Jackson Free Press

Kourtney Paige has spent his career working in radio. Now, he wants to lend his voice to the people of Jackson as city councilman for Ward 4.

A native of the small Delta town of Louise (population 199) in Humphries County, Paige moved to Jackson with his family when he was 7. Since then, he's been moving around the southeast working in radio and television.

His career has taken him to other metropolises, including Birmingham and Atlanta, but he says his roots are in Jackson.

"I have been spent around 30 years living in Jackson," the 43-year-old Paige said. "Even when I moved away for a job opportunity, I never really left here. My family is here."

Paige was a victim of the economic recession and has been job-hunting recently, but until 2010 he worked for television station Fox 40 in Jackson, before it merged with WLBT. He does help out with Jackson State University's closed-circuit television channel "Tiger TV" and works as the "unofficially official" student news director for the JSU-22 radio news program.

Paige said he's ready to lead Ward 4 into the future.

What would you like to see change in Ward 4, specifically?

Everything--absolutely everything. I have some issues with the fact that, and I know it's a business thing, but we paid money to have the Belk building (at Metrocenter Mall) remodeled. But we're paying like $484,000 for this. To me, it seems like for that kind of money we could have built our own building. The city owns the Dillard's building (at Metrocenter Mall), but they don't want to move in there because they are going to want to lease that out if someone wants to bring a department store and move in there.

In my particular ward, we don't have anything. At first, we had Metrocenter Mall with 146 specialty stores, four major department stores, had a convenience center on the outside and a movie theater. Now, we don't have any of that. In regards to Metrocenter, I really don't personally think there's help for it. The only way people will come back to Metrocenter, and I mean black and white, is if we bulldoze it to the ground and rebuild it like the Renaissance (in Ridgeland). It will really have to feel new and give the appearance that it is safe. That's the only way you're going to get the clientele. It used to be the only mall we knew to go to.

Then, I have an issue with the Wendy's on the corner of Ellis Avenue and Highway 80, they moved there because they were in a funky situation on the other side of the street. It was hard to cross over from the other side of the street, so they moved to the corner. Now, the old building is sitting there abandoned. They did the same thing on Robinson (Road), almost to Highway 18. The Wendy's sits here, and they moved on down. I understand you have to give people a couple of years to see if they will be able to sell the building before you bulldoze it, but it's an eyesore to the community, and I'd like to see some kind of major, fast-moving revitalization program for Ward 4.

If elected, what can you do from the city council to stop emigration out of Jackson?

I can propose my ideas and try to get them initiated. ... I don't fault anybody for living where they live, because I live where I live. But it's something when you earn a paycheck here and you got an education here and now you live in Madison. They have all those rules and regulations in Madison, but here in Jackson I can open up a restaurant and have a sign as tall as a street light, and as long as I pay the signage fee, Jackson's all good with it. If I go out to Madison, they aren't going to go for that. So I would try to get programs like that. Sometimes it's a money thing, and you might have to offer people some kind of incentive to live inside the city limits. I'd be flexible about it, because I want to see young people staying here so we would have more people living inside the capital city.

When it comes to crime in Jackson, the city is quick to get a black eye. What can the city do about it?

We need more boots on the ground in the neighborhoods. We need more police officers. And I know they can't have them individually go to every citizen's house, but get some of those officers to come to elementary schools and public meetings and introduce themselves. Just say, "Hey, I'm officer so-and-so. Here's my contact information. If you need me, or if you hear or see anything, this is how you get in touch with me."

We need the people to be familiar with the officers in their neighborhoods. We also need to educate the public on how to be a good neighborhood watchman. If you go out of town for the weekend, I could easily watch your house, the neighbor's house. That way we're looking out for each other. I'm not one of those people who just sit back and blame the police. The police have nothing to do with the fact that, hey, you and I get in an argument, and I shoot you. There's nothing they can do about that. You can blame the police for random crime, but you can't blame them for anything domestic, and a lot of the crime in Jackson is domestic. We just need to educate the public on how the criminal system works and let them know they need to be more vigilant on their own property and report illegal activity when they see it.

JPS almost lost its accreditation last year and is saddled with a dropout rate ranked at or near the bottom for any district in the state. What needs to happen to address the problem?

We need some stronger leadership in JPS. I'm a JPS student. I graduated in 1987 from Provine (High School), and I'm proud of it. Before that, I went to Hardy Junior High, because we didn't have middle schools back in the day, and I went to Walton Elementary before that. We need somebody who is going to take that school district by the hand and lead it down the right path. I also think we need to inject more money into it. The only way you can get success sometimes is to pay a little extra for it. We probably need to increase teacher salaries and offer more programs.

The other thing we have to do is hold the parents' feet to the fire. Your child's number one job is to get themselves to school in the morning. Tell them, until they are 18, they don't have the privilege to drop out. I think we should start holding the parents accountable. Say your kid misses two weeks of school; then we incarcerate you for a week, or take away your car tag or driver's license, because this is your responsibility to make sure your child is educated. Especially when it's a free education.

The state of water and sewage system in Jackson has drawn fines from the Environmental Protection Agency and will likely cost the city at least hundreds of millions of dollars to fix. How can the city offset these expenses, and how can we avoid a situation like this in the future?

The city, I believe, can sell bonds, and if we have to do a one or two-cent sales-tax increase, we can. You can't really blame the city of Jackson, because they just followed the lead of everybody else: If it isn't broke, then why fix it? It's easy for you to say that every time it gets cold, the pipes burst, and it's a big inconvenience. It's that way everywhere. They are underground. It's not as easy as digging them up and putting new ones in. You have to have the money and the manpower. Then there are traffic issues, and it involves homeowners who you might have to dig into their yard. It's a major undertaking, but we need to have it done. We certainly need to look into the city budget and start putting some money into it.

I have issues with places like Monument Street. I don't know why we don't just block that thing off, because every time it rains some idiot goes, "I can go through it." I had the wrong perception of it the first time myself. ... If we have to pay more taxes to fix it, then we have to pay more taxes, because this is a problem that has to be fixed.

There are a lot of development projects vying for attention in the city. Can we focus on big development projects before we address some of the issues we've talk about?

We need to be focusing on development first, because that's revenue that could be coming in. When you go down to the French Quarter (in New Orleans), everything costs a little extra, and that's money for the city. We have to bring something here. This is the capitol city for the state of Mississippi ... and it feels like we live in a big town.

The first thing I support is the Twin Lakes project. I support that. That's nice. Coming in from Pearl or Flowood and seeing all that would be great. I don't understand why we don't have casino gambling right here in Jackson, but they can have it in Vicksburg. The Pearl River is a body of water. We are worried about pulling business from Vicksburg, but Vicksburg is going to take care of itself.

If the city of Jackson really wanted to put something into Farish Street, they could make it happen. ... It's always going to be historical, but it needs to be brought into the 21st century. You can gut those buildings, but you can't expect them to operate with the same wiring and pipes they used to. The other thing they need to do with Farish Street is decide whether that area is going to be residential or strictly business, because it's not going to work out with it trying to be both. ... Lately, anything the city of Jackson puts its name behind doesn't work out, and it's sad.

(Editor's note: The Twin Lakes project Mr. Paige alluded to has since been reworked and rebranded as the One Lake project.)