 34, an order by the city council unauthorizing the JRA.

Technically, the word should be de-authorizing, but you get the message. This conversation should be interesting in light of recent developments with the Farish Street saga and the unanswered questions surrounding the non-existent convention center hotel.

For a quick history lesson, JRA was created during the 1970 legislative session. It’s a seven-member board that has power, under the Mississippi Code of 1972, to establish and construct municipal parking facilities for motor vehicles belonging to members of the general public, and to rent, lease, purchase, or acquire land and property for public purposes (the historic Farish Street district or the land on which the Jackson Convention and Visitors Bureau now sits, for example).

This may get a bit technical, but it also has the power and authority to rent, sell, convey, transfer, let or lease such facility and related structures or any portion thereof, or any space therein, and to authorize commercial enterprise activities other than the parking of motor vehicles on leased property comprising any part of such parking facilities and related structures, which is what it is doing with the Farish Street Entertainment District and the land on which the new Iron Horse Grill will sit.

Because the JRA board was set up by Mississippi law, it is unclear whether or not the city council even has the authority to do eliminate the quasi-governmental body.

We reached out to all the city council members this morning and, so far, Ward 6 Councilman Tony Yarber is the only one to comment. He said he is not likely to support the motion.

“What I am in support of is a proposal I’m going to bring forward,” Yarber said, “a motion that will require JRA to involve the (city) council in future, and way earlier on in the process.”

Yarber said he could bring his motion as early as next week.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Ward 4 Councilman De'Keither Stamps responded with a "no comment."

The campaign to elect Chokwe Lumumba as Jackson's next mayor just posted a video of rapper Ludacris endorsing Lumumba for mayor and urging Jacksonians to vote today.

You can see the video here.

The secret, underground Quentin Whitwell write-in campaign could be doomed if they don't get an emergency endorsement from Chingy in the next hour.

The campaign to elect Regina Quinn mayor of Jackson has sent over a copy of the campaign finance report it plans to file for 2012. You can read it here.

Quinn's biggest supporter is her husband John May Jr., who gave $25,966 over a six month period.

The report does not have the seal of Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, meaning the copy we received had not been filed when it was scanned and sent to us, but this is the first glimpse into the finances of the Quinn campaign to date.

Jackson Police Department crime statistics through the end of March show a slight to moderate improvement in almost every category.

According to the data, through March 31, auto burglaries, auto thefts, business burglaries, grand larcenies, house burglaries, aggravated assaults, armed robberies and homicides are down from last year.

Carjacking is up by five cases (47 YTD in 2013, as opposed to 42 in 2012), and there have been four more reported acts of rape (26 YTD in 2012, 30 in 2013).

You can check out the whole breakdown of the report here.

Last night was a treat.

The football season officially kicked off with No. 1 Brandon defeating No. 6 Madison Central 21-14 in front of an estimated crowd of 9,000 interested onlookers at Madison's Jaguar Field.

The Bulldogs (1-0) broke a 14-14 tie late in the fourth quarter on a 7-yard Devin Wilson touchdown run. Brandon's highly-touted quarterback Gardner Minshew completed 15 of 28 passes for 216 yards, a touchdown and an interception, and completed a 47-yard pass to Chris Ward to set up the final touchdown.

Mississippi State’s Gabe Jackson, an All American guard rated at the top of his position by NFL draft experts, has been selected the first winner of the Kent Hull Trophy as Mississippi’s most outstanding collegiate offensive lineman.

Jackson will receive the Kent Hull Trophy at the C Spire Conerly Trophy banquet Tuesday night at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in Jackson. Jackson, a fifth-year senior from Liberty, also has been named State’s finalist for the C Spire Conerly Trophy.

"The Conerly" honors Mississippi's most outstanding collegiate football player.

Jackson mayoral hopeful Jonathan Lee hit the airwaves last night with the premier of his television spot, now he's released a 14-page brochure—a prospectus, if you will—you can find here.

In it, Lee discusses, sometimes in detail, his plan to tackle crime, employment and economic development, infrastructure and education.

Lee has taken heat in recent debates, albeit indirectly, for being a DINO (a Democrat in name-only). But Lee has pushed back, saying his voting record speaks for itself, saying at the last mayoral forum, ending his closing remarks with "At the end of the day, these potholes don't have a party affiliation."

Democratic nominee for the mayor's office Chokwe Lumumba has filed a general election campaign finance report, which you can read here.

Councilman Lumumba has raised $71,614 since April 28, and spent $74,696 in that same period, leaving him with $15,333 in the tank headed into the June 4 general election against three independent candidates.

Year-to-date, Lumumba has raised $140,367 and spent $133,988.

Some of his biggest contributors on this report are Samuel L. Agnew of Baton Rouge, La. ($15,000), SJG Consultants Inc. of Greenville ($8,000), Winston Thompson III of Madison ($5,000) and a "G. Williams" of Ridgeland ($5,000).