Jackson Free Press

Dexter Robinson isn't looking for attention. As the 11th of 12 siblings, he learned to stop doing that years ago. What he is looking for is a platform, as city councilman for Ward 4, to fix the current problems he sees in his neck of the woods.

Robinson was born in Jackson in 1969 and got his education right here in the capital city. He attended Callaway High School, Belhaven College and Tougaloo College. He holds a bachelor's degree in economics and accounting from Tougaloo and a master's degree of business from Belhaven.

"My parents told me early on I better go ahead and get a good education," Robinson said. "Because that's one of the things in life that nobody can ever take away from you."

Robinson got that education, and went on to work for 16 years at the Department of Veterans Affairs, served on the Committee on Waivers and Compromise and as an educational specialist for the State of Mississippi. After that, he has worked for five years in alumni affairs at Tougaloo, where he has learned the ropes of the education system from the administrative side.

Recently, he's gotten into the real estate game, and along with a few other realtors, has formed Centralized Realty Professionals LLC. His work has taken him all over Jackson and its nearby cities, and he's learned a lot about helping people become homeowners.

"It's very rewarding work," Robinson said. "I'm getting to help people who didn't think they could ever afford to buy a house become first-time homeowners. We're trying to work with people so they can have a house of their own to call a home."

Now, the 43-year-old Robinson wants to use his experience in education and government to help his community from the city council.

How would you use your background in education to help bring Jackson Public Schools up to par?

As I've said, my background is in education. I also have experience working with the federal government and various community organizations. Basically, what we need to do is bring in a partnership with federal entities, the state government and the local government, as well as the communities, your churches and the families, and allow them to see that yes, we have a problem here. Our graduation rates are near 60 percent, and we need to fix this by policing ourselves. In my family, my parents made sure that all 12 of us went to school, and they taught us that the only way to become a viable part of our community was to get an education. We have to bring together this partnership to help fix our schools, because it has to be a joint effort.

Can you talk about the crime problem in Jackson and how we can fix it?

Jackson has a crime problem, but there is a solution. As the mayor and the chief of police have done, we need to continue to hire more officers to man the city. That's been one solution. You have to have the bodies to cover all the area of the city. If we have more officers on the ground, that will help to eliminate and resolve some of the problems. In our sister cities ... I'm over there because of my real estate work, and I've noticed they have more people on the ground. Their response time is under five minutes, and we need to beef up our force so we can have similar response times and keep our people safe.

Obviously the city needs a lot of infrastructure work, and money is tight. How can we pay for all the work we need and avoid getting into this situation in the future?

Basically, looking at the city of Jackson, you have 174,000 citizens. We have problems with our roads and bridges, and they are fixable if the city council, working with the mayor's office, sits down and looks at our different sources of funding. There are dollars out there we could utilize. I worked on the energy board, and we awarded grants and funds to people. Jackson needs some good grant dollars, and needs to utilize some federal dollars and donations from the private sector. We've done the various studies and we know what these problems will cost us to fix. We just need to sit down and do the math--do the arithmetic--and resolve how we are going to get new pavement and repair our drainage issues. We also need to have a rainy-day fund set up so we can start saving money and don't get into this situation again.

Would you support a 1-percent sales tax increase?

First of all, I would have to know where it was going and how we are going to track it. We would have to be sure that the money would be used for the purpose for which it was allocated. That's the only way I would support a tax increase. If I knew that that 1 percent was going toward roads or infrastructure, I could get on board with that.

Do you feel the development projects we have going on now are important?

Jackson has $16.3 billion in development going on right now. I support that, because we need industry that will bring in dollars for the city of Jackson. We need to fund them and finish them so that people around Jackson and even outside of Jackson can see some of the events and developments that Jackson has built. (Editors note: City spokesman Chris Mims said the city had $16.8 million issued in building permits in January and February of this year.)

Can we go ahead with these development projects without fixing our problems first, i.e. infrastructure and education?

If we can say for certain that the new development projects guarantee to bring in funding that can then be used to fix some of our problems with infrastructure, and that those funds are clearly defined and outlined, then I can see us moving forward with the projects. I think a few of these projects--the Pearl River project (One Lake) and the other Downtown (Jackson) Partners project--will help us address our roads and our drainage and sewage issues.

How can Jackson retain its young talent we seem to be losing to bigger cities?

Basically, in order to retain our best and brightest ... we have to have a market for them. If we don't have a market to employ and keep them here, we are going to keep losing them. ... I've worked with Tougaloo College, and I've helped students graduate and encouraged them to stay here and open their businesses right here in Jackson. If you are the kind of person who wants to invest in your community, you need to stay and you will see the rewards of their labor.