Jackson Free Press

"We will not be there," Lee Vance, chief of the Jackson Police Department, said today.

Speaking at west Jackson's Koinonia Coffee House this morning, Vance addressed a number of issues concerning his department, including the decision of Mayor Tony Yarber's administration to not have JPD patrol the Missisippi State Fair this year.

The decision seemed to sit well will the gathering at the weekly Friday Forum event, with one audience member calling it a good decision for taxpayers in the city who carry the brunt of the bill for the Fair. Vance, a 30-year veteran of JPD, said it cost city taxpayers $324,000 to provide security for the two-week event at the state fairgrounds.

Before 2011, Gov. Haley Barbour worked with Hinds County Sheriff Malcolm McMillin to set aside grant funding to reimburse the city for Fair security. But when McMillin lost the 2011 election to current Sheriff Tyrone Lewis and Barbour left office, the state stopped picking up the tab, Vance said.

The city's legislative agenda in recent years has included requests for funding related to providing police and fire protection to state property and events, including the Fair, but lawmakers have largely rebuffed those requests.

Earlier this week, Mayor Yarber said state law requires municipalities to provide a reasonable amount of protection, but that it will be at Vance's discretion to determine what that protection consists of. Yarber said the city has submitted information to the Missisippi State Fair Commission to justify a payment to the city.

A message left for Rick Reno, executive director of the Mississippi State Fair Commission, was not immediately returned this morning.

Reno told WJTV on Sept. 4 that the commission would use a mix of Hinds County Sheriff's deputies inside the fair, private security and Capitol police.

"The thing is what you're looking at is, I guess you'd say (is) the magnitude or the totality of what the Jackson Police Department does. We would not be able to provide private security or any other type of security at that level," he told Channel 12. "But what we're going to do is do what we can within our parameters and our authority."

Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes said earlier this week that he hopes the city and state can come to an agreement: 
"If they're going to have a successful fair, they need JPD," Stokes said. "There's some folks out here who are really bad and the only people they're scared of is JPD."