JACKSON IS ROLLING
SOTC speech
Good afternoon, Jackson!
To the members of our City Council. Our partners in the Legislature and in Hinds County. Our department leaders. Our pastors and faith leaders. Our business owners. The city employees who keep the lights on and the trucks running. And my neighbors from all seven wards—thank you for being here.
I want to begin with a story you already know, because you lived it.
Not long ago, people had made up their minds about Jackson.
They said our capital city couldn’t keep its water on. Couldn’t fix its streets. Couldn’t balance its budget. Couldn’t keep its own house in order.
They wrote us off.
And if we’re honest, there were days when even some of us wondered whether they might be right.
But here’s what they forgot:
A city that gets written off still holds the pen.
When I ran for mayor, I called myself the little engine that could.
I knew we had problems. I knew the challenges were real. But I believed Jackson could do better, and I believed our people deserved a government that would prove it.
My goal was simple: win back your trust and show you that Jackson can handle its business.
Fifteen months later, I stand before you with a message.
We haven’t solved every problem. We haven’t finished the job. And nobody in this room should mistake progress for perfection, but we have begun to confront our problems head on.
We have begun to change the direction of this city.
And we’re doing it around three commitments:
Restore trust. Repair the city. Rebuild opportunities.
That’s our work. That’s our responsibility. And that’s how we’ll measure our progress.
Because comebacks don’t get announced.
They get built. They get repaired. They get paved.
And Jackson is rolling.
(FIRST: RESTORE TRUST)
Let me start with trust.
Because before people will believe in a city’s future, they have to believe their government can do its job.
When we walked into City Hall, we faced a $25 million budget deficit.
That’s approximately $68,000 a day going out the door without the revenue coming in to cover it.
We couldn’t keep operating that way.
So we went to work.
Today, that deficit is gone. We solved it without layoffs, without furloughs, and without a tax increase.
That’s what responsible government looks like.
We’re also bringing our audits current. You deserve to know where your money goes. And anyone thinking about investing in Jackson deserves confidence that our financial house is in order.
We are finding money we didn’t know we were losing.
Our Information Technology Department uncovered $1.3 million in overbilling on a single contract. We’re pursuing every dollar we can recover.
That’s your money. And we’re going after it.
Our Planning and Development Department brought in $3.1 million in outside funding without adding a single permanent position this year.
That’s not a bigger payroll. That’s a better business model.
And we’re learning that we don’t always have to buy expertise when we can bring it in through partnerships and grants.
The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy is providing expert assistance with planning and zoning at no cost to the city.
Bloomberg is paying for an innovation team to help us collect and process data.
Trust also means being honest about difficult issues.
Our relationship with JXN Water has been tested. We are now having serious conversations about what comes next when the current arrangement ends.
Let me be clear: Jackson owns these water assets. Jackson carries the debt. And the people of Jackson have a legitimate interest in the future of their water system.
We welcome responsible partners. We welcome expertise. We welcome solutions.
But partnership must never mean surrendering Jackson’s voice in decisions about Jackson’s future.
We will continue to insist on accountability, transparency, and a meaningful role for the city.
Because restoring trust means more than balancing a budget.
It means showing people that their government can be trusted with their money, their infrastructure, and their future.
And trust is not something you demand.
Trust is something you earn.
(SECOND: REPAIR THE CITY)
Now let’s talk about the work you can see.
Because a balanced budget is important. An audit is important. Good management is important.
But when a resident drives down a street full of potholes, that resident wants to know something very simple:
When are you going to fix my street?
And that’s a fair question.
(Streets, Drainage, and Transit)
Everybody’s experienced potholes in this scity.
And to those of you who have had to buy a new tire, I’m sorry.
We know what you’ve been dealing with. And we’re working to change it.
Our crews, working with our partners at Hinds County, have been filling approximately 2,500 potholes a month—over 100 a day.
Our Public Works Department has closed 4,399 major work orders involving everything from traffic signals and bridges to illegal dumping.
We’ve also gotten long-delayed projects moving again, including the MLK Bridge, Shaw Road, Beasley Road, and Smallwood Street.
And yes, Woodrow Wilson is on the list.
We have selected contractors for a $150 million street and drainage program.
Later this month, we will accelerate our plan to resurface approximately 600 streets—roughly nine streets a week over the course of the next year.
I’d like to introduce a couple of our contractors, AJ Construction, which has partnered with 2 Oaks Construction and APAC Construction, which has teamed up with MS Paving to help pave our streets.
We’re repairing storm drains and clearing creeks so that when it rains, our streets can carry water away instead of becoming waterways themselves.
This is the biggest year of paving Jackson has seen in 40 years.
Think about that.
Forty years. Most of the residents in Jackson have grown up seeing nothing but bad streets.
We assembled this program the hard way: city dollars, CCID funds, the 1% sales tax, federal highway funds, a bond backed by internet sales tax revenue, and $7.4 million from the Legislature.
No single source wrote one big check.
We brought the pieces together because the city needed the work done.
And we’re not stopping there.
Next up is Medgar Evers Boulevard, a $40 million corridor that will connect with the improvements planned for Woodrow Wilson.
This is about more than asphalt.
It’s about safer roads, better access to businesses, stronger neighborhoods, and a city that respects the time and money of the people who live here.
And we know that not everybody gets around in a car.
Many of our residents depend on public transportation to get to work, school, medical appointments, and the grocery store.
We ended the bus strike and signed contracts for new 35-foot buses and a new fare system. We also secured a $2.8 million federal grant for bus benches and shelters.
Because nobody should have to stand in the rain next to a pole stuck in the ground and call that public transportation.
We completed the One Line Study, and next year we’ll test microtransit—smaller vehicles that residents can call for a ride in areas where a full-size bus doesn’t make sense.
Our goal is a transportation system that works for more people in more parts of Jackson.
So when someone tells you nothing changes in this city, invite them to take a drive.
Just be careful around the construction crews.
Jackson is rolling.
(CleanJXN and Blight to Bright)
Repairing the city also means cleaning it up.
Last October, we launched CleanJXN along major gateways into our city, including West Capitol, Woodrow Wilson, Fortification, Pearl Street, and Pascagoula.
This summer, we took that effort into our neighborhoods.
More than 200 volunteers and 12 churches participated in our Corridor Clean-Up Series in South Jackson and West Jackson, collecting 300 bags of debris.
Our crews cleared 345 illegal dumps.
We demolished or cleaned up 40 blighted properties, investing $900,000 in that work.
Our code officers handled 2,638 violations and took 816 cases to court.
But we’re also changing how the city does this work.
One inspection now addresses multiple problems on a property. One knock on the door, not three.
And our new Blight Action Map allows residents to track progress.
We’re launching Adopt a Block microgrants to help neighbors maintain their streets and keep their blocks clean. Next year, we plan to introduce a volunteer code enforcement program to identify problems earlier.
And we held our Neighborhood Impact Gala to recognize the neighborhood associations and small businesses that kept showing up for Jackson when showing up wasn’t easy.
To those residents, I want to say something:
Thank you.
You kept believing in your blocks when other people stopped believing in the city.
Keep showing up, and we will, too.
(Public Safety)
Now, we cannot talk about repairing our city without talking about public safety.
This summer, violence spiked. Families buried sons and daughters. Parents lost children. Loved ones are grieving.
To those families, let me say this:
We see you. We grieve with you. And we will not look away.
Every life lost is a family changed forever. Every act of violence leaves pain that extends far beyond the scene of a crime.
We have a responsibility to respond with urgency.
In July, the Jackson Police Department launched a Quick Response Team to address the most violent, high-risk calls.
In its first weeks, that team took 77 guns off the street and made dozens of felony arrests. Officers resolved four hostage and barricade situations without firing a shot.
Chief Brackney and her team have pursued more than $130 million in federal and state support, and Jackson is a finalist for the Justice Department’s Model Cities Initiative.
Those are important steps.
But we must understand something else.
You cannot arrest your way to a safe city.
Law enforcement is essential. Accountability is essential. But lasting safety also requires preventing violence before it happens.
It requires giving young people alternatives, intervening in conflicts, supporting families, and building relationships in neighborhoods where too many people have grown accustomed to fear.
Our Office of Neighborhood Safety has brought violence prevention into our high schools. We’ve funded Safe Summer programs.
And we’re standing with the people who have been doing this work long before it became a headline.
Geno “PawPaw” Womack and Operation Good, Vernon Perry and his Save A Kid 2 Save A Life Foundation. Bishop LaCharles Brister and Safe Place Ministries. They have taken their commitments to the streets of South and West Jackson. Today, Jackson Rising, Inc. is providing each group with a check for $5,000.
Individuals and organizations like these are helping us reach people and places that government cannot reach by itself.
We need the police. We need prevention. We need community partnerships. And we need a citywide commitment to protecting human life.
Our goal is not simply to respond when violence happens.
It’s to build a Jackson where fewer families ever have to experience that tragedy.
(Fire Department)
Repairing the city also means taking care of the people who take care of us.
This year, in addition to installing a new $2 million dollar communications system, we installed new heating and air conditioning units in 15 fire stations, put new roofs on three stations, and hired 30 new firefighters.
Next year, our plan is to purchase five new pumpers, two ladder trucks, hire 25 more firefighters, and fully renovate three additional stations.
And tonight, I’m announcing a scholarship program for the children of Jackson police officers and firefighters.
The program, which is being sponsored by housing developer Clarence Chapman, will provide $350 to $500 per child each year.
It is a modest investment, but it carries a significant message.
When you put your life on the line for this city, this city should stand behind your children.
We cannot ask our first responders to protect our families without showing that we care about theirs.
(Our Civic and Cultural Assets)
Repairing Jackson also means protecting the places that make this city special.
Thalia Mara Hall sat dark for 17 months.
Last year, I told you we would have it ready by the first of the year. In January, we turned the lights back on, and we welcomed former Vice President Kamala Harris to a standing room-only event in our capital city.
In its first six months, the hall hosted 18 events and generated $1.3 million in economic activity.
Broadway is back in Jackson.
With a strong public/private partnership, we repaired the McNair Davis Planetarium so that the next school field trip can give our children a chance to look at the stars and imagine what’s possible.
The National Folk Festival brought 30,000 people downtown last year. Next month, we do it again.
Tens of thousands of people came out for St. Patrick’s Day, the Food and Wine Fest, and the Makers Fest—and they all went home safe.
These events are more than entertainment.
They bring people downtown. They support businesses. They give visitors a reason to experience Jackson. And they remind our own residents of what makes this city worth celebrating.
A city must work, but a city must also live.
It needs places to gather, to learn, to celebrate, and to create memories.
We’re working to make sure Jackson can do all of those things.
(THIRD: REBUILD OPPORTUNITIES)
Now we come to the question that ultimately determines Jackson’s future.
Not just whether we can balance a budget.
Not just whether we can repair a street.
But whether we can create a city where people have a reason to stay, a reason to return, and a reason to invest.
Because the ultimate measure of a great city is not simply whether people can live there.
It’s whether the next generation wants to.
(Economic Growth)
Let me tell you what we’re seeing.
People are putting their own money into Jackson.
Home values rose 32% this year, the largest increase in the metro area.
Kumar Bhavanasi saw potential in downtown Jackson. He now owns more than two million square feet in the heart of the city, including the Pinnacle, Deposit Guaranty, Regions Plaza, and the Electric Building.
Gabriel Prado broke ground on Prado Lofts, a $50 million development with 215 homes.
Chico Patel is investing $25 million in a 111-room Hampton Inn in Fondren.
In November, Gulf Coast Housing Partnership will cut the ribbon on Leonard Court on Farish Street and this Spring will break ground on two affordable housing developments at Poindexter Elementary on Robinson Road and Ridgeway Apartments on Raymond Road.
These investors are making decisions based on what they believe Jackson can become.
Our job is to give them more reasons to believe.
Our planning team is advancing 15 projects in Fondren and the Medical District, including Fondren Lofts, new medical offices, and the redevelopment of the old YMCA as the Prado Conservatory.
This year, we issued 749 licenses for brand-new businesses—about two a day—and renewed another 2,500.
We issued 773 building permits: 576 for homes and 197 for businesses.
Twenty-one business owners graduated from Educate JXN. Five small businesses received Kiva loans totaling $34,500. More than 2,500 businesses are listed on Engage JXN, and 352 have signed up for Explore JXN.
These numbers represent people taking chances on themselves and on Jackson.
We need to make sure City Hall helps them succeed instead of getting in their way.
That’s why we opened the Customer Success Center on the first floor of the Hood Building.
We’re going to keep measuring whether residents and business owners can get what they need, when they need it.
Consider business licensing.
Two years ago, renewing a business license took 91 days. Last year, it took 66 days. This year, it takes 48 days on average. Still too long, but we’re headed in the right direction.
More than a third of renewals now close in under a month, and new business licenses often come through in less than a day.
That’s progress.
Next year, we plan to launch a new permitting system using artificial intelligence to help review applications. We’ll also publish our performance timelines on the Business and Permitting Dashboard.
And we’re launching a business retention and expansion program that will bring us directly to employers before they ever consider leaving.
We’re working on incentives for Eaton Aerospace, Cherokee Brick, Metal Processors, and Hesselbein Tires. I’d like to publicly recognize two of our stellar businesses that have not given up on Jackson: Frank Drennan, owner of Capital City Beverages, who is here with his Senior Vice President Gene Sheriff and plant manager Paul Bronson and Latoya Martin. And Elliott Flaggs with Milwaukee Tool, which manufactures sophisticated drilling equipment.
We’re also recruiting new employers with help from the Mississippi Development Authority and the Jackson Redevelopment Authority, including efforts to bring Metro Center back to life.
This year, we returned 10 city-owned parcels to productive use. Next year, we plan to make it easier for qualified buyers to acquire surplus property and develop it.
City land should not sit idle when people are looking for places to build businesses, homes, and new opportunities.
(Airport, Riverfront, and Major Projects)
We’re also working to unlock the potential of some of Jackson’s most important assets.
We ended an eight-year legal fight over land annexation near the airport. Jackson retains ownership of every acre, and that land can finally be considered for development without that dispute hanging over it.
We’ve issued requests for proposals to develop the main airport terminal. In addition, RFPs have hit the streets for Farish Street and the zoo.
Down on the Pearl River, we signed an agreement to develop a 30-acre Riverfront Park, with walking trails, an overlook, and an amphitheater.
We’re turning an old landfill into something Jackson can be proud of—a new front porch for our city.
The University of Mississippi Medical Center has received funding for a $250 million cancer center that would bring world-class care closer to home. We break ground on that project on October 22nd.
And we’re exploring a new home for the Jackson State Tigers—a stadium that could host football and other sporting events, concerts, graduations, festivals, and other activities throughout the year.
These are not all the same kind of project. They involve different partners, different funding arrangements, and different timelines.
But they share a common purpose: to make better use of Jackson’s assets, attract investment, and create more reasons for people to come here.
(Housing and Homelessness)
Economic opportunity means little if people cannot find a place to live.
And Jackson cannot rebuild its future without addressing housing.
Last year, we created the Unhoused Task Force.
This year, five partner organizations served 638 unhoused neighbors with shelter, outreach, and housing support.
Last month, we launched Homeward JXN, a two-year initiative designed to help people move from encampments into stable housing, connecting them with qualified landlords.
We also partnered with Springboard to Opportunities to bring the Magnolia Mother’s Trust into Jackson Housing Authority communities.
This million dollar program provides $1,000 a month for 12 months to single mothers raising children in subsidized housing.
No strings attached.
Just trust.
Because sometimes helping a family move forward means giving that family the financial breathing room to make its own decisions.
We want a Jackson where families can find stability, where children have a safe place to sleep, and where people experiencing homelessness have a real path toward a more secure life.
The founder of the program, Dr. Aisha Nyandoro, who was featured on the front cover of Time magazine, is here with two participants with MMT, Tameshia Williams, a certified medical assistant and Zira Franklin, a customer service representative. Toiwarn and Formeka Black lost their daughter to a rare disease. Rather than suffer in their own grief, they have created a scholarship fund in their daughter’s honor. Today, Jackson Rising is showing its support with a donation of $2,500.
(Jackson Rising: Our Roadmap for the Future)
Last year, we took a clear-eyed look at where Jackson stands and what it will take to move forward.
That work became Jackson Rising.
And I want to emphasize something important: this plan was not written by me alone or handed down from City Hall.
Three hundred residents contributed a thousand hours of their time to help shape it.
You told us what matters.
Grow our population.
Make our city safer.
Fix our infrastructure.
Eliminate blight.
Grow our economy.
Five priorities.
Federal housing funds are supporting work with Habitat for Humanity and Gulf Coast Housing Partnership. Several of the 10 city-owned parcels we returned to productive use are set aside for housing.
Next year, we intend to move housing resources more quickly—to repair homes, build affordable housing, and remove structures that cannot be saved.
We’ll bring a new zoning code to the City Council and update our comprehensive plan.
National experts are helping us address old industrial properties and identify opportunities to strengthen commercial corridors along bus lines.
Starting in Bon Air, we’ll test approaches that allow backyard cottages, duplexes, and infill housing—more ways to build homes on land we already have.
We’re also investing in the people who will do the building.
Our Developer’s Academy is training 25 local developers. One project has already won a $25,000 award.
GreenWorks graduated 12 residents with construction credentials.
Our C2 program is preparing contractors to compete for city work.
And $285,000 in outside funding supports these workforce programs.
That’s how opportunity becomes real.
You help a resident gain a skill. That resident builds a career. That career supports a family. That family invests in a neighborhood. And that neighborhood becomes stronger.
We’ve mentioned some of our housing strategy, but we must connect our housing strategy to our workforce strategy, our workforce strategy to our business strategy, and all of them to our population strategy.
Because our objective is not simply to build more structures.
It’s to build a city where more people can build a life.
(LOOKING AHEAD: THE CITY OUR CHILDREN DESERVE)
I think often about the young people growing up in Jackson.
I don’t want to tell them they have to move to Atlanta or Houston to find the future they want.
I want to tell them they can find it right here.
I want them to be able to get a good education, find meaningful work, buy a home, start a business, raise a family, and build a life without feeling that they must leave the city that raised them.
A great city is one your children want to stay in.
Stay here. Work here. Raise their own babies here.
Government has a responsibility to create the conditions for success. But no administration, no matter how determined, can rebuild a city alone.
We need businesses willing to invest. We need churches willing to serve, to adopt streets, and neighborhoods, and intersections, and parks. We need neighborhoods willing to organize. We need parents and teachers willing to guide our children. We need employers willing to hire Jackson residents.
And we need residents who refuse to give up on the place they call home.
That’s why Jackson Rising matters.
It gives us a roadmap. It gives us priorities. It gives us a way to measure whether we’re moving forward.
And here’s how we’ll know it’s working.
First, we stop losing neighbors.
Then we hold steady.
Then we grow.
One street. One block. One home at a time.
Yes, we are ideas-rich and cash-poor. Our challenges are significant. There is much left to do, and it will take time.
But we are no longer content simply to explain why things aren’t getting done.
We’re doing the work to get things done.
(CLOSING: THE NEXT CHAPTER BELONGS TO US)
Let me close where Jackson’s larger story has always been rooted: in the courage of people who believed this city could become something better.
In 1963, Medgar Evers—a World War II veteran from Decatur, Mississippi—was leading Mississippi’s civil rights movement out of Jackson.
In the early hours of June 12, he returned home from a meeting and was shot in his driveway.
He died within the hour.
More than six decades later, the boulevard that carries Medgar Evers’s name is among the corridors we are working to rebuild.
That is a powerful connection between Jackson’s past and Jackson’s future.
The work of building a better city has never been easy. It has always required people willing to confront difficult realities, challenge old assumptions, and keep going when progress seemed far away.
That is our responsibility now.
Act One was the city they wrote off.
Act Two is the city getting its house in order, repairing its streets, and rebuilding its confidence.
Act Three has not been written.
Act Three is up to us.
I told you I ran for mayor as the little engine that could.
Well, that little engine has made it up the hill.
And it is not pulling alone anymore.
So here’s what I ask of you.
Don’t let anybody else tell Jackson’s story.
You tell it.
Tell it when your street gets paved.
Tell it when the curtain goes up at Thalia Mara Hall.
Tell it when a small-business owner opens a new storefront.
Tell it when a young person puts down a gun and picks up a future.
Tell it when a family moves into a home they can afford.
And then do something to help write the next chapter.
Join a neighborhood association. Help fix a house. Hire a young person. Buy from a Jackson business. Volunteer at a school. Show up for your neighbors.
Pick one thing and do it.
As mayor, I will keep showing you the books. Every quarter, we’ll publish our permitting timelines, code enforcement results, and housing investments.
If we’re making progress, you’ll see it.
If we’re falling short, you should see that, too.
I will keep pushing to get the trucks rolling, the crews working, the projects moving, and the opportunities growing.
And I’ll be back here next year to tell you what we accomplished—and to be straight with you about what we did not.
Because restoring trust means keeping our promises.
Repairing the city means doing the work.
And rebuilding opportunity means making sure the next generation has a reason to believe in Jackson.
So let it roll.
Let it roll down our streets, from Medgar Evers Boulevard to Elton Road.
Let it roll through our neighborhoods, block by block and ward by ward.
Let it roll for the child in West Jackson who deserves a safe street to ride her bicycle on.
Let it roll for the small-business owner downtown who bet on Jackson before everyone else did.
Let it roll for the firefighter whose children deserve a future full of opportunity.
Let it roll for the grandmother in South Jackson who never left and never stopped praying for this city.
And let it roll for every young person who needs to know that the future they dream about can be built right here at home.
Because Jackson’s story is not over.
We are writing the next chapter together.
The state of our city is strong, and it’s getting stronger.
Jackson is rising.
And Jackson is rolling.
God bless you.
God bless our families.
And God bless the City of Jackson.
Thank you.
