Latest / Between the Headlines: Columbus / Mickens' Missteps & Joe Max Higgins On Politics, Industry and Golden Triangle

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Mickens' Missteps & Joe Max Higgins On Politics, Industry and Golden Triangle · Between the Headlines: Columbus

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: From the opinion page of the Commercial Dispatch.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: This is Between the Headlines.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: This is Peter Imes, publisher of the Dispatch.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: One of our hosts of Between the Headlines is the managing editor of our newsroom.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: Typically we try to keep news and opinions separate, but reporters have a unique insight into the workings of local government and their analysis can be helpful for readers and listeners.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: The Dispatch remains committed to journalistic integrity and our reporting will always reflect that.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: And now between the headlines.
• 0:43
  Speaker 4: This week's headlines, as you recall, regarding the residency challenge of his political opponents, we advised Joe Mickens to either get off the can or drop the deuce.
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: Well, comes now none other than Joseph W Mickens Sr before the Supreme Court of Mississippi.
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: Having chosen option number two, and with the clock ticking for MSMS and MUW, what is the fate of our fine institutions?
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: I've got words, as does our special guest for today, none other than Mr Joe Max Higgins.
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: Retirement looks different for everyone, so your plan should be built around you.
• 1:27
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• 2:35
  Speaker 4: That is bentonsinccom.
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: And now a message from political candidate Bill Strauss.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: I want to thank the Commercial Dispatch for this podcast, bringing different views in an open discussion.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: I'm Bill Strauss, humbly asking for your vote as next mayor of Columbus.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: You deserve transparency and accountability for your tax dollars.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: I'm business friendly and charitable.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Vote Bill Strauss mayor of Columbus 2025.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Paid for by campaign to elect Bill Strauss Mayor of Columbus 2025.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Paid for by campaign to elect Bill Strauss.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: And now a message from political candidate Jason Spears.
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: I am Jason Spears, candidate for City Council, Ward 6.
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: Over the past 20 years, I faithfully and effectively served our community in many different ways.
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: If elected, I will bring structure and strategy to the city's finances, help develop a blueprint to capitalize on the growing economic activity in our city and work to strengthen relationships with Lowndes County officials, the Golden Triangle Development Link and, most importantly, you, the citizens of Columbus.
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: I approve this message and, on April 1st, vote Jason Spears for Ward 6, paid for by the campaign to elect Jason Spears.
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: Campaign to elect Jason.
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: Spears, Thanks for joining today.
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: You are listening to Between the Headlines hosted by the omnipresent managing editor of the Commercial Dispatch, Mr Zach Player.
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: Something different every week and I am David Chisholm.
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: Hey, you ready to talk politics?
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely, well, what you?
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: got Okay.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: So I don't know if you saw this, but oh, I did.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: The Columbus vice mayor, Ward 2 Councilman, Joseph Mickens, has taken the residents of his opponent's show on the road to the Supreme Court and he is continuing to challenge whether they can even run against him.
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: Why are we still doing this?
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: Well, first off, this is a wild move.
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: Like I didn't even know, you could jump that high immediately.
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: Is there nobody in between the Democrat Party of Lowndes County and the Mississippi Supreme Court?
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: I saw that release and I was like holy cow.
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: First off, let me ask you what do we think about the merits of this?
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: I mean, is there going to be any standing?
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: He lost the hearing.
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: And he lost the hearing because he didn't have any evidence.
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: He didn't have any evidence and I was like he really needs to stop talking about this.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: This is really ugly.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, this is a.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: It reeks of a lack of confidence in his position here.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, you don't want to be arrogant when you're running for office, but if you're a four-term incumbent, one would think you would at least be somewhat confident.
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: My question is this okay, what if he wins?
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: Like, what if he actually has merit and he comes before?
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: What?
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: Do we call them justices or judges on that level?
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and and well, it's actually a special special.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: And it'll happen here in the county.
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: Right, I'm going to crash that party.
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: What if it is found that the Democrat Party facilitated, perhaps with the help of Leroy Brooks?
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: and put forth— that's a conspiracy theory, David.
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: But does he believe this or is he just—?
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: The only thing that a four-term incumbent has to really fear is if they've done a bad job, which I know people are going to argue that Mickens.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Some people are going to argue that Mickens has done a bad job.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Some people are going to argue that he's done a good job.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: That's going to be every race, or that people are tired of you and he's done everything wrong in the run up to this election and since qualifying was over with to remind people why they might should be tired of him, because let's look at who he's running against.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Let's look at who he's running against and I'm not taking anything away from either Ms Shishi O'Neill or Roger Smith.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: But they're newbies.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're newcomers to the political landscape and I haven't seen I mean, they both may be doing phenomenal things in their ward as far as their ground campaign, but publicly that everybody could see.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: You know there's signs Miss Shishi is out there, but I haven't seen her really.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: You know, overshadow Mickens in the public sphere.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Roderick Smith has actually displayed a lot of the tactics, a lot of the practices that you would think would be good in a burgeoning leader.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: He shows up to everything but he sits in the back, he listens more than he talks.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Like I said, a lot of the things that you might want in a leader, but as a campaigner he has been fairly quiet.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: These are not two candidates that a four-term incumbent with a record should be afraid of, to the point to where he's sabotaging his own campaign to try to get them off the ballot.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: And I think that what it shows us is he is really worried.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: I think he's worried about, I think he's desperate, I think he's worried about how the Kenny Weigel thing affected him.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: If you remember, he dressed down a very popular department head in the middle of a city council meeting.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: He was in on that Susan Wilder mass with the grant writer and he keeps making mistakes and I think that this may be the biggest one that he's making because, to your point, he's making very relevant these two largely politically unknown people and I want to get them on the show at this point yeah, absolutely zach.
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: This is absolutely wild if you look at it at face value.
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: He is calling his own party corrupt right.
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: He is throwing his peers that he's going to have to work with under the bus and rolling back over them.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: And instead of running against them, instead of just running a race against his opponents, he's trying to get them off the ballot and I think that tactic is.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I think the tactic, tactic is desperate and I think it smacks of a man who's probably going to finish.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Third, in his primary.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: And that is wild for a four-term incumbent.
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: I guess we'll see him in court.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Well, something else that has kind of happened in the political sphere over the past week two of your folks, two Republicans, gop elephant folk, went to the Exchange Club, ward 5 Councilman candidate Mayor Beth Jeter and Ward 6 Council candidate Jason Spears.
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: So I wasn't at this meeting.
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: They both spoke at the same occasion.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: That is correct and I was there.
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: And Jason spoke first.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: He did, he spoke no, no, no, no, no.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Jason spoke last.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Miss Jeter spoke last.
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Miss Jeter spoke first, but I want to address Jason first.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Now he had a really funny joke in this presentation where he talks about the only person that could possibly be sure If he writes something down.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: The only person that could possibly be sure of what is written down in front of them would be Moses coming out of the mountain.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: I thought that was a funny comparison.
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: But the guy knows numbers, yeah, and well, the thing about it is, if he's going to—he has the money, knowledge, as you say but the challenge for him is going to be when he brings those tablets down from the top of Mount Sinai.
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: He is going to discover the golden calf, he is going to discover the monetary debauchery that's happening at the bottom of the hill here, and I'm wondering if he is going to have the answer there, if he's going to be able to help the people to read the tablets.
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: Shall we say Right, there are certain members of that council not going to call names that maybe don't know how to read a balance sheet, and so is what he's going to sell going to go over people's heads, or is he going to be able to bring people to the table in a way that they can understand and move forward with him?
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: CCMSD.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: He's on that board.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: You know that was a financially compromised organization at the beginnings of the time.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: When he was on that board he kind of took the reins of the bean counting and he, you know they, you know refinanced debt, they built a capital improvements fund, they started making sound financial decisions and he did a good job explaining them.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I thought, I mean, he knows those questions to ask and he knows how to pursue those avenues.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: And I think one thing that I was concerned about with Jason's candidacy when he started was is he just going to be seen as a bean counter?
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Is he a one-trick pony?
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: And I really think I mean the exchange club.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: He talked about crime, he talked about recreation, he thoughtfully talked about other issues that weren't related to the cost of things and he did.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: I mean he leaned very heavily into the cost of things and the bean counting because that's what he does professionally.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: But he was very good speaking from a citizen standpoint on, you know, thoughtfully talking about other issues that weren't just money related, and I think that's going to resonate.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: And I was pleasantly surprised he has credibility even with the existing council.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Members of this existing council appointed him to the school board, later appointed him to the CRA board Columbus Redevelopment Authority board where he serves now.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: So he's familiar with whatever makeup of this council ends up being.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: He's familiar with those guys.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: He does not carry with him that ABC a better Columbus baggage that the current sitting councilwoman, jacqueline DiCicco, did Fair or not, accurate or not, she was seen in 2021 as an ABC candidate, which really helped her win.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: That helped her beat Bill Gavin in a Ward 6 race where that ward was just succumbing to anti-incumbent fervor.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: But when she got on the council, the very thing that got her there hurt her with her colleagues.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: They've shut her out.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: She's on the losing end of a lot of 4-2 votes on that council and a lot of it is a credibility challenge that she never overcame because of fair or not, accurate or not.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: She was seen as the ABC candidate that beat Bill Gavin and they didn't trust her and haven't trusted her.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Jason Spears won't quite have that issue.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: I don't think.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: If he wins and he gets on that council with Rusty Green, who's also been on the back end or the losing end of some for a lot of 4-2 votes, yeah, you get the combination of Rusty and Jason and I think that that combination, that combination, with their credibility with their colleagues and and otherwise, could very much easier and much more often pull a third vote on an issue and even maybe move the voting blocks around a little differently than they have been over the past four years, which can't be a bad thing.
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: That's definitely what the voters want.
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: I know that there is a sense of upheaval and wanting to just completely overthrow the current system.
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: Now, different people will point at different incumbents, but the overwhelming consensus in this town is we're just not doing a good job, and so it all amounts to who they trust, and I do think that Jason has trust built Right, and camaraderie can be everything.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: You know I want to go to Jeter for a second and listen to her presentation and she's running as the Republican in Ward 5.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: That's Stephen's ward right now, but of course he's running for mayor, so there are three Democrats.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: She's the Republican running in that race, so she'll be on the June ballot.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Something bothers me about her campaign.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Essentially, if you want to lead something, you have to believe in it.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: If you want to lead the city, I don't think that you can ignore the negative.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: I don't think that you can ignore the things that need to be changed, the challenges that you see ahead.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: But doom and gloom campaigns don't really do much for me.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Whatever organization that you're wanting to run, you should be able to say three positive things about it and the theme of her campaign.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Her presentations have all been.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: You know, columbus is falling apart, the streets are unsafe, somebody broke my window.
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: Well, I can see that side of the argument.
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: But at the same time, the negativity is there and the negativity sells.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: And I mean, if you look even at, let's just say, the presidential campaign, we were talking about what?
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: Inflation?
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: Just sky high.
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: World War III, all this kind of stuff.
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: People just had their heads in the absolute dirt and they were angry and they were bitter and they voted accordingly.
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: In the absolute dirt, and they were angry and they were bitter and they voted accordingly.
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: I can see that happening in the city.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: So, even though it might not be a sexy thing to be a doom and gloom candidate, but what are your solutions.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Propose some Because, ok, leroy Brooks has gotten a little bit of flack in the mayor's race for the same kind of thing, like, oh well, he's very negative in some of his campaigning and I think that there's an argument to be made there.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes he does slap Columbus upside the head a little bit harder than you know, maybe is merited.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: But with every time he does that, what does he do behind it?
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: He offers good, bad or indifferent what he sees as a solution.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Other candidates have done the same thing.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: They've acknowledged something bad about Columbus.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: But behind each of those, those campaigns are offering and if I'm elected then this is how I think that we should approach it.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: You know, leroy's campaign is offering that, bill's campaign is offering that, darren's campaign is offering that.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Stephen's campaign is offering that.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Darren's campaign is offering that Stephen's campaign is offering that.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Many of the council campaigns are offering that.
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: Well, I think that she will reflect upon this and I think she'll digest it and I think that over time, she will form a more concerted opinion about this and that and have those solutions that you're requesting, because I do agree, there was not a lot of content there, but what she did have is that she was personable, she was honest, she brought up her own divorce, which is I think a humble thing to do and I don't want to take away from the ability for that to resonate with people, because, let me tell you this, speeches will not win elections.
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: okay, I'm just going to be real and say if speeches won elections, I would be in jackson right now.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: Okay, I'm not going to call names, uh, either one of the but, but what I'm saying to you is that people vote for who they can trust.
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: Okay and Okay.
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: And I got my ass handed to me by New Hope because they trusted someone else, and I'm okay with that.
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: I'm sitting here smiling.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: And this is when you ran for representative.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: That is correct.
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: I'm just saying that people vote for who they trust, and that's just the way this game works.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: But there are positive things about the city of Columbus.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: I don't want to sound like I'm running for CVB board right now, but there are positive things about the city of Columbus and if you are wanting to be a leader in the city of Columbus, you need to.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Stephen Jones he listens to the podcast and we appreciate his listenership.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: You may remember, a couple of weeks ago, when we were talking about the amphitheater we were talking about, I suggested that the city should either go with Keith's plan, which it would be using the amphitheater for local events while looking for third party funding, or, if they're going to go with Stephen's plan and insist that the thing be completely finished and ready to roll before they let anything happen there, then you know, get off your duff and fund the thing.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: You got a capital improvement fund.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Well, at the work session Thursday he floats that idea.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: He says let's look at whether to do that.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: He's asking questions about that or he's even bringing up borrowing money which I don't know about either one of those.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: But all I was saying was you know, the status quo can't remain.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: At least this is some movement, one direction or the other.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: Well, to borrow money you have to have credit and you have to have good credit.
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: And, if I recall, he voted against the forensic audit and as a consequence of that, there are things that we've been uneligible for.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: There's grant monies this and that we have to be financially solid, and one of the reasons that we're ineligible for that the city is ineligible for grant money in certain cases is not because of the forensic audit, but because the annual audits are too far behind, and so they've got to catch those up before they can be an applicant for certain grants.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Got to fix it.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Well.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: And I've got one more question for you on Stephen.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Have you seen his Facebook posts where he's out on city work sites looking at a map, pointing off?
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: Are you talking about?
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: the one with the sidewalk.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, there's two of them that I've seen.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: There's one where he's standing on Blue Cut Road.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: He's looking at a map he's pointing off into the distance.
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: And then there's the most recent one, where he's standing over a place where a sidewalk is about to be poured.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Yes, and he points off into the distance somewhere, points off into the distance somewhere.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Wrong answers only.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: What is Stephen?
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: pointing at?
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: It's obvious to me that he's pointing to an ugly-ass cell phone pole We've already talked about that but I mean he may not be pointing toward anything.
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: Okay, check it out.
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: I'm a fan of historical paintings and I just think he's pointing forward.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Trying to touch the angel's finger on the top of the.
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: Sistine.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: Chapel.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: Oh, no, yeah, the Sistine Chapel.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: No, I was thinking more.
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: He's George Washington, but with better teeth.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: Okay, he's crossing the Lux, okay.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, Going to fix our town.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: My wrong answer.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: He's pointing at Waldo from the cartoon books with the glasses.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think he's fine in Waldo, or Waldo's fine in him, and he can't believe his luck.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: So it's a good thing he's following Jones and not Mickens, and that's all I have to say about that.
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: Before we get to our next thing, let me ask you this Do you need a space for your next event?
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• 21:40
  Speaker 4: No-transcript.
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: Well, I need to open this next segment with really bad news for Mississippi.
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: The fate of MUW and our historically black colleges and universities hangs in the balance.
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: I hate to say it, but unless there is a major change in our legislative trajectory, muw, along with several of our smaller colleges, they're going to get axed.
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: They're going to be done.
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: Ok, it's a possibility.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: Msms is just the beginning of this.
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: Here we have the finest residential school in the South.
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: Ok, the numbers are out there.
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: The numbers are wild.
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: I mean.
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: These kids are absolutely something else.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: They're going to be engineers, big time scholars.
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: They're going to stay here.
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: They're going to be engineers, big time scholars.
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: They're going to stay here.
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: They're going to invest their money here.
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: They're going to invest their brain power here.
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: You've got a future Elon Musk of the South.
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: I mean, all this stuff could happen, maybe Richard Branson.
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: Regardless politicians in dark rooms filled with cigar smoke are plotting to dig it up and move it.
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: Where these teenagers will have, shall we say, close fellowship with 23,000 college students, half of which are male?
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: How is that safe MSMS?
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: The bright beacon that it is, will get reduced to being the nerd wing of Starkville High, where they will be bullied, they will lose their ID and they will fizzle away.
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: And, zach, this made absolutely no sense to me.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: I had to go out there and check things out for myself.
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: So the exact proposed site for this contraption.
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: You can't make this stuff up.
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: It is currently a frog pond.
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: It is surrounded by woods on all fours.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: Well, you've got a four lane on one.
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: It's got woods all around it.
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: It's right there, next to the school.
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: There is a hundred feet drop from every direction.
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: And so I'm looking at this and not only am I thinking you know, some dirt man is going to get filthy rich, but this is a scandal, this is ugly, this is a nasty chapter in our state history, and the plans don't even have a basketball arena or anything.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: There's no ball.
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: This is something really stinks about this.
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: $174 million versus $35 million, all the while MSU has 10 acres ready to roll.
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: It is a boondoggle.
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: And 81 out of 82 counties will foot the bill for an enormous school built over a frog pond that is not in their county.
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: And I'm not done.
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: I wish I was.
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: Muw will not survive this and at some point a bill will be proposed and without enough pressure it will pass both houses.
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: And just before Tate Reeves signs it into law, he's going to think about that moment when Lowndes County went for Brandon Presley Just saying the MSMS people and the W people are going to have to come together Because, following this, there will be a long blue line to circle around the Ginkgo tree for a final singing of Serene is the Dawning mark my words.
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: After that you'll have vacant historical buildings overtaken with vines and these people have to come together with the same fire and fury that they had over that name change or even more.
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: They're going to have to call up their old roommate.
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: They're going to have to call their local lawmaker elsewhere in the state.
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: Andy Boyd can't save us.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: Kabir can't save us.
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: Dana, it's not going to happen.
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: They need to hear the gentleman from Pontotoc, coffey County, yalabusha, all these places.
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: They all need to hear from the alumni and if they don't, zach, the 140-year-old tradition of excellence for women and men will fade off into the night, followed by Alcorn Jackson State, rust College, you name it, and I wish that weren't the case, but that's exactly where this is headed.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, they may end up hearing from the people of Octobahaw County before it's over with, and that may be the voices that are loudest of all.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: I was doing a little bit of napkin math here.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: So, looking at this bond that would build Starkville High School, that's an $87 million bond.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: They've got it built into where it can be stopped by a reverse referendum.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: So that's 2,500 or whatever percentage of voters have to sign a petition to get it on the ballot to be voted on at all.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: So what are some reasons why they would do that?
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Well, $87 million.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: When you try to add interest in just napkin math, we're talking about 12, 13, 14 mils that you're adding to the rate at the school district.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: You want to know what else is happening.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: The same time that tax is going to be going on the books, ocktippahaw County is going to be reassessed.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Now you may remember what happened in Lowndes County last year when it was reassessed Tax bills went up 20% Organically, if all the millages stay the same in the city, in the county, and then the school ends up adding the bond millage and over on top of what they've already got.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Just organically, with the millages the same, you're going up 20%.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: And so who's going to bite that bullet?
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Who's going to go down?
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Who's going to go down on behalf of the school?
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Is it going to be the city?
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Is it going to be Octoball County?
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Which one's going to do it?
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: And I bet you it's going to be neither.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: So 20% is going to happen in 2026.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you add this 14 mils or whatever 14, 15 mils that you're going to have to add to service this bond for this high school over 15 years.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: So if you're paying okay, if you're paying $1,000, if you last year, if your tax bill was $1,000 property tax, just the reassessment is going to bump that up to $1,200.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: You add the school on top of that.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: You're talking $1,300, $1,400, $1,500 that you're going to be paying on the same property that you're paying $1,000 on.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Now I think they're going to get those when that gets out there.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: I think they're going to get those signatures on that petition and I think it's going to go to a ballot.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: And if it goes to a ballot, I don't think it can get 60 percent.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the next question of if SHS isn't built because Octavio Hall County doesn't want it and you've already said that MSMS is going to be part of this is there a contingency plan for MSMS to be moved over to MSU without SHS?
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: I don't think there is one.
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: The only thing I hear of is the idea floating out there of giving them the deed to the land where they current exist, and I am not opposed to that at all.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, I think that's a great idea, and that was something that Senator Chuck Younger suggested.
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but you're right, the math ain't mathing.
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: And I'll tell you something else.
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: The people of Octobahaw County are still a little bit but hurt over the hike in 2016.
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: Okay, they didn't want to pay for that school.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: A lot of them, I mean they they ended up doing it but that bill was low compared to 87.
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: Oh my goodness, absolute boon doggle.
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: And then when you add to that the fact that there's there's not really any sports facilities in that drawing, Right.
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: I mean, where are they going to play?
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: Are they going to put them on a bus and take them to the old complex?
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: It makes zero sense and I hate to be conspiratorial, but it really really looks curatorial, but it really, really looks dude.
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: it looks like they're reaching into the legislative pot, all these other counties to help dig them out of a trench right here, both figuratively and literally.
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: If you look at that plot of land, I have never seen a more uglier place to build a high school in my life.
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: How are you going to do it?
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: place to build a high school in my life.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: How are you going to do it?
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: My sticking point is you're going to add this bond to the tax rolls the same year that you're going to get reassessed in the county and your taxes are going to go up 20% already if nothing happens, and then an additional 14 mils.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: I don't see that happening without any very substantial resistance from the locals there.
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: You've been listening to Between the Headlines with Zach and David.
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: Next special guest, mr Joe Max Higgins himself.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Joe Max, thanks for being with us today.
• 30:43
  Speaker 6: Thank you for having me.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: All right, I just want to jump right in Councilman Joseph Mickens.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: He's had a lot to say about the link lately.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, as you're aware and he has said publicly, he was the vote against Rural King, the tax incentives for Rural King coming in when the city started talking about whether to keep their lobbyist.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Mickens said on the record now he said it twice.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: He said on the record to the dispatch we need to look at not just the lobbyists but we need to look at that $100,000 that we're giving to the link, because I don't think we're getting anything out of it.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: He said that.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: He repeated that again Thursday at the work session.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: So I just want to start there.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: What's his beef and what's your response?
• 31:24
  Speaker 6: You know, I'm not sure what Mickens' beef is.
• 31:26
  Speaker 6: You know, if you watch him he's pretty colorful.
• 31:32
  Speaker 6: He'll have one opinion one day, another opinion, another changes his mind frequently.
• 31:34
  Speaker 6: There's, I think, a clinical phrase for that.
• 31:38
  Speaker 6: But what I'm going to tell you is it makes not a difference to me which position he takes.
• 31:43
  Speaker 6: I just wish he would take one.
• 31:44
  Speaker 6: I don't think the general public knows.
• 31:46
  Speaker 6: The contracts we have for economic development services are not at the city level.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Right the contracts with the county and then the city pays into the county contract.
• 31:55
  Speaker 6: And if Mr Mickens and his peers think that they're not getting the value that they need to get because they basically write a check to the county and become a subset, they get a seat on the board.
• 32:05
  Speaker 6: On the board, uh, uh, their appointee is bill west, fine businessman in town, good, good knowledge, good capability, good judgment.
• 32:17
  Speaker 6: Uh, all you get for the money is a seat on the board and and those board members represent the area and the region.
• 32:22
  Speaker 6: But if he doesn't think he's getting his hundred thousand dollars, it doesn't matter to the link, because our contracts with the county just means the county board supervisors will write a, a, a check, a,000 larger, and they'll have another board seat on there.
• 32:35
  Speaker 6: And if that's what he and his peers want to do, that's fine.
• 32:40
  Speaker 6: I'd like for them to have a vote on it so he would either be shut up or put up, kind of like you just said about off the can or not.
• 32:48
  Speaker 6: I mean, is you in or is you out?
• 32:50
  Speaker 6: Because here's the deal.
• 32:52
  Speaker 6: The rural king thing was a total embarrassment.
• 32:54
  Speaker 6: It was an executive session and the general public didn't see much of that and he was rude to the consultant that came here that represented at that time was representing 40 deals around the country.
• 33:05
  Speaker 6: He was rude to him the second meeting when they approved it.
• 33:10
  Speaker 6: He was rude to him the second meeting when they approved it.
• 33:12
  Speaker 6: The first meeting he basically told the developer that he didn't trust the link.
• 33:17
  Speaker 6: The city didn't trust the link because they didn't have a good relationship with the link.
• 33:20
  Speaker 6: You don't tell a consultant that.
• 33:22
  Speaker 6: At the next meeting, when it was approved 5-1 and he was not in the room, I told him.
• 33:28
  Speaker 6: I said hey guys, when company's in the house you need to be on your best behavior.
• 33:31
  Speaker 6: And he tried to pull a Kenny Weigel on me and Joe Max Higgins ain't going to get Kenny Weigel in a public meeting or a private meeting, so he's the one that left the room.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Other candidates are running.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: You've got Mickens who's saying let's dump the link or let's reevaluate our relationship with the link.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Let's dump the link or let's reevaluate our relationship with the link.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: You've got other candidates who are running for mayor, for council positions, that are saying if I win we're going to improve the relationship with the link.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: We're going to.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: You know, bill Strauss is saying that.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Leroy Brooks is saying that.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: There are others that are saying we've got to improve the nature of our partnership with the link and get more out of that by having a seat at the table and better leveraging that relationship.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Y'all don't have a retail contract with Columbus.
• 34:18
  Speaker 6: Any of the towns.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Right, y'all provide technical assistance when asked, and I want you to go into what that actually means.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: But how, if, say, leroy or bill or some of these others, uh, what they're talking about improving the relationship with the link what does that look like in practice?
• 34:39
  Speaker 6: with the city.
• 34:39
  Speaker 6: Well, I mean, use the use allowance county board of supervisors as an example.
• 34:43
  Speaker 6: Uh, all of them are routinely in our office contacting, talking to us about stuff.
• 34:49
  Speaker 6: You know, of all the candidates, Leroy knows how it works.
• 34:54
  Speaker 6: We've been doing it for 21 years.
• 34:58
  Speaker 6: But you know I will be honest with you.
• 34:59
  Speaker 6: I was exchanging emails with the city of Starkville's mayor last night on some issues we're working on.
• 35:06
  Speaker 6: I talk to Rod Bobo probably three or four times a month in West Point.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: How often do you talk to Keith?
• 35:13
  Speaker 6: Probably a handful of times in the time he's been mayor.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 35:18
  Speaker 6: Probably a handful of times.
• 35:19
  Speaker 6: I think he's been in our office two or three times.
• 35:21
  Speaker 6: The others are frequent flyers, even though they've got to drive over here.
• 35:25
  Speaker 6: You know, okay, but the relationship is, you know a it's a two-way street but but we get asked on those from those other communities when they've got problems.
• 35:35
  Speaker 6: We get brought in and said, hey, what are the solutions to this?
• 35:39
  Speaker 6: How do you think we can fix this?
• 35:41
  Speaker 6: Uh, mayor bobbo called me the other day, said I was somewhere a retailer talked about locating.
• 35:45
  Speaker 6: He said I need a care, that's what we call it.
• 35:47
  Speaker 6: I need a care package.
• 35:48
  Speaker 6: Can betsy do me one?
• 35:48
  Speaker 6: It, I need a care package.
• 35:49
  Speaker 6: Can Betsy do me one?
• 35:49
  Speaker 6: I said, absolutely Within probably two hours.
• 35:51
  Speaker 6: We had it to him.
• 35:52
  Speaker 6: He had it to them.
• 35:53
  Speaker 6: We followed up with them and I think they're going to come to.
• 35:55
  Speaker 6: It's a retailer.
• 35:56
  Speaker 6: So I think it's going to come to West Point.
• 35:58
  Speaker 6: But he worked the deal and they just asked us to get technically involved.
• 36:03
  Speaker 6: Our extent on that is a different.
• 36:04
  Speaker 6: Example is example is when they first started talking about the annexation of that part of town southeast part of town when they started talking about it.
• 36:12
  Speaker 6: Betsy in our office, she's our demographer she is our numbers expert started running all of our software and said it's a bad decision.
• 36:21
  Speaker 6: The educational level is below, the home ownership is below, the incomes are below.
• 36:25
  Speaker 6: You don't do anything but take Columbus down if you annex it.
• 36:28
  Speaker 6: Well, we just had that in our pocket and Mickens called me one day, said can you go to lunch?
• 36:33
  Speaker 6: I said sure, I'll go to lunch.
• 36:34
  Speaker 6: And we met at Prophet's Porch and he said I want to talk about this idea I've got.
• 36:39
  Speaker 6: And I said it's a bad idea, joseph.
• 36:41
  Speaker 6: And I told him why.
• 36:42
  Speaker 6: And I said you don't improve your stature at all if you do it.
• 36:46
  Speaker 6: And he said okay, then we're not going to do it.
• 36:48
  Speaker 6: I said good, well then, lo and behold, they decided to do it.
• 36:51
  Speaker 6: That's when our information became public.
• 36:54
  Speaker 6: And you know, in all of that stuff you're talking about relationships.
• 36:57
  Speaker 6: We only had three people that asked for that information Leroy Brooks, a supervisor, asked for the information, kabir Kareem asked for the information and Jackie DiCicchio asked for the information.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: When Columbus is brought up, especially in its relationship with the link and development and things like that.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: What kind of industrial position do you see Columbus in for industrial recruitment?
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Landing anything, what can it land?
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Is that something that it should even be focused on, right?
• 37:33
  Speaker 6: now.
• 37:34
  Speaker 6: Well, again, it probably should be okay.
• 37:37
  Speaker 6: There's limitations.
• 37:38
  Speaker 6: You're not going to find somebody that wants a thousand acres inside of the city of Columbus.
• 37:42
  Speaker 6: It doesn't exist.
• 37:43
  Speaker 6: You're not going to see any big-time commercial solar like we have out in Dunster Park or being built in West Point.
• 37:50
  Speaker 6: Right now You're not going to see that.
• 37:51
  Speaker 6: But there's some smaller buildings that can be occupied.
• 37:55
  Speaker 6: The port is a location that provides a bulk breaking point, but there's only about less than 90 acres out there that's available and right now I think the port board is really going through some thinkings about deciding if they just want to be a bulk breaking point and use more land for bringing materials in and loading them in, loading them in, loading out.
• 38:15
  Speaker 6: If we do, the land goes down.
• 38:17
  Speaker 6: Ironically, the city of Columbus had a chance to be a major player in industrial development back years ago.
• 38:24
  Speaker 6: About 21 years ago they were asked to be a partner in the first megasite out at the industrial park and the Board of Supervisors offered them 40% ownership of the first meg site where the steel mill is now about $3.3 billion investment there, and they declined.
• 38:41
  Speaker 6: Had they been a partner in that, they would have been a partner in the mega site where PACCAR is located.
• 38:46
  Speaker 6: They would have probably been a partner where the steel aluminum mill is being built right now and they would probably be a partner in the fixed-to-be-announced Senco mega site.
• 38:53
  Speaker 6: But they couldn't see how they could come up with 40% of $6.25 million.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Well, and that's I mean that's a lot of money at the time, but not nearly as much money as what would have been generated on the back end Millions.
• 39:06
  Speaker 6: I mean the steel mills check on their taxes.
• 39:09
  Speaker 6: This year was $14 million.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's quite a lot.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: Well, transitioning into another element of this, you have talked publicly several times about executives from Steel Mill Aluminum Mill moving to Octavall County.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Living in Octavall County, lynn Spruill, the mayor in Starkville, is actively openly talking about when the ADI workers get here, we're going to capture them as residents in Starkville.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: What's holding Columbus back from being a residential destination for those workers and how can they compete better?
• 39:47
  Speaker 6: Well, you know, historically in the last 21 years, you know, when I got here when the steel mill came, it seemed like almost all the executives moved to New Hope.
• 39:56
  Speaker 6: Now I think that was Corrine and Terry Brown's relationship.
• 39:59
  Speaker 6: You know Terry was pro-New Hope guy.
• 40:01
  Speaker 6: He was y'all move out here, y'all move out here.
• 40:02
  Speaker 6: But people migrate okay, and schools drive a lot of the choices okay.
• 40:07
  Speaker 6: But something weird has happened in the last just couple of years that did not exist.
• 40:15
  Speaker 6: I can't remember when we had an executive from a plant we located that did not live in Lowndes County, but that has changed.
• 40:22
  Speaker 6: The administrator of Baptist Hospital lives in Starkville.
• 40:27
  Speaker 6: Pat Carr's general manager lives in Starkville.
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: Aluminum Dynamics lives in Starkville.
• 40:32
  Speaker 6: The biochar lives in Starkville.
• 40:34
  Speaker 6: We were in a meeting yesterday with the biochar folks and I think there are two, three and four live in Starkville.
• 40:39
  Speaker 6: The biochar lives in Starkville and we were in a meeting yesterday with the biochar folks and I think there are two, three and four live in Starkville.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: So the worm has changed.
• 40:44
  Speaker 6: Yeah, but housing is more expensive.
• 40:45
  Speaker 6: In Starkville Housing is more expensive.
• 40:48
  Speaker 6: I think the school options they like better public and private because both I think they're doing both.
• 40:54
  Speaker 6: I think both sides are represented there.
• 40:56
  Speaker 6: But you know, there's a lot of things that come into factor when somebody moves and you think about you You're not from here, I'm not from here Schools, churches, neighborhoods all come into play and people are going to go where they feel the safest, where they think they can be integrated, where they can have things to do.
• 41:16
  Speaker 6: All those things come into effect and the worm has turned and unless something changes it will continue.
• 41:26
  Speaker 6: And we track the rank and file employees and the executives of all the facilities that have 50 employees or more, that have 50 employees or more, and what we see is the trend is pretty strong that the executives either go to Caledonia or to Starkville.
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: Joe Max, the question was asked during the mayoral Democrat debate.
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: Well, it ended up being an independent debate what helps Columbus to stand apart?
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: And the answer given was well, it's our people, which is a good, pious answer, I thought.
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: But but what was not mentioned is what actually sets us apart, and that is our river.
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: Okay, we're a water town.
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: You mentioned the port authority.
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: Um, what do we have in the works, in your opinion, in the way of development on the tom and the lux.
• 42:16
  Speaker 6: Well, we've got, uh, ironically, tomorrow we've got an all hands on deck meeting on some improvements that we're making to the west bank.
• 42:22
  Speaker 6: Uh, rail, that's where the steel scrap comes in.
• 42:24
  Speaker 6: Uh, and we've got a meeting with neil schaefer and the steel, the steel mill and and and and the uh waterway operator.
• 42:32
  Speaker 6: Uh, we're going to put rail into the west bank, into the west bank to allow us to get rid of the trucks bringing the scrap.
• 42:38
  Speaker 6: Uh, once we get that rail in, I think it's going to open up more possibilities on the west bank side.
• 42:44
  Speaker 6: But, uh, that's probably all in.
• 42:47
  Speaker 6: That's probably a 12, 13 million dollar project, be my guess.
• 42:49
  Speaker 6: Um, so that we're working on that.
• 42:52
  Speaker 6: And again, uh, we're working with will and his team at the at the port of.
• 42:56
  Speaker 6: Do we make it a bulk breaking point?
• 42:58
  Speaker 6: Okay, because there's some argument for agricultural products to be shipped in and out.
• 43:04
  Speaker 6: We met not too long ago with a concrete company that wanted to bring in cement by barge Not concrete cement a mixer and store it in bulk there and distribute it out of there to their facilities, grains, more and more aggregate products.
• 43:21
  Speaker 6: So they're trying to decide do we take this 90 acres and put buildings and plants on it or do we use it for bulk breaking, and it's a hard decision to make.
• 43:29
  Speaker 6: They can probably make more money using it as a bulk breaking point.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Well, I want to get into the ADI project ongoing.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Just want to get a status update on that from you and also a status update on, across the road, the Cinco mega site that y'all are trying to put together.
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: At ADI.
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: They're making test aluminum.
• 43:50
  Speaker 6: They're going through testing and so is Biochar.
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: Biochar did some systems checks two weeks ago, but we expect that the aluminum mill will start running product by summer.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 44:02
  Speaker 6: You know you've got a lot of kinks to work out on something big like that.
• 44:05
  Speaker 6: They'll tell you oh, in a matter of weeks we'll be running it full production.
• 44:10
  Speaker 6: That's probably not right but we see that they're going.
• 44:14
  Speaker 6: We're now starting to see their customers starting to call Okay.
• 44:18
  Speaker 6: So we've got our first customer that we're working with that will go in their customer park that will take product from them.
• 44:25
  Speaker 6: I think most people will understand that I'm not going to come build a plant to take aluminum for you until you get your aluminum plant built and make an aluminum.
• 44:31
  Speaker 6: But we've got a.
• 44:32
  Speaker 6: There's about a 700-acre park there, about 20-something.
• 44:35
  Speaker 6: Lots have been platted.
• 44:36
  Speaker 6: Water, sewer, roads are in place and we've got our first tenant and already in discussion with our second and third.
• 44:42
  Speaker 6: So that's going well.
• 44:44
  Speaker 6: Cinco Megasite we will close on that before the end of the month.
• 44:49
  Speaker 6: It's a Friday 26th, I think, is the tentative closing date for purchase.
• 44:55
  Speaker 6: We've got our applications for the water and the sewer pending with the feds.
• 44:59
  Speaker 6: We went down and met with MDA Director Bill Cork, with an entourage Stanley Spradling, elizabeth that works for me and Tripp Harrison and I went down and met with them and his team last week.
• 45:11
  Speaker 6: I think we're going to get some help from them and grants to help us on our water and our sewer part.
• 45:23
  Speaker 6: So we're already marketing the site.
• 45:24
  Speaker 6: It's already been shown for those out there that are that are nerds the Andrew project that went to Ohio.
• 45:28
  Speaker 6: That was announced at Ohio a couple of weeks ago.
• 45:30
  Speaker 6: The new drone people we were one of the third.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: The Cinco site was one of the 13 sites that they looked at for that and I think a question that's on a lot of people's minds right now, or it will be, especially where SDI and ADI are concerned what's kind of your view of how the tariffs are going to impact those places?
• 45:50
  Speaker 6: Well, not just those two, all of them.
• 45:53
  Speaker 6: I mean it'll help and it'll hurt if that makes any sense.
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: I mean you know it can probably help those steel and aluminum producers, largely, I would say.
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: But we've got other manufacturers that it probably could hurt.
• 46:10
  Speaker 6: You know, remember Yokohama brings raw rubber in from Brazil and into the port of New Orleans and that's probably going to have a tariff on it.
• 46:19
  Speaker 6: People think about PACCAR and Kenworth and Peterbilt being American companies, but they also have truck plants in Mexico and in Canada and those trucks, the American company that builds them there's importing them.
• 46:37
  Speaker 6: They'll take a hit there.
• 46:38
  Speaker 6: Also, on components, you know, little parts that go in things are made somewhere.
• 46:42
  Speaker 6: Well, they got a tariff on them.
• 46:44
  Speaker 6: You know you may sit there and say, well, we've got to do something else.
• 46:47
  Speaker 6: One of the plant captains told me the other day said it takes about 18 months for us to decide to get a new part supplier.
• 46:53
  Speaker 6: By the time they build a mock-up, they test it, they send it to us, we use it, they tool up.
• 46:59
  Speaker 6: About 18 months.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Well, some people think this tariff thing won't last 18 months so they're probably not going to bite the bullet to go find another supplier.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, do you see employment shrinkage in any of those plants?
• 47:13
  Speaker 6: No, not because of the tariffs, I think markets I mean some of them have had a slowdown around the end of the year presidential election, all those kind of things, but all of them are running pretty well.
• 47:29
  Speaker 6: Their stocks are all holding real well.
• 47:30
  Speaker 6: Had a bad day yesterday but largely their stocks are up and their profits are up.
• 47:33
  Speaker 6: You know, those companies out there make a lot of money.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Well, completely switching gears here.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: How do you see the MSMS-MUW issue playing out?
• 47:44
  Speaker 6: Well, first of all, you know everybody wants us to get involved and we just simply can't.
• 47:49
  Speaker 6: I mean, I work for three counties.
• 47:51
  Speaker 6: I work for Starkville, I work for West Point, I work for Columbus in the three counties really, who we work for?
• 47:55
  Speaker 6: I had a Columbus leader that I think is probably top five of solid citizen in this county came to me and said you've got to get involved in this and I said I can't, we've got to take a neutral position.
• 48:06
  Speaker 6: It will have an impact, that's for sure.
• 48:10
  Speaker 6: Maybe a bigger impact or a lesser impact, depending on what happens where it goes.
• 48:16
  Speaker 6: A bigger impact or a lesser impact, depending on what happens where it goes.
• 48:23
  Speaker 6: I think, that it generally stands to be.
• 48:25
  Speaker 6: That, depending on where you live, is a side drone, and in my discussions that I've had with people, it's pretty clear to me that everybody has their position and they don't want to listen to why it might not be the right position Right, and nobody wants to talk about plan B because Plan B might be a defeatist deal.
• 48:39
  Speaker 6: What does it mean?
• 48:41
  Speaker 6: How does it work?
• 48:42
  Speaker 6: What's the long-term benefit?
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: All those things play into the role Well, one of the things that's been suggested is can MUW survive, as say, a workforce development hub of MSU?
• 48:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's one of the things they talk about.
• 48:58
  Speaker 6: I mean, you know, you really got to look at their strength and you know, I've been here 21 years and I've heard well, it's a top nursing school, it's a top nursing school, and you've heard that too right, yeah.
• 49:07
  Speaker 6: Do you know the numbers?
• 49:08
  Speaker 6: Okay, you know.
• 49:10
  Speaker 6: We looked them up the other day and they're ranked 39th.
• 49:13
  Speaker 6: And one of my staffers said, well, that's not all that good.
• 49:16
  Speaker 6: And I said, well, wait a minute.
• 49:17
  Speaker 6: There's over 800 nursing schools.
• 49:18
  Speaker 6: It's in the top four, between four and five percent in the country.
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: Right, their education department is something you don't want to shake a stick at.
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's rigorous and legit and speech pathology okay.
• 49:33
  Speaker 6: Now everybody pimps the culinary arts.
• 49:34
  Speaker 6: I just don't think there's enough majors there.
• 49:35
  Speaker 6: I think there's too much on that.
• 49:37
  Speaker 6: I don't think long-term, but there are probably some programs that they do exceedingly well.
• 49:43
  Speaker 6: Okay, that you would.
• 49:44
  Speaker 6: I would hate for our state of Mississippi to lose those things Right, just absolutely.
• 49:47
  Speaker 6: But you know it's years ago they invited Robert Smith, harry Sanders, bart Wise, allegra Brigham and I to serve on focus groups over there and they put us at different tables.
• 50:01
  Speaker 6: And they did this typical strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
• 50:03
  Speaker 6: And there was, I will say, a young lady she was probably 40-something at our table and people were talking about some of the good things.
• 50:10
  Speaker 6: Well, the buildings are historic and the campus is beautiful, and that's all true and she said.
• 50:15
  Speaker 6: But she said, let me disclose, I sit on the IHL board.
• 50:19
  Speaker 6: And she said you have no idea how much these old buildings cost to maintain.
• 50:23
  Speaker 6: I imagine that's right, and she said it's a big number and so you know there's pros and cons for either one.
• 50:33
  Speaker 6: You know I have a sneaking suspicion the decision is already made and we're just going through the motions, but everybody's going to stay spun up until that decision is made Sure.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: Does MUW survive in its current form if MSMS is relocated?
• 50:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
• 50:49
  Speaker 6: I think you're going to have to ask the question.
• 50:51
  Speaker 6: The last legislative session, some of the data that we got was if the MSMS students 240, 50 kids aren't there, it doesn't make sense to have food services on campus.
• 51:03
  Speaker 6: Well, that's pretty damning.
• 51:06
  Speaker 6: I would think if you need the high school to keep your residential dining services open I don't know if it's true or not okay, but those are some of the things that if they do leave, if that happens, you got to figure this out.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: Switching gears again.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: City elections who do you got in the mayor's race, joe Max?
• 51:26
  Speaker 6: Yeah well, I'm just not, I don't live in the city.
• 51:28
  Speaker 6: I live in the county, so I'm not eligible.
• 51:33
  Speaker 6: I'm not eligible to vote, but I will tell you this county, so I'm not eligible.
• 51:38
  Speaker 6: I'm not eligible to vote, uh, I, but I will tell you this, and and and probably we haven't seen this opportunity uh, uh or issue out in in past years.
• 51:42
  Speaker 6: You know we, we're guaranteed to get a new mayor in the city of clemence, absolutely guaranteed, because current mayor's not running, uh, he's not running for mayor well, that's right, he's running for city council.
• 51:52
  Speaker 6: But we've got a chance.
• 51:54
  Speaker 6: Uh, rusty green is the only one you know is coming back.
• 51:57
  Speaker 6: So we've got a chance to have a new mayor and almost a completely brand-new city council.
• 52:01
  Speaker 6: At minimum, you're going to get two new ones.
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: There's definitely an appetite for that.
• 52:07
  Speaker 6: Yeah, well, but Jackie's not running.
• 52:10
  Speaker 6: Stephen's not he's running for mayor, so he's not running.
• 52:14
  Speaker 6: So those two spots will be new.
• 52:16
  Speaker 6: And then, you're right, the appetite for the other.
• 52:18
  Speaker 6: I mean, I think there could be a lot of change.
• 52:21
  Speaker 6: We'll just have to wait and see.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: Last question I have for you.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: Rumor mill swirling around.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: I know you're working on a contract.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: I know that that contract has a certain length.
• 52:32
  Speaker 6: Oh, I've got a new contract.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: Oh you do.
• 52:34
  Speaker 6: Yeah, five years, five and a quarter years, starting in October.
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: So if you want to say January, five years.
• 52:40
  Speaker 6: So five years.
• 52:41
  Speaker 6: Okay, I'll be 70 years old.
• 52:44
  Speaker 6: I know I don't look it, I'll be 70 years old and time to go to the house, but I think that's probably the time that we'll need.
• 52:54
  Speaker 6: I did this in West Point with their mega site.
• 52:57
  Speaker 6: I said I think in two years you'll get a major development there.
• 52:59
  Speaker 6: I won't do that on Cinco Mega Site.
• 53:00
  Speaker 6: I'm not going to make a prediction, but I think in that five years we can get Cinco bought, we can get it infrastructured, we can have a dang good chance of getting a tenant for it and that'll be a good time to say adios.
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: Mr Joe Max, I just thank you for being here today and I thank you for your input and for what you do for our area, and I also want to thank our listeners for joining in.
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: Please help us talk it up Subscribe rate and share, and I hope you'll also join in the conversation.
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: Talk to us, let us know where we're wrong.
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: Tips at cdispatchcom.
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: Again, that is tips at cdispatchcom.
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: You can also follow me on Facebook or X at the Chisholm 00.
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: You've been listening to Between the Headlines signing off from Catfish Alley Studio in historic downtown Columbus.
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: Your host has been Zach Player and I am David Chisholm.
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: Until next time, keep it real and love the city in which you live.
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: Opinions expressed on this show are those of the speakers and not necessarily those of the Commercial Dispatch.