JFP INTERVIEW
LUMUMBA from page 19
terms of us receiving it, that’s a lot of money. That gives you a whole new economic frontier. That’s the kind of thing that I’m certainly going to be looking out for. At the same time, the hard work of trying to get the sales-tax thing through is something we’re going to have to do. I think that will generate a lot of income, if we can get it through.
What did you mean when you said we’ve been hustled? Well, I think that the problem is that the Watkins Development group—that is supposed to have been doing the Farish Street thing—has not had the capacity to do it. Their lack of capacity has stymied us for a number of years in terms of getting it done. Why have they lacked the capacity? It seems to me that they have been in a lot of different projects and playing with our money. Like the Standard Life building: The city sold that for a million dollars to David Watkins. Then, we’ve got the Farish Street thing they’re involved in. Later on, (Watkins) was involved in the Metro Retro project (to revitalize Metrocenter Mall). I’m not sure that David really ever had enough resources to do all those things. That’s what I’m saying. Maybe “hustled” is too strong of a word. I kind of think he was trying to get some money, at certain points of time, that some of the money he was trying to get for one project may have been going to another project. Apparently, according to what we’ve been told, he’s had some success with the King Edward. I haven’t heard much about the Standard Life, but I’m assuming he’s had some success with that. I think that, sometimes, you need to consider other
“I expect someone to come along that’s greater than me.”
How important is it to make Jackson a tourist destination? It’s important. That’s a good question. I think it’s important, because all major cities nowadays, maybe always, have used that as a portion of their economy. I don’t think we should get beyond ourselves. I don’t think we should be thinking of ourselves as a New Orleans, or (an) Orlando, Florida, or something like that. That’s primarily what they are. I think that we have to have industry. We have to produce something here. We’ve got to address the needs of people who live here, and not just think about bringing other people in. I think (tourism) is an important part. I believe that an important part of that is to do something with Farish Street. I think we’ve been hustled on Farish Street, but I don’t know. Farish Street is an issue that’s lasted a lot longer than me. I just got into public council in 2009.
sources, or at least it needs to be re-vetted. You can’t just assume that because he’s had two successful projects that the third one is going to be good, or the fourth one is going to be good. I don’t think we did our due diligence in terms of the Farish Street project. Is it time to look for another developer on Farish Street? Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I think that we need to look for another developer. If the developers that have it now can jump up and say, “Look, we’ve got it. We’ve got the money. We can do it,” then, of course, you don’t put them out so they can never do it. You’ve called for recruiting undocumented immigrants to Jackson to spur economy growth. Yeah, I want them to become citizens because I think their blend into the political process as well as the economic process could be healthy for us. What we need here is a new culture. It’s a new idea, a new way, a new justice frontier. We have not only a black culture, we have white people who have their culture. We have Hispanics. We have Asians. And something’s going to happen as a result of that. Something always does when you have a new blend of people. The question is it going to be something good or something bad? What we need is a new culture with new ideas that leads up to becoming a model city in the world. You were in the hospital last year. Do you feel physically up to the task?
April 3 - 9, 2013
Think Outside The Spa
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CranioSacral Therapy: light touch massage balances Nervous posture Myofascia Therapy: deep tissue bodywork balances Structural posture Taoist ChiGong: energy projection therapy balances Energetic posture Benefits of Posture Therapy: increased range of motion, more energy, muscular alignment, chronic pain relief, stress reduction & more
JACKSON POSTURE CENTER Travis Sledge LMT MS 1876 | 601.842.8221 by appointment only JacksonPostureCenter@gmail.com | www.JacksonPostureCenter.com