Mayor Frank Melton told department heads he wants a serious re-commitment to house demolition and downtown development in Jackson at a meeting held before members of the press today.
Melton described a blitz approach to demolitions, telling Public Works Director Thelman Boyd and Charles Melvin, who City Council rejected as director of Parks and Recreation last week, to concentrate their efforts on demolition on only a few projects.
"I know you have a lot on the agenda right now, but what I need you to do is give up three or four days to knock all this stuff down with all of your resources, get everything out of the way and then you can go back to whatever it is that you have. ... Both of you have 15 different projects you're doing ... what I'm asking is that you put a halt to those projects and put all of your resources into here, so that instead of taking us six weeks we can get it over-with in three or four days."
Melton also asked Todd Chandler to help with burned properties, referring to Chandler as "fire chief." City Council rejected Chandler as fire chief last month.
Melton described a back-breaking to-do list of demolition work, including taking sledgehammers to apartments owned by Cade Chaple Missionary Baptist Church, on Ridgeway Street, the Maple Street Apartments, A-1 Pallets recycling company on Mill Street, a large section of houses on Cohea Street and a small swath of buildings in the Farish Street Entertainment District.
Melton repeated his belief that half the Farish Street neighborhood would have to be demolished.
Melton said he wants A-1 Pallets, Maple Street Apartments and the Cade Chapel Apartments served with 30-day notices by the end of May 14.
"I don't want to see (A-1 Pallets) sitting there at the end of this year," Melton said. "At the end of this calendar year, it's going to be gone. We already have an active case on that company. ... There's some legal things that I won't get into because the media's in here, but there's some criminal activity going on in there that (Code Enforcement Director) Joe (Lewis) and his staff are dealing with."
A-1 Pallets owner Charlotte Reeves said she was furious at the mayor's allegation.
"I think it's terrible that we would have to get an attorney to take care of something that's totally made up," Reeves said. "We're holding down that part of Farish Street. Here we are, a taxpaying private business. We pay our taxes, our permits and everything. That's $40,000 or $50,000 a year in taxes to the city, and now this. We save 50,000 trees a year with our recycling. I don't know why (Melton) hates us so much."
Reeves also pointed out that that her business is in the historic preservation district, which could make it very difficult for the city to tear down "arbitrarily."
Tampering with designated property could cost developers federal and state grant money for development projects in the neighborhood. Melton said some property owners were "hiding behind" their historical designation. Still, Melton said the city would "follow the guidelines."
"We'll take a picture of (the historically designated buildings) and put it up in a museum somewhere, and then we'll take them down to the ground," Melton said. "We're going to make sure that we'll follow (state and federal) guidelines, and then we'll negotiate with them. If I have to put them on a bus and take them down there and show them what they look like, I'll do that, but I can't allow those structures to exist in that neighborhood," the mayor said.
Melton acknowledged that even if he succeeds in overcoming legal hurdles and federal and state requirements protecting the property, the city's budget can't afford such a large slate of projects. Melton believed he had assigned the city "$2 million worth of demolition" though the city has "less than $1 million" in its demolition budget.
Melton said he wants to do the work more cheaply by getting city employees to handle the demolition work rather than contractors. He said he also wants to use city-owned heavy machinery and borrow machinery from the county and private businesses, like Hemphill Construction Co, Inc.
"We need for (Hemphill) to loan us, pro-bono, a bowling ball machine, with a big ball on it. You can knock stuff down," Melton told Boyd, apparently referring to a wrecking ball. "I don't know if you have someone in your shop who knows how to operate it, but if you do, then we will operate it and return it in short order."
Boyd did not return calls regarding what kind of equipment the city has at its disposal or if Boyd's department has the manpower necessary for Melton's undertaking. Hemphill construction did not immediately return calls.
Melton said he would cut costs for home removal on Cohea Street by enlisting the aid of an unnamed developer who Melton claims wants to remove the dilapidated Cohea homes, renovate them and move them down to the coast to serve as housing for hurricane victims.
"There's a gentleman who wants to come in and move every house out of there. ... l think that's an excellent idea. If I didn't misunderstand him, he's going to pay the city $2,000 per house to move them," Melton said, not naming the developer.
Melton said he was putting a high emphasis on removing houses on Cohea Street to make way for new neighborhood development starting in just two months.
"We're going to start building that neighborhood up effective July 1. ... We're going to come in there with brick homes with wood floors and they're going to be two or three bedroom homes," Melton said, again without naming the developer.
Melton said he was also gunning hard to get moving on a $209 million construction project involving the area around the incoming Jackson Convention Center. Council members say the Jackson Redevelopment Authority put the breaks on the project because developers, including Dallas developer Gene Phillips, wanted to skip the appraisal and the bidding process and had no complete list of incentive requirements for the city.
Melton interpreted the hold-up in the $209 million deal as a problem with JRA, rather than his friend Phillips. Melton said he had ironed out JRA's issues and was personally overseeing the project.
"This is a deal that I'm personally monitoring because I'm trying to learn what it's like to do business with Jackson. I've had my frustrations ... with the JRA, and we finally got that straightened up last week," Melton said.
JRA Director Brent Alexander said the project is not complete but it is moving forward.
"We're comfortable that this project has the best interests of the city in mind, but we're still in the process of negotiating an agreement," Alexander said, adding that negotiations were "going well."
Melton said he wants Phillips getting quality service from the city in the meantime.
"I want these people served like kings. ... I don't want nobody coming to me and telling me that they applied (for something) six weeks ago. We're going to have a 48-hour turnover," Melton said.
Melton's attention to Phillips is in sharp contrast to his treatment of developers for the King Edward Hotel. The city, under Melton's watch, twice stalled federal funding for developers over the King Edward Hotel renovation. In 2006, Melton cited delays caused by his own administration as cause to hand the project over to Phillips.
Melton also alerted department heads that he wanted to make swimming lessons mandatory for children at city swimming pools this summer, saying he wants kids to spend at least "one-third of their time" learning their strokes.
"I'm going to spend a lot of time at our swimming pools this summer making sure that gets done," Melton said.
He said he also wants to push for an "organized tumbling program" under Melvin.
Melton said the reason he'd invited the media to attend the meeting in the first place was to avoid news of the meeting getting leaked to the press.
"For the media: The reason I invited you here is instead of somebody snitching and calling you on the telephone I thought you might as well hear it from me. I know we got snitches in city government," Melton said. "Y'all know things before I do sometimes. And they'll continue to call you. ... Every time I send out a memo they send it to the (Jackson) Free Press so I'm going to do something different. I'm going to send you the memo first, ... If they're going to send that to you, hell, I might as well send that to you as well. So you can call me and ask me about it before they put some kind of stupid spin on it. "
Melton was referring to a memorandum he sent last week to council members, asking them to withdraw the name of JPS school Board Vice President Jonathan Larkin for re-nomination. Melton signed that memo May 10, but on May 11, he told Council President Ben Allen on a talk radio show that he intended to submit Larkin's name to the council for nomination.
When asked if he had lied, Melton said, "Yeah, but let me tell you: These two appointments are the most significant appointments I'll make as mayor. ... What worries me is we have 30-something percent of our kids not going to school."
JPS spokeswoman Peggy Hampton said that student daily attendance at JPS has consistently exceeded 93 percent the last four years.
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