JACKSON, Miss.—Six men hoping voters will elect them as the next mayor of the City of Jackson took questions from voters during a Sept. 26 forum at the Greater Pearlie Grove Missionary Baptist Church on West County Line Road.
The topics included education, the need for more opportunities for youth, property blight and finding ways to keep homeowners in Mississippi’s capital.
Incumbent Democratic Jackson Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba, whose current term ends in July 2025, has previously declared he intends to run for re-election, but he did not attend the Sept. 26 forum. Mississippi Sen. John Horne, who planned to announce his second bid for Jackson mayor at noon Thursday, was not in attendance at the forum either.
The Hopefuls:
Delano Funches
Tim Henderson
James Hopkins
Kim Wade
Marcus Wallace
Albert Wilson
Delano Funches: ‘Make Jackson Attractive’
Delano Funches, an attorney and former law professor at Jackson State University, said on Sept. 26 that city leadership must “make Jackson attractive to people.” Investing in long-term programs that serve the city’s youth and raising salaries for the Jackson Police Department are two ways he plans to do that if elected.
“We start off by dealing with this crime issue we have. It’s a common sense solution,” he said, arguing that pay for JPD officers should be on par with, if not better than, that of officers in the surrounding suburbs.
“If all of those places are paying $10 an hour and you come to Jackson and we want to pay them $5 an hour, that’s insanity,” he said. “The officers in Jackson have a far more dangerous job with the rate of crime in Jackson and we want to pay them pennies.”
The Jackson City Council passed its municipal budget on Sept. 12. The budget included raises for the City’s police force, bringing the starting salary for a JPD officer to $50,000, the Clarion Ledger reported the same day.
When asked how he would encourage home builders and developers to build more housing in Jackson, Funches said he has personally invested time and money into rehabilitating dilapidated properties.
“When I started rehabbing houses, it wasn’t about running for mayor. Jackson is a goldmine when it comes to dilapidated properties and rehabbing them,” he said. “We just need leadership. Put them in place and we can fix this city.”
Tim Henderson: ‘We’ve Got to Fix Education’
Military vet and Delta native Tim Henderson said during the Sept. 26 forum that he sees a lack of public trust in Jackson’s leadership and that the city cannot move in a positive direction until that problem is addressed.
“I think some of our most pressing issues right now deal with public trust,” Henderson said. “The electorate has been let down so many times until they just don’t know what direction to go in or how to do it.”
Henderson said he finds the amount of schools that the Jackson Public Schools District has closed or consolidated in recent years concerning.
“We’ve had all these school closures. We’ve had all the challenges that are occurring with discipline in the schools. With the amount of money coming through JPS, I got a lot of questions,” he said. “If we are going to move this city, we’ve got to fix education.”
The Jackson Public Schools District, citing issues like the costs of maintaining aging buildings and staffing shortages, closed or consolidated 13 schools this year, including Wingfield High School, a cherished institution in the South Jackson community.
Henderson said that improving the public school district, updating the City’s process for obtaining building permits and sustaining the city’s water infrastructure are three keys to make Jackson a prime choice for new development and subsequently, new home owners.
“Home builders are not going to come in at the current state (of Jackson),” Henderson said. “You’ve got to go back and fix education. You’ve got to cut the red tape at City Hall that streamlines processes—without all the headaches for builders and folks doing construction—to be able to get the job done and not have to wait three or four months on a permit. You’ve got to set the right environment that makes people want to come in.”
James Hopkins: ‘We Live in Two Jacksons’’
James Hopkins, a Democrat and founder of the organization Reset Jackson, said one of the main issues affecting Jackson is its leadership. “When a company fails, it starts from the top. Jackson is kind of like a company. If your head is messed up, then the rest of your body is going to be messed up,” Hopkins said.
He said one of his priorities if elected would include economic development throughout the city, particularly West and South Jackson—two areas he said have been left destitute while development booms in other areas of the capital city.
“We live in two Jacksons. A ‘have and have nots’ Jackson,” he said. “We’re going to make sure that North Jackson, Fondren, Belhaven—they continue to eat. But South Jackson and West Jackson will not look like a third-world country while the rest of Jackson looks like Beverly Hills. It does not make sense.”
Hopkins said that he would also focus on rebuilding the City’s public works department, which has been rife with turnover in the past few years. Because of the staffing shortages, the City recently entered into contract with an engineering firm to outsource the services, a practice Hopkins doesn’t believe is in the City’s best interest long-term.
In fact, Hopkins said, citizens should have a say before the City enters into large contracts with vendors, a policy he said he would implement if elected. “Before we do any kind of major, multi-million dollar contract, we will have forums in every ward about that contract. And if it doesn’t work for the people, it doesn’t work for my administration,” he said.
Kim Wade: ‘A Vision That Supersedes All The Pettiness’
Conservative radio host and decades long real-estate professional Kim Wade said during Thursday’s forum that the City of Jackson must do a better job of managing its existing assets.
“What Jackson needs is a good asset manager. We’ve got assets that are not performing, whether it be human capital, financial resources, whatever,” Wade said.
He said that, if elected, he would prioritize growing Jackson’s tax base and rehabilitating the city’s housing stock, which he called the key to the city’s restoration.
“What our proposal is going to be is to take this housing stock that’s vacant—that you’re tearing down. Not every house needs to be torn down. Here, the reason why they keep doing it wrong is that they don’t want to listen to real estate professionals,” Wade said.
Beyond election day, he added, a key aspect of the mayoral role is in maintaining relationships with other city and county officials. “If I get your vote on election day, I’d still need the vote of four city council people. And I’ve got to get 1,000 and 2,000 city workers rolling in the same direction. How do you do that? You’ve got to have a vision that supersedes all the pettiness.”
Marcus Wallace: Real-Estate Investors ‘Abusing Jackson’
Marcus Wallace, a Democrat, served two terms as the mayor of Edwards, Miss., before losing the general election to Lekentric Caston in 2021. He moved to Jackson in 2021.
During the Sept. 26 forum, he cited his political experience, including his role in securing funding for his former town’s drinking water infrastructure, as some of his successes.
“Edwards has brown water, but it’s healthy water. The state of Mississippi, the health department, won’t give us money to clear the water. So I got out and found a company out of Pittsburgh who did a pilot test and went back to D.C. to secure funding for municipalities,” Wallace said.
On Nov. 30, 2023, the Biden-Harris Administration announced $2.5 million in funding for the Town of Edwards Water Treatment project.
When asked what he thought the five most pressing issues facing Jackson are, Wallace mentioned infrastructure, beautification, economic development, business development and crime.
In regards to the capital city’s housing market, Wallace said that addressing real-estate investors who neglect their properties, leaving them to deteriorate while Jackson residents deal with the aftermath, must be a priority for the next mayor.
“The next mayor’s got to apply some serious pressure to these real-estate investors. They are totally abusing the City of Jackson. They buy properties and just let them stay abandoned, they don’t cut the grass, they don’t do anything.”
In the last few years, the City of Jackson has, in fact, moved to reign in oversight of rental properties and the landlords who neglect them.
The City is currently tied up in two lawsuits filed by the Mississippi Apartment Association in the Hinds County Circuit Court and the Chancery Court, respectively, over the City Council’s Dec. 20, 2022, adoption of a renewed rental registration ordinance.
“This ordinance is not unlike many ordinances that other cities all across the country and this state have. It has just become the norm that in the City of Jackson, (real estate investors) don’t have the same level of accountability,” Jackson Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba said on Dec. 20, 2022, before the council’s 5-2 vote in favor of the ordinance.
Albert Wilson: ‘Advocate For Our Youth’
Albert Wilson leads Genesis and Light Center, a nonprofit organization he started in 1992 that seeks to empower Jackson youth through social and academic programs. Wilson, a Democrat, has previously run for city council, mayor and governor of Mississippi.
At the forum on Sept. 26, he said he believes his experience running the nonprofit—including applying for and securing grants—will transfer well into the political arena. “I’m an advocate for our young people and have been advocating for 30 years now,” Wilson said.
He said he has seen first-hand how investing in social programs for youth can prevent problems before they start. “We’ve sent many to college and helped many—who would have been lost in the system—do better and go a positive way,” he said.
Wilson also spoke about the City’s handling of assets like Smith-Wills stadium, Thalia Mara Hall and the Jackson Zoo, saying the city has mismanaged assets.
“That’s one of the problems that we’re having in Jackson with Smith-Wills,” Wilson said. “They got a facility, but they didn’t do what they said they were going to be doing with it. A resource that we need to generate income for the city is gone.”
While State Attorney General Lynn Fitch did send a letter to city leaders on Sept. 13 alleging that the City breached a 1944 land agreement and demanding the property be returned to state ownership, the City of Jackson still currently owns the land where Smith-Wills Stadium sits.
WLBT reported on Sept. 30 that the City of Jackson filed paperwork with the Hinds County Chancery Court to block the state’s efforts.
The qualifying period for municipal positions, including mayoral positions, begins on Jan. 2, 2025. Municipal primaries across Mississippi will be on April 1, 2025, with the general election following on June 3, 2025.
The full Sept. 26, 2024, Jackson mayoral candidate forum on YouTube or the Greater Pearlie Grove Missionary Baptist Church’s Facebook page.
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