Jackson Free Press

Safety. Beautification. Communication. Community leadership.

These are the four values and goals driving the business and neighborhood development plans of the LeFleur East Foundation, a self-described "supercommunity and business organization" consisting of the neighborhoods bordering Jackson on the east, running north from Lakeland Drive to Old Canton Road.

Board Chairman Dale Currie highlighted these four pillars of planned revitalization before a crowd of close to 75 last night, Sept. 21, at a community forum hosted by the foundation at Jackson Academy's 30,000-square-foot Performing Arts Center. The foundation seeks to implement the revitalization model, which is based on similar models of organizations like Fondren Renaissance Foundation and Downtown Jackson Partners.

By focusing on these four goals, Currie said, the foundation seeks to bring long-term "organizational structure" to LeFleur East, an area comprised of 21 neighborhoods, some 2,600 households and hundreds of businesses.

Jackson officials think it could be a model for other parts of the capital city, as well.

Mayor Tony Yarber said at the meeting that before he became mayor, he looked to LeFleur East and other business-community hybrid organizations as a model for "how to create better community" in south Jackson and across the city.

"Those are the things that we focus on in and around the city," Yarber told the gathering, saying that Jackson's deep, inherited infrastructure problems dovetail with the goal of beautification.

Before handing the mic to Jackson Police Chief Lee Vance, who laid out his no-nonsense "jailing is my job" approach to crime reduction, Yarber linked the values of beautification with safety, describing the city's renewed efforts to enforce property maintenance standards and the 100 abandoned and run-down houses the City has torn down in the past year.

On communication, Yarber laid out his plans to develop a real-time information portal through the city's website utilizing "What Works Cities," a Bloomberg Philanthropies initiative (disclosure: JFP News Editor R.L. Nave is a member of the initiative's governing committee). When complete, the information portal will "give community stakeholders an opportunity to know what (the city is) doing" with its general fund, to "track our progress, and check us if progress is not being made."

Finally, on community leadership, Yarber tied economic development and greater job prospects to the goal of crime reduction, placing responsibility for job creation in the laps of those in the private sector who have been given the opportunity to develop new business models and create jobs.

Touting the importance of private-public partnerships for job creation, crime reduction and beautification, the mayor explained that different communities in the city have been able to get resources and get things done because they have learned the power of organizing.

Yarber said he plans to take this "super-neighborhood" development model "on the road," implementing its core values in south and west Jackson.

Speaking of successful community organizations in Jackson, Yarber said: "They have learned how to bring the right people to the table to help make the best decisions that can be made for those communities. They're not unique. They're not special. They're just the model."