Jackson Free Press

In his long Feb. 26 interview with Jackson Free Press editor Donna Ladd in his City Hall office, Mayor Frank Melton turned the topic to the young men in his life. This excerpt picks up with Melton returning to an earlier statement he made about not wanting to be mistreated; he hadn't answered the question earlier of who was mistreating him, but suddenly decided to address it. In so doing, he brought up the fact that he has paid for many funerals of young people in Jackson—which he calls "burying kids"—which he used to talk about often.

Melton: The best example I can give you of mistreatment. A family goes to a particular funeral home, and they make arrangements for the loss of their child. The tab might be $5,000. The family announces to the funeral home, "Mr. Melton is going to take care of this," and all of a sudden, it's $8,000. And I've gone through quite a bit of that. That's why I use Peoples because we have a standard price at Peoples. They agreed with me years ago when I had to bury so many kids, let's just come to maybe a $3,500 (fee) ...

Ladd: Is that what it is?
Yeah, about $3,500 when I have to bury a kid. And most parents don't take life insurance out on their children because they don't expect anything to happen.

I haven't heard you talking about burying kids recently. Who have you ...
Umm, I think over the years it's probably been in excess of 30, 35, 40, but lately the last one was a 16-year-old that I taught how to swim, and that was two years ago.

Who was that?
That was Keavon Jones. Yeah. That wasn't as much as paying for the funeral. That's just the last kid that really emotionally kind of set me back because it was so unnecessary. The funerals lately were like Maurice Warner (a friend of Melton's known for drug-dealing; he was murdered on Christmas Day 2008). I mean, the family took care of that, but that's a relationship that goes all the way back to Maurice when he was 13, 14 years old. And I want to talk to you a little bit about that, too.

I'd like you to.
Yeah. What I like to say about that, Donna. I don't remember specifically who the mayor was. It might have been in Philadelphia (Pa.), when I visited Houston, I don't know. But here's the scenario. The young person goes to jail. He comes back to Jackson. He's got no employment. He's not involved with the church family, and has no direction. So, what I've tried to do, and it's worked out well—yes, they have a criminal background, and some of them I've put in jail myself. And I disagreed with the mistakes that they made. Mainly they're usually drugs. But I bring them in for two reasons. Reason No. 1 is to give them the opportunity to sustin themselves and their families. And reason No. 2 is so I can have some sense of control over their behavior. What I do is I employ them, and I get them involved in the church family. The church has really worked out well for them. When I'm making my rounds, I'll see the families in church, and I feel really good about that.

You were talking about Maurice?
Not only Maurice, but Anthony (Staffney) and Marlon (Warner). Anthony and Marlon are doing very well. We just had to go through a little episode with Anthony. We discovered he had diabetes and had to ...

He's lost a lot of weight. I saw him at the trial and wondered ...
Yes, he's got diabetes. Yeah. We had to get that straight. But they're doing relatively well.

Was Marlon at the trial? I don't know him by sight.
Very light-skinned ...

Was he at the trial?
Yeah. He's light-skinned; their mother had ... three boys boys—Maurice, Marlon and Marcus.

I don't know Marcus.
Yeah, you never met Marcus. He's kind of heavy-set. He deals with installation of electronics: stereos, theaters. He did the theater at my home.

What's happened in the Maurice (murder) case?
The latest I know, my intelligence is that the guy is right here in Jackson, doing the same thing he's always done.

He hasn't been arrested, right?
No. He's appearing at the same locations that he usually frequents. Before that I had intelligence that he'd gotten on an 18-wheeler and went to Los Angeles, but as recently as last week, I was asking about (suspect) Saheed (Davis), and he's just right back in the neighborhood.

Do you have any sense of why he might done it, allegedly done it?
In this one, you can't use—I can't use the word "allegedly" because it was done in front of too many people. He did it; there's no question about it. There was an ongoing feud between the two of them. They were married to two sisters. I don't know what it was about. I think money was involved. And it is what it is.

Was Maurice to your knowledge dealing drugs still?
I don't know if he was still dealing drugs, but I've said publicly before that he was in that culture.

Read the full Melton interview series, published every Tuesday, at http://www.meltonblog.com. In the next segment, Melton discusses why he's running for re-election.

Previous Commentsshow

Ladd, This is another great look at a potential candidate. One question though. Why is the JFP spending so much column space and time on Frank Melton when we have a pack of candidates we know little about go unvetted? We know Mr. Melton. Nothing you can say, print or shout from the ramparts is going to change anyone's mind about Melton. His followers will remain loyal, his critics will remain disgusted and the Clarion Ledger will remain moot. Please leave Frank Melton alone and re-direct you and your staff's rather considerable journalistic skills to vetting the rest of candidates. Also, when is the JFP going to "frame" the election with a comprehensive article that presents the major principles of good government, policy issues and character traits we need in our elected officials. If you've already done a comprehensive article, or if you can provide a list of several artilces where you have already done that, please give is the links. Time is a-wastin' Thanx..and keep up the good work.

FrankMickens

Mar 26 2009

Sorry, we won't be leaving Melton alone as long as he's mayor. We've watchdogged him from the beginning, and we'll see it through to the end. Besides, people would revolt if we stopped covering him, and some might not even pick up the paper where they will also see all these other hard-hitting stories if we started ignoring him. The irony of the whole frustrating four years is that it's been very good for readership and gaining the respect of the community. You might notice that Adam Lynch is pretty much off the Melton beat, other than breaking news like this Democratic dust-up (which he broke the news of four years ago). He's the one covering the mayoral candidates (other than Melton) and doing these JFP interviews the likes of which you won't see anywhere else. Ward is covering the Melton trials and the City Council candidates. I'm continuing my long-time in-depth work on Melton. Meantime, though, we will continue to bring you these kind of substantive stories on issues and candidates. I don't know if people understand how abnormal it is for any paper in the country, daily or weekly, to do the kinds of issue-driven stories we do during campaign seasons, or the in-depth interviews (that can't be done in e-mail,as The Clarion-Ledger likes to do Q&A interviews; sigh). We realize that some people will never be happy no matter how hard we work, and that we set our own bar high, but we're "framing" the election with every issue and every story. I assume you saw my editor's note this week about open government. That's the threshold I need to see any candidate cross strongly before I will consider endorsing him or her. Otherwise, be sure to keep an eye on the city election page at http://www.jfpelectionblog.com to make sure you don't miss anything.

DonnaLadd

Mar 26 2009

Oh, and in case you missed it, Casual, the interview piece above and the rest of that series were all done by me, and only appear in their entirety online, where we have all the space in the world. They're only getting half a page in each print edition, precisely because we don't want to take space away from covering other candidates. So, no worries. We can do both. ;-) Finally, don't forget that the Melton saga is far from over. And it's not only about whether he should remain mayor. It's a bigger and more important story than that, and it is not the time to stop covering him.

DonnaLadd

Mar 26 2009

lIGHTEN UP, Casual Observer. You are asking an editor-In-Chief to do what no other paper has even come close to doing. For the past weeks, there have been very intense and revealing information with mayoral candidate. Crisler, Horn, H. Johnson and now Robert Johnson have all been on the cover of the JFP. I think that there are enough weeks left to feature all who will run in the May primary; however, the JFP does not have the responsibility of making the candidates known. There are forums, debates, ward meetings, church and civic functions wherein you can meet the candidates. People are walking all over Jackson with campaign literature. It's on your door, your mailbox and ect. In this week's JFP, the candidate who is running against Weild(sp) is featured also. Candidates must raise money to promote themselves, also; radio, TV. There are some papers that are "wastin' time; however, the JFP is not one of them. Check out your folks over at the CL. As far as the reporting of melton is concerned, he holds the title as mayor of the city and his actions are newsworthy. Until he is out of office and heading back to his home in Tyler, Texas or whereever the hell he comes from, we will be seeing, hearing and reading about mr milton.

justjess

Mar 26 2009

justus and ladd, I guess I have set a higher bar for JFP. Donna you have spoiled us. I appreciate that JFP has not stooped to "gotcha journalism" as epitomized by the Clarion Ledger's "expose" that several mayoral candidates owed back taxes in the order of magnitude of "hundreds of dollars". Even though the CL verified that each candidate each candidate did pay their taxes, albeit late, the CL still reported this as news, Duh... Abraham Lincoln, maybe our greatest President declared bancruptcy.. twice. Ironicaly enough, the CL also ran a story on how a dozen or so incumbents mayors throughout MS had decided not to run for re-elecction. More than one of the now lame duck mayors cited the intrusions into their personal and family lives by the media. Too "much gotcha" journalism lead to "see ya" public servants. Where is the investigative journalism? For example: Robert Johnson stated that through his leadership in Jackson MI, he accomplished this and that with the funds available. Has anyone from the JFP made at least a phone call to their journalistic brethern in Jackson MI to verify this? Harvey Johnson talked about his successes in economic development...so why are the MS Braves in Pearl? I want to hear what he says. Same question to Mr Crisler. John Horne reports that he will use his relationships in the legislature to get Jackson more suppor from the state. Well JFP, why don't you analyze the effacacy of that statement by analyzing Mr. Horns's legislative record legislative. How many legislative successes can he point to over the length of his career where he provided leadership (initiated the bill and got it passed) in getting bills passed for thr betterment of the capitalcity. He points to Farish Street, The JSU Parkway, the Convention Center, etc. Are these true statements, or is JFP going to accept them at face value? Donna, I see the reporting'; allowing the candidates to state their case, but as cable TV's Comedy Centrals the "Daily Show's" John Stewart so aptly put it in his skewering of CNBC, where is the investigative journalism...that highest for of journalism? Is the purpose of the fourth estate to just report what they are told or report what is obvious to the most casual observer, or does democracy need our journalists to "trust but verify". Justess, as for going to forums to meet the candidates and other alternative means of vetting the candidates on and individual basis... In my opinbion,in exchange for first amendment constitutional protections our journalists have been charged by implication, to be the "broadcasters" of truth, justice and the American Way I (sorry, I just couln't help my self!). When the media research and analyze the facts, ask the questions, get an answers, ask relevant follow up questions, publish all of the above to the public, the media reaches many more people, the questions are burned in print (fewer he said/she said denials). If you're worried about not blindsiding your interviewees...give them the questions in advance. If you don't have the staff to do the research, do like Obama does. Think out of the box! Create a new culture, structure or method the acomplish the tasks that must bge done. Obama is utilizing his existing campaign volunteer and donor resources to bypass the corporate media andd go directly to the voters with his online town meeting earlier this week. In JFP's case, mobilize the passion of your JFP bloggers to assist the JFP staff to do more investigative reporting. For example, post the links where the information can be found, about the candidates public service record, and allow your JFP "Truth Finders"(?) to do some of the grunt work and report the facts and source links back to you. Of course the media has access to info a citizen cannot get (i.e. if I called the Jackson Michigan media about Robert Johnson, I don't think I would get the amount of cooperation a JFP staffer would) Just an idea.

FrankMickens

Mar 27 2009

Casual, no one sets the bar for my paper higher than I do. And we have long used "bloggers" and readers to help with investigative reporting, since before you started posting here. They have enabled us to do so much more than we can do alone with our resources. In fact, in the time it took to write that long post, perhaps you could have done a little digging yourself! If you find anything of substance, let us know, including relevant attribution and sources, of course. Otherwise, we will continue doing the best journalism in Jackson, which includes both continuing investigative reporting of Melton, as well as in-depth coverage of the mayoral election and all sorts of other things that might not interest you personally as much. Thanks for taking time to make suggestions, however. They are always appreciated from everyone.

DonnaLadd

Mar 27 2009