Jackson Free Press

Tax collector Eddie Fair says he runs a tight ship at the Hinds County Tax Collector's office. He boasts he's increased production and efficiency and can bring the same kind of high standard to the Jackson mayor's office. Fair was born in Indianola, Miss.—the child of sharecroppers—and is more than intimate with being broke, he says.

His playful side isn't too far down, and he takes considerable pride in his university years at Jackson State, judging by the pile of Greek paraphernalia crowding his office (Omega Psi Phi 'til the day I die).

Fair owned a number of Jackson businesses—including a van-rental company and a body shop—before running for Hinds County tax collector in 2003. This is his second term.

What experience would you bring to the mayor's office?
I've worked in the private sector as well as the public sector. I've had the opportunity to work for Jackson State University. I've had the opportunity to work in the auto business. I've done everything in that business, from selling cars to finance management, to finance director, to manager. From there I became an entrepreneur, and started my own business: EconoTax. I bought a van rental company. We still have it. From there we bought a paint and body shop. I went into politics, but it's clear I've dominated the private sector. I've had to make payrolls and budgets.

Why did you run for tax collector?
I came to the tax collector's office and found out it was running so bad. It was hard to get in and out of here.

You found this out buying a car tag?
Yeah, I was coming down here to get a tag for my van rental company. Rental tags are different from regular tags. When I got here I had to stand in this long line for about an hour, and then when I finally got up to the window they told me that there was only one person who could issue rental tags, but they were out to lunch and wouldn't be in for another hour. I had to get back into line after this person got back from lunch. From that point I started thinking, "There's got to be a better way. If we have to pay our taxes, we ought to be able to get in and out of line as quickly as possible."

Since I got here, I created a second line for our senior citizens and handicapped people.

What about rental vehicle lines? Did you forbid that particular employee from taking lunches?
We cross-trained everybody so every person in this place can do rental tags. No place should ever have just one person who can do a certain thing. We made sure to shorten our lines, make everyone comfortable and educate our employees so they know how to talk to people.

How do you teach employees to communicate?
There's training for that. We sent them to school; we made sure they had the experience to communicate with the public. Customer service is something I learned in the car business.

We hired an accountant, then we turned around and hired an auditor. We hired the accountant to keep up with the money and the auditor to make sure the accountant was correct.

You mean to tell me that the tax collector's office didn't already have an accountant? The tax collector?
They had one that served as an accountant in the past, but she retired, and they left the position open. Then we hired a banker, one who had been in business for 34 years, to make absolutely sure that he was watching over absolutely everything that happens in this office because if there's one thing we want to make sure it's that there's no money getting misappropriated. We wanted to make sure we could keep up with every single dime. Once we got that taken care of, we wanted to make sure that we paid our employees. A person has to get paid for good work or they don't keep doing it.

How did you get the money for the pay raises?
We worked with the board of supervisors to get more money into the tax collector's office. We just made sure that they knew that the money the tax collector's office gathered is the money that makes the city and the county work. We had to convince them that the office should be more of a priority. After all, we write them a check, then the county and the city writes their people a check. It all stops without this office.

The last guy could've walked in with the same argument, don't you think?
I think he was a nice guy, a very nice guy, but the difference is that one must have a vision and passion for what you want to do. I knew we had to pay our people, and we wanted the employees to treat people the way they deserve to be treated—like they're keeping the government running.

Do you intend to bring pay raises to the city?
We intend to treat city employees with respect, to train them, and to raise their expectations and performance. We need employees to be paid right and held accountable. When I first got here, we had old, worn-out computers, very few printers and one copying machine. The computers were those old big things, 486 models, I think—just huge. We brought in new printers, copiers and computers. Everything they needed, we got. And let me tell you something: They had the money to get it. They'd always had the money to get it.

Let's just say … that they had certain unnecessary diversions of money.

The city's a different government. It may not be as easy to find the money you're talking about.
There's money in the city. What they're using it for is something else, but they've got money coming into the city. It's a question of accountability. I could call any given city official, and they wouldn't have a clue how much the tax collector's office gives them each and every month. Call the mayor or any councilman—you might not get an answer.

Make it easy for them, then. What's the figure?
A test question? Alright, let's see, this past month we gave the city $16 million. The month before that was $26 million.

Ooo, good answer. Quick one, too. This brings us around to the issue of infrastructure repairs. Do you have a plan or outline to deal with the decaying roads. City officials always complain about shrinking budgets.
That's not true.

It's not true that the city has been forced to divert its infrastructure fund because of shrinking revenue? That's not what I heard.
That's not true. Let me tell you something. Eight years ago, U.S. Congressman Bennie Thompson sent $9 million to Jackson, Mississippi, for infrastructure. Ask the city where that $9 million went.

But to answer your question, to get funds for the city you have to have a good relationship with the Legislature, as well as the federal government. In the last 16 years, we've only had three visits to Washington, D.C., to ask for money for the city. Two of them were done by our former mayor. One was done by our current mayor, and I'm sure you remember they had to put him out of White House because he walked in there with weapons.

These are the kind of problems we have. If you're not asking Washington for money, how do you we expect to get money?

We have a good lobbyist. You know John Waits with Winston & Strawn?
It's not the same as having the mayor up there. The mayor is like an ambassador. He should be recruiting people to come to Jackson, making absolutely sure that the people here in Jackson are happy being in this city. There are small things we can do to make people happier about being here.

Take Puckett Machinery, for example. They asked for something very simple: to get a right-of-way to come into their lot. It's hard to maneuver those big trucks off the road. They were willing to pay for it. All we had to do was provide the manpower. It's a very simple thing, and we wouldn't do it.

Puckett is a very integral part of Jackson. Many businesses have left, but they didn't. We lost $150,000 a year when Circuit City closed. That's a lot of money. … Puckett paid $201,588.11 in personal property taxes in 2008. They're very valuable.

Jeez, do you actually go to bed and dream about numbers?
That doesn't include real property. Puckett stayed not because they had to, but because they wanted to. Here they were, willing to pay city employees to do the work to build the road, and the city didn't even supply the workers. We found all kinds of reasons not to help them.

We have to take the attitude as city leaders, to welcome people, as opposed to an attitude of indifference. Crime, for example, is major issue in Jackson. If you don't feel like you're protected and safe, then why would you stay?

That brings us to the police department.
We've got to get more police. We need about 680. We've just had a recruitment class, but we're still not at where we need to be. We just had a huge property-tax increase.

Did you support it?
No, I didn't.

A tax collector who didn't support the property tax?
(Smiles) Tax increases are issued by the tax assessor, not the collector. Make sure people understand that, please. No, really—please. No, I didn't support it, because the people of Jackson are too heavily taxed.

Getting back to crime, I would bring back the crime prevention unit. … Second, we need to make sure that we pay our police officers.

And their pay will come from where?
We'd like to think it'll come from this new tax revenue that we just got in. I'm not ruling out the possibility of raising taxes, but if I did, it wouldn't be anything like that 1 percent tax that Sen. John Horhn is talking about. It would be something along the way of a motel or hotel taxes.

Aren't we already paying an extra hospitality tax to finance the convention center?
That's true, but we shouldn't be, because we could've gotten private donors to do that.

Also, regarding the police department, we have to make sure that we're promoting our senior people. Give them something to work for. If there's no chance for a promotion, why should you do anything other than just go 8 to 5? We all work for promotions, to move up the ladder.

Does the chief need to be full time?
I'm not out to make an enemy out of (Malcolm) McMillin, but the chief needs to be full-time. I'm not saying I'd replace him, but we need a full-time chief. I think he would understand that.

What are your plans for abandoned housing?
We have about 20,000 abandoned homes right here in Jackson—a lot of abandoned houses and buildings. The city should not be in the real-estate business. We need to get rid of them the legal way—we're not going to play with matches or sledgehammers. We want to send the owners letters, to make absolutely sure these people have a chance to respond. If they don't, then we'll deal with them while following the law. If we have to, we'll take them. Then we'll fix them and sell them to someone or tear them down.

The problem, though, is if the house is owned by the city, there's no tax dollars coming into the city. If we sell it to someone, that will mean more tax dollars coming into the city. We'll find developers. If we can't sell some of these houses then we'll get them torn down, and we'll make sure we have in-fill type developers who can build on the ground that we've cleared.

We're going to give them this land, but we'll make sure that when we give them this land, they will have a year to develop the land, and if not, it will revert back to the city.

Read more candidate interviews and election news at jfpelectionblog.com. Get breaking election news @jxnfreepress at Twitter.

Previous Comments

ID

145466

Comment

Mr. Fair sounds pretty sharp. It seems we have a bunch of really good candidates to choose from. The hard part will be choosing the right one.

Author

WMartin

Date

2009-04-02T12:47:05-06:00

ID

145511

Comment

It's hard to quantify "administrative competence and excellence," but Mr. Fair really sounds like a great candidate to me just by virtue of sounding pragmatic and forthright. Great interview, Adam!

Author

darren

Date

2009-04-03T12:46:22-06:00

ID

145512

Comment

Actually, Mr. Fair is an idiot. After dealing with his office for almost 2 years with an issue relating to a mobile home I no longer own in Hinds - but a mobile home his office kept reporting to my credit and to a judge as taxes owed - I finally called to speak to him directly for help. Backstory: I owned a mobile home in Hinds. I sold it and reported it as sold to the tax collector's office. For the next 3 years, they charged me taxes AND sent it on to all of the credit bureaus for non-payment without any kind of notice to me. So after 2 years of dealing with the folks in Raymond and Jackson (why is it necessary that they have 2 offices - 2 offices that can't seem to get on the same page), I got fed up and placed a call to Eddie Fair directly. Besides flat out telling me there was nothing he could do about the problem because they don't report to credit bureaus, he was more interested in carrying on a conversation with someone that was in his office at the time of the call, than with me who was on the phone with him. He just really didn't care that I was being screwed over by his office. And if they don't report to credit bureaus, then why is it on my credit? When I filed an investigation request with each credit bureau, they come back to me and say they investigated and the tax collector's office said the debts are valid EVEN THOUGH I have judgments from a Hinds judge that has stricken them. But Eddie Fair doesn't care. He won't even get off his butt to find out what the problem is and why it's happening. To this day, I still cant' get this off of my credit records. Fair is incompetent and doesn't really care about the people.

Author

LambdaRisen

Date

2009-04-03T12:48:02-06:00

ID

145514

Comment

They do report to credit bureaus. A few years ago I had something show up on my credit reports that said I owed back taxes to Leflore county, I have never lived in Leflore county or owned anything there. I called their tax collectors office and they fixed the problem and had it removed from my credit bureaus reports in less than a week. Sounds like somebody was just being lazy and doesn't know what he was talking about.

Author

BubbaT

Date

2009-04-03T13:16:27-06:00

ID

145520

Comment

Aren’t we already paying an extra hospitality tax to finance the convention center? That’s true, but we shouldn’t be, because we could’ve gotten private donors to do that. Sounds pretty anti-development to me. Not a fan.

Author

QB

Date

2009-04-03T14:33:51-06:00