Latest / Between the Headlines: Columbus / 'Goodnight' Phone Calls, Caledonia Curfews and City Hall Untruths

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'Goodnight' Phone Calls, Caledonia Curfews and City Hall Untruths · 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.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: This is Peter Imes, publisher of the Dispatch.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: One of our hosts of Between the Headlines is the managing editor of our newsroom.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: 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.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: The dispatch remains committed to journalistic integrity and our reporting will always reflect that.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: And now between the headlines what's up, zach?
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: hey man david, how's it going?
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: this better be good.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: You know my bedtime's like 8 30 right.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm sorry for calling you so late, but I I just wanted to call and tell you goodnight.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Let me guess Jacqueline DiCicco went to jail for failing to return a library book.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: No man.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: No, I just called to tell you goodnight.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I know it's a busy time in the pool business and I know you're trying to help raise money for MSU to pay the $500,000 fine for storming the field Okay, okay, did Slim put you up.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: The field oh okay, okay, did Slim put you up to this Slim.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: No, man, I'm just.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I'm concerned about you and I just wanted to call and tell you goodnight.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: I'll see you tomorrow, zach.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Okay, so we'll be talking about that phone call today, courtesy of Mr Scott Colom, who's running for United States Senate.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: Also on the agenda, we will talk about the Caledonia curfew imposed upon the naughty, naughty children of North Lowndes County by the Board of Aldermen of Caledonia.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: And lastly, let's not forget when Stephen Jones told Jason Spears that the public information officer would neither be a puppet nor a bottleneck for his administration Psyche.
• 2:10
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• 2:14
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• 3:00
  Speaker 3: That is bentonsinccom.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: This episode of Between the Headlines is brought to you by Bank First, the locally owned bank that makes decisions right here at home by people who understand the needs of our community.
• 3:12
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• 3:16
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• 3:39
  Speaker 3: Listening to Between the Headlines with your heavy breathing prank caller and managing editor of the Dispatch, mr Zach Player, and my name is David Chisholm.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: Top headline today of all things the prank call by Mr Scott Colombe to not Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: Okay, for those who haven't seen it, what's the story of this?
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: So Scott Colombe, district attorney that's running as a Democrat for US Senate, probably feeling himself a little too much, makes a video that posts on social media.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Now, the thing about this video is it's a parody of a TikTok trend where folks are calling each other and telling each other good night, just out of the blue.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, which is quite weird, by the way the way.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't do anything for me, but uh, the point with scott's you know he was trying to be funny, he was doing a parody.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: There was a woman's voice that obviously wasn't cindy hyde smith.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Uh, he tells her good night and then he makes a campaign stump speech as for his reasons for telling her good night.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: And then that was what it was.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Silly video that, um, otherwise would have been a pretty indescript speed bump in a campaign, except for your boy on the state level, mike hurst oh, my boy yeah, your boy, mike hur.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: On the state level, he's the Republican Party chair for Mississippi has called for the USDOJ and the FBI to investigate Scott Cologne and potentially bring criminal charges for him.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Quote impersonating a public official in order to attain something of value.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: In order to attain something of value, and the something of value in this case being a Senate seat, I suppose.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, can everybody just calm down right here?
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: I'm pretty calm.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: It's interesting to me that we have a story here that would otherwise just be a fart in the wind.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: Yes, completely done.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: Talking about it, don't even remember it.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: But yeah, here we are.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: So your first point MSGOP calls for an investigation, clearly a political move.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see any legal backing here to do that.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: Now I know some of our listeners can be like well, david, the law is the law and Mississippi's very tight on the law.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, I guess a case could be made, simply because there were a few people on Facebook that did not identify this as parody right off the bat.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: And I get that.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I get that argument because I mean you know all of the, the, the parity rules and laws and all of that are associated with.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: A reasonable person can can obviously know that.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: That's that this is a parity.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Then you know, then it is.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: I worry about the threshold for reasonable anymore, the threshold for reasonable anymore.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: But I mean, this is a from a legal standpoint.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I'm not a lawyer either, but this is the person, the woman's voice on the phone.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: One, it wasn't Cindy Hyde-Smith, Never said it was Cindy.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: Well, he was trying to portray her as some type of old, dumb, clueless blonde.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: That's kind of what I got.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: Now here's what I'll tell you.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: All right, I looked into this.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: Parody is very much protected.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: Yes, by the First Amendment, especially of political figures and public figures and you know the case on that was Hustler versus Falwell.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: Yes, it was.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Have you read about that?
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, I know about that case.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: Well, for those of our listeners who don't and I apologize, it's a little graphic, but Hustler Magazine put together a fake ad of Falwell and in that ad they questioned him about you know, his first time experience and he told about it and it involved an outhouse and his mother.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: Okay, so very clearly outrageous, very clearly parody, and it was even labeled as such at the bottom Right and Falwell sued for defamation or something.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: He got a lot of money but then had to give it right back because the Supreme Court unanimously overturned that.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: So parody is a good thing?
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, give it right back because the supreme court unanimously overturned that right.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: So parity is a good thing, yeah, not I mean saturday night live doesn't exist without right political parity and and the thing about, even if it's distasteful and gross as was in the fallwell case yeah it's very much protected and there's a reason for that, not because it isn't offensive, but because freedom of expression and the freedom to petition your government, criticize your government and criticize government officials in ways that may resonate with various people, that's a right.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and parody tells a story in a way that just telling a story plainly doesn't get the message quite out there.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: Right, it's a colorful thing and, to be quite honest, when parody is almost believable, it's the most impact in my opinion.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: I was taught in journalism school all satire is founded in a grain of truth.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: Let me ask you this Do you think that this was a 3D chess move, like Colum knew?
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: No, I think that he was in a really good mood.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: He thought it would be funny.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: He got somebody to film him doing it.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: They were having a nice little laugh about plugging into a tiktok trend and then he went on about his business.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: He did not realize.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: I would be willing to bet you he didn't realize.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: But uh, let's back up to when he was here last week and I asked him over and over and over again, different ways how can somebody who represents, well, the 16th circuit in the four counties, how's he going to get name recognition outside of those four counties, and especially statewide, to be taken seriously in this race?
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Well, right on cue, here comes your boy, mike Hurst, carrying Scott Colom's water for him all across the state.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: This is a man who, on his own, was going to have to fight to be seen as a threat to a sitting senator and instead you not only have you know the oh, let's investigate him for having the temerity to run against Cindy Hyde-Smith, but you also have Cindy Hyde-Smith's first ad rollout.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Have you seen that piece of nonsense?
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: I don't know if I would use the word nonsense for it, but it was.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: It was pretty rough, right, it was pretty rough.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: It didn't say anything about and I want to talk about this a little more later it didn't say anything about her policies or her really at all.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: It was just a trash job on Scott Colon that had some falsehoods in it, not the least of which was, like nobody has called this man the transgender defender before they had the focus group for that ad.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: That was the first time that name came up.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Now people may call him that now who supports Zendye Hyde-Smith, and that was sort of the point.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: But he had not earned the name because nobody had called him that prior to that ad and that ad was meant to be very scorched earth, very boo this man.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: And here comes the big bad wolf kind of advertising.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: And now then the state GOP wants him investigated for something that he put on Facebook.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Well, meanwhile, people all across the state that might not have even known who he was or weren't taking him seriously in this race.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Now you've got the Cindy Hyde Smith camp and the state Republican Party telling them to take him seriously, telling him this is a serious threat to this race.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: This is his name, this is what he does.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: If you didn't know about him before, look him up, because this is the guy who's coming for Cindy Hyde-Smith.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: It was the best news Scott Colom could have heard all day, because he would have otherwise had to buy his way through advertising or fight his way through stumping to get the recognition that mike hurst and cindy hyde smith gave him in 24 hours.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Aren't you running against him, cindy?
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: well, I tell you what.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: Um, I support my man all right, I support what he does, but in the spirit of being real, which is what I've pledged to the listeners of this podcast.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: I'm not quite so sure.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: He didn't step in a dog turd here, and I haven't heard anything else about it.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: Maybe he's moved to a different pasture on this.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: At the same time, I think that Cologne is to be taken seriously, and I think that if I think the only way you need to run an election is is either unopposed or scared, and I think he's a viable candidate.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: I think Lowndes County and the Golden Triangle in general are fully capable of putting forth people on the national stage.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: And so here we are.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I've gotten a little bit of mail about this this week.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: You know, last week I was very, I very heavily questioned Scott's chances in this race.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: It was not a criticism of Scott at any point.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I said on here last week that I think he would be a capable senator and I think that he's definitely for me far preferable to the incumbent.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: But you know, to those of you who thought that I was laughing off Scott, I might get more hate mail because of this.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: That was not a criticism of Scott at all.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: It was a criticism of the voting history of the Mississippi electorate in the past 20 years.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: And I want to rewind a little bit, rewind way back.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: This sort of scorched earth politics that doesn't, that seeks to dehumanize their opponent.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: When you're running for office you are obviously in a popularity contest where you have to sell yourself as the preferred choice over the alternative.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: And in doing that you're going to have to criticize the alternative, criticize the other person.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: When Scott was in here last week he did that.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: He criticized Cindy Hyde-Smith and he criticized her harshly.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: But he didn't criticize her human harshly.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: He criticized her voting record, her policies, the impact that he saw it had on Mississippi.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: He never did call her names, as far as I can remember, and I feel like that's the way that politics used to be done.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: We used to go head to head, candidate on candidate, and talk about issues.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: And yeah, you're going to couch things in the light most favorable to you, couch things in the light most favorable to you, but there was a mutual respect of your opponent's humanity.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: That was inherent in politics more often than not.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: I would add to that that in your local races, and even in some presidential I mean John Kasich comes to mind there are some candidates out there that don't even mention their competition.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: They are strictly, strictly, strictly on the views and the platform and the issues at hand.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Look at Roger Ricker, the one who ran against Ty Pinkins.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Well, there you go, there's an example of that.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: So do you think that type of politicking has just gone completely by the wayside?
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but this is going to.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: I wanted to rewind to about a decade ago.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: I was working at the Starkville Daily News and Chris McDaniel came to town.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: He came and he spoke at a local.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I had no idea you were going to mention his name today so no idea what's coming forth.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Chris McDaniel came to a bank in Starkville to do a quote-unquote press conference.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Now, I'm sure you've met Chris McDaniel, especially in the circles you run in with the party.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you've met him.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you've talked to him.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: I've met him and I've talked to him.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: This man came into this bank for this press conference and, yes, he did take questions from the media.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: But we were all in this sort of sense of you know, we've seen his commercials, we've seen his stump speeches.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: But surely when you're talking to the guy it's not going to be so bombastic and completely beside the point.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: And so he gets up there and no matter what questions he's asked, no matter what's going on around him, he goes into that televangelistic sort of you know.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I mean he was sweating at the end of it.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: I thought he was going to start faith healing up on the front row.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: But everything he was saying was it didn't have anything to do with policy, much didn't have anything to do with what he was going to be as a senator.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: It had to do with scorching the earth and attacking his opponent and he almost won.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: He almost won that race against the most venerated US senator.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Mississippi's ever had.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: The problem, the reason he didn't win was because he was ahead of his time.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: I looked at that and I'm like there's no way that kind of politics is going to work and now it's normal.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: He was a pioneer, in a way, of what we see especially from the far right and the far left when it comes to running for office.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Now, it's not about me, it's not about what I'm going to do, it's not about what I have done.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: It's about me being human and my opponent not being quite so human as me.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: And Cindy Hyde-Smith just made fax copies of Chris McDaniel's campaign strategy and that's what she's running right now and it's lazy, on top of it being really morally questionable, it's lazy.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: To Chris McDaniel's defense, I don't.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: I certainly don't think he's the only one that that started that kind of movement well, it was the first time I had seen it that's what I'm um.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: And to cindy's defense uh, it probably just her pr crew putting together some stuff.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: I don't think she was at the laptop putting together that particular but it's in her name and it's got her face on.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: It's in her, in her name.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: You know this kind of saddens me.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: I'll be honest with you it does.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: It saddens me too.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: I'm listening to this and I'm thinking.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: You know, there's got to be an exit strategy, because soon enough this balloon of empty politics is going to pop and people are going to say you know what, maybe, just maybe, just maybe it's time to stop listening to the noisiest voices out there and find something that's got actual substance to it.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: Ok, not saying that Cindy nor McDaniel have no substance.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: They certainly certainly do, However well, their presentation on that too.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: Well, and the presentation thereof is solely, at some points, focused on the other side, and certainly Democrats do it as well.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: And I think Generation Z is ready to see somebody come and sit in a studio like this and be real and talk about themselves in a non-manufactured sort of way.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: They really crave authenticity.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: Let me close the segment by saying this I think it is truth be told, beneath the office of a senator to be making prank calls.
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: But if you're going to do it, well, fake prank calls.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: He didn't actually prank calls.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: But if you're going to do it, do it.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: Well, this just wasn't, this just wasn't done that great.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: Ok, listen, I'm not Jimmy Fallon, but I can do it better.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: Call me, I'm Cindy.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: Call me, oh okay.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: You're ringing, all right.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: Well, hey, there, you've reached the United States Senate office, or maybe it's the USDA.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: I get them mixed up sometimes, but bless your heart for calling.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: Yes, Zach, jobs, jobs, I'm into job creation, job retention.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: Yes, zach, jobs, jobs, I'm into job creation, job retention.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: Uh, what's that other one we saw?
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: Oh, innovation, write that one down, honey.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: Okay, now I don't.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: I don't have the details all in front of me, but I can assure you that we're working tirelessly day and night, except for weekends and in football season, to get this done.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: Uh, what state are we talking about?
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: Again, mississippi, okay, well, I thought it might have been Missouri.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: You'd be surprised how many times that happens.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: Anyway, bless your heart for calling.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: If you've got any more questions, just go through my PIO.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: Thank you, that's great.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: That's really good, I don't know.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: At least script it out and do something.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: I agree that if you're going to play a game, play it well All right, don't be lame and don't be low.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: Next up we'll talk about the Caledonia curfew, but first, if you need serious equipment that gets the job done, landman Rentals has you covered.
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• 21:49
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• 21:55
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• 22:02
  Speaker 4: The Good for Business podcast features interviews, tips and tricks from owners, operators and innovators.
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: Hear the inspiring stories of growth and life lessons from guests in Mississippi and around the world Hosted by entrepreneur, fundraiser and real estate broker, colin Krieger.
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: The podcast is based right here in the Golden Triangle community.
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: All right, Zach.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: Were you ever in Caledonia as a teenager?
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: No, I didn't know Caledonia was a place until I was probably 30.
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: It's definitely a place and it's definitely a festive part of the world, from what I understand it's going to be less festive in october I don't know.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: I think the festivities will remain intact.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: So the story at hand y'all is the board of aldermen of Caledonia have enacted a curfew for homecoming week.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: All right, so let's break this down.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: First off, why?
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Well, now Caledonia has a curfew all the time for minors.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: It's midnight, so they're going to have a stricter curfew for the week of October 19th through 26th, which is Caledonia Homecoming Week.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: It's going to be 10 pm for minors who aren't accompanied with an adult.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: So the rationale, as Mayor Betty Darnell tells it, is last year the kids got rowdy, destroyed some property, you know, did some things.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: That quote could have gotten people hurt and the thing that I mean I don't think that we're talking about Mayberry overcorrection or people forgetting that kids will be kids, because even in her response about this to the paper was we're not talking about rolling yards, which was to me I interpreted as we're not talking about the things that you would expect kids to do, and while we shake our fist at it and maybe tsk, tsk or you know at them, for we provide the toilet tissue for provide the toilet tissue for them and not tell anybody.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: We expect and frankly you know, would almost be disappointed if they didn't do some of that we're talking about, according to her, a lot more serious things, and so the town steps in to do what it thinks it can to mitigate the problem and maybe, in the process, teach these kids that there's consequences for going overboard.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: Well, a source close to the matter talked to me a little bit about last year and, if I recall last year, there was a request made to the Caledonia Board of Aldermen to enact a curfew during the same week because there were pranks as there are, and they got out of hand and a couple of kids almost died.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: As I understand it, they were reportedly chasing each other through the town in their trucks, shooting paintball guns at vehicles and in fact shooting paintball guns at vehicles, and in fact there was a bad wreck that resulted in a serious injury, and so I suppose that they're wanting to avoid having another week of very bad decisions.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Well, there's that, yeah, and it's a good lesson for the kids that if you want something nice, take care of it.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: Good luck teaching them that.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, they almost have to tear it up and pay for it themselves, which they can't do and therefore have to do it.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: You know what, though I was a teenager, I didn't go to Caledonia school, but I did roll some houses in Caledonia back in the day.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: It was my science teacher, miss Carol Fry, okay, and I think I was doing it just to flirt with her daughter or something.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: I don't really remember the motivation, but we were out there, me and some friends, and we're rolling the yard and the porch light comes on, of course.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: So we take off, porch light goes back off.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: All right, we're clear, let's go back at it.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: Well then we hear a siren approaching in the distance, oh, and of course it's rainy, a little bit muddy.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: I get in my 92 ford taurus and I peel it down and I make these ruts right through her front yard and and get stuck, and, and then I look and here comes the ambulance on the road passing me by, and I had to make the walk of shame to go, knock on the door to make a phone call Because, remember, we didn't have cell phones back in those days.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: You didn't have cell phones.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: Nor did I have a winch on the front of that Ford Taurus, but hey.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Hey, just rolled your yard.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Will you all help me get out of?
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: here More or less, and please don't grade my paper too hardly next week.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: But hey, kids have fun, don't be too naughty and don't get hurt.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: I think that's the name of the game.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: All right, boys and girls.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: This last segment we have here today is not based on a headline in particular, but on a trend and on a process that has to do with the information that we are able to get out of City Hall.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: Zach go.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: In August, mayor Stephen Jones brought a candidate for public information officer.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: This is going to be the person who interfaces with the media, makes fun little videos promoting the city.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: It's a PR job, but it's somebody that Full-time.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: At the time the council is discussing whether to approve that contract and let this person start, and this was a fairly controversial thing.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: This was something that got tabled for more information the first time it came up for approval and it took a little while to get this approved.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: The day that it was approved, jason Spears councilman for Ward 6, raised a couple of concerns and asked Mayor Jones a couple of very pointed questions, and this is a quote from the story that we ran on it.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: This individual isn't the gatekeeper for access, whether it be us, to the police chief, to you or anyone else that they they being the public or the media still have those lines of communications directly to.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: They don't have to go through her gate to get to you or to the COO, cfo, etc.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Mayor looks at him point blank and says no, it's not going to be like that.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: And then Jason continues just wanting people know this is not something that we're building a fence up to the public to say well, you've got to talk to this person first, and Jones again said no.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: OK.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: So Jason Spears very clearly lays out the case for transparency and and basically says I might sign off on this hire.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: However, I have grave concerns.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: I want it on the record, correct.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: And it's not going to be a puppet or a bottleneck continue to be used.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Those networks still existed for direct communication and that she was going to facilitate if there were issues or any other way that she could facilitate.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: That was her understanding.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: She'd said multiple times that that was her understanding.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: So what changed and how did it change?
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Yesterday I went to City Hall.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: I was trying to get some information from Jim Brigham, chief financial officer.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Now, the information I was trying to get it wasn't a quote or an interview, it was just a.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: I was trying to get the what the projected amount of the city's reserves were going to be as of September 30th.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: This is something that it needs to be noted.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: A common citizen can legally walk into any citizen can walk into City Hall and if he's there with the door open, that's the guy you ask for that number and that number is readily available.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: This is level one, non-confidential stuff Right.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: So I walk in to get that number from him and Jim says I'm not supposed to be talking to you.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: You have to go through the, you have to go through Shawanda.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: That was new information to me About that time.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Shawanda walks into the room and confirms yes, that is the way we're doing that.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: So I get the number from Jim, so I go and talk to Shawanda a little more to get more explanation of what happened.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: I said didn't this happened in this vote?
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Jason said this, stephen said this and then, when I talked to you, you said that those networks that were established were still there and you weren't going to be a gatekeeper.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: She says at that point well, yes, that was my understanding at that time too.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: However, I have instructions from the mayor that, in order for the media to talk to department heads, you first have to come to me.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: So, if I'm hearing you properly, if I call and I'm asking, let's say, about the money that was spent on those billboards that bear the likeness of Mayor Stephen Jones welcoming me into town.
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: I can't talk directly to Brigham or to the clerk.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: I have to go through the public information officer.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: That's quite unclear, because that was another part of the conversation that I had with Shawanda on Tuesday, which is, you know, any citizen has a right to get certain information and certain interface with public officials.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Are you saying that that's no longer a thing, or are you saying that the media have fewer rights than any other citizen because we're media members?
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: And I didn't get a clear or satisfactory answer to that question.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: So I guess it depends on whether they view you, david, as associated with the dispatch, or if they view you as just a citizen, or whether you've made Stephen mad lately.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: Because this is, I'm not playing a violin for the dispatch.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: We're going to do our job.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: We're going to get our information.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: We're going to continue to playing a violin for the dispatch.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: We're going to do our job.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: We're going to get our information.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: We're going to continue to be a liaison to the public and the insider baseball of how that happens I know that the public generally isn't interested in.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Here is why I bring this up today.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: This marks now the second time that we know of that.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Stephen Jones, in an official capacity, in a very public way, has not told the truth about city business.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Go back to the wreck that we've talked so much about.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: There was that thing he put on city letterhead where he either on his own manufactured or parented somebody else manufacturing that it was Baptist's fault that that drug test didn't happen.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Baptist calls him out on that and says that's just simply false.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: And then he later doubles down on it as if Baptist never said anything.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: That's just his truth and it's the one he's telling.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Well, it's not true, it's a lie, and he put that on city letterhead.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Now we've got a situation where he has it broken down for him Before I vote for this, it's not going to be these things, right.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: And he says, no, it's not going to be those things at all.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Just flat out.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Maybe his intent at the time was to execute that in the way that everybody agreed to, but he certainly didn't have any problems changing the plan when it suited him, and so either he's lying on the front end or he's making himself into a liar later.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Either way, it's bad policy.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: What can you believe?
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: What can you believe that he's saying if you can't believe what he tells a councilman at the board table?
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: or you can't believe what he's putting in a press release on city letterhead.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: Columbus is already having trouble there.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's promises made, promises broken, and it's abominable to me because this politicizes all city communication.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: It turns these professionals into mouthpieces for the mayor's agenda.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, I mean, we've got control freak politics, even if that's not the intent.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: How can you believe that that's not what's happening if the ground is shifting under you all the time?
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: So where does it go from here?
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: That's a good question.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: And why is Stephen lying and why is the council letting it happen?
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: We talked during the campaign.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: We've talked since the election about changing the image of Columbus, and that is a high priority of Stephen's and it's a noble one to appoint and I think he's capable of doing it.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: I think that he's a smart guy.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: I think that he has all of the potential to be one of the best mayors that this city has ever had.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: I've said that before.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: I still believe it.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: I've known Stephen for most of a decade.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: I've dealt with him professionally for that time and I believe that he can do this job well.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: But not this way.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: And if the image that you are projecting, if the scaffolding, if the foundation under that image is rotten because it's built on things that aren't true, it's not going to hold up.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: So why not just build a positive image of Columbus based on accuracy and the truth, rather than try to make it look like what you want it to look like and defy anybody to investigate it or point out where hey, that's not exactly right head in the city of Columbus.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: By an act of city council, we say that you have the freedom to talk to the press period.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess they could, but that's not their role.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: And again, the press's problem.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Here I'm not coming crying in a bucket over that.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: We'll deal with that how we deal with it.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: My issue is why is he building, trying to build a positive image of Columbus, while also not accurately representing, one, his own positions and, two, the truth of matters that could otherwise make the city look bad, of matters that could otherwise make the city look bad?
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: You cannot build a positive image of the city on falsehoods.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: You can't.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: And he's better than this.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: The Stephen Jones, I know, as a human being, is better than this.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: And so I don't know whether it's the paranoia that sets in when you sit in that chair.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's bad advice from other people.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's bad advice from other people.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know what's happening, but this cannot continue or it's going to end up going in the opposite direction of the potential that this has.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: And if I was on, the city council.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: I would demand an answer for why, in this particular instance, he told them one thing and did another.
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: Well, this conversation certainly does not need to die.
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: I will tell you that I am not a fan of gatekeepers at all.
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: I'm a fan of gate openers, particularly when it comes to public funds, things of this nature, department heads, look, I'll even go so far as to say I think this is a First Amendment gray area.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: I do, I mean now understand that if you are the mouthpiece of the city, or if you're one of the mouthpieces of the city and you're in office hours and you're speaking on behalf of the city, the restrictions are legal.
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: The restrictions are legal.
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: However, the second, they step outside of City Hall and begin to open their mouth as a concerned citizen.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: If there is one bit of blockade there, that's a problem.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Digging in further than that.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: The Ethics Commission has been pretty clear that there are just certain things again that a citizen can expect to walk into a public building.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Ask a public official in charge of that information, for it's readily available and they're entitled to that information on demand.
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: Unfiltered.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: Unfiltered.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: You know, obviously there are things that you have to file public records.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Requests for that take a little longer to put together, maybe a little more involved, but you know how much is in your cash reserve, how long has so and so been working for the city.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: Those types of things that you know fall into.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: This is what people do, that people are assigned to know if.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: If they turn around and said you have to go through the pio to get that ethics commission is pretty clear that that's not true.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Well, who do we have to go through the PIO to get that Ethics Commission?
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: is pretty clear that that's not true.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: Well, who do we have to go through to see if the amphitheater is on schedule for 111 days for now?
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: You're going to bring that up.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: My understanding is that there is a plan for rolling that out, that there is funding that has been committed and there's maybe some other funding that could be obtained between now and the end of the year.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: That's my working understanding of the situation right now.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: But there is something I want to go back and say because I want to be clear on this.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: I don't think any of this.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: I don't have any hard feelings at Shawanda.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: I don't think any of this is Shawanda's fault.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: Shawanda is a very smart person.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: She's professional and she's been honest with me throughout this entire process and I appreciate that.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: So I don't want any of this to be heard as a critique of her.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: She's doing a heck of a job.
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: Well, it sounds like the mayor is putting her in an awkward position, Indeed, which is kind of a habit of some of these folks.
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: Indeed, the opinions expressed are those of the speakers, and I think Zach that will do it today.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: Yep, let's look to the mail.
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: So Will Edwards says that look, this is a TikTok trend.
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: No harm, no foul.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: It's very cringe to watch and his delivery is bad.
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: If you're going to do social media, at least be able to deliver without sounding like you're reading a script.
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: Michelle Duncan says it's a joke.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: But for everyone bringing your political affiliation into this convo, y'all obviously don't know a lot about Senator Hyde-Smith, Cornelia Glenn personally, I don't see anything wrong with what Mr Colon posted.
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: She's done the same thing, except she has spoken in public saying awful things about people.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: She should just shut up because she's a joke.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: Let's see Janita Mosley.
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: It wasn't a joke, it wasn't her, but I can tell you what's not a joke Her saying she'd been in the front row for a public hanging in a state notorious for lynching Festive comments, as usual.
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: All right, three things.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: I need to know this week All right.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: Number one a fatal wreck August 30th has sparked calls for a traffic signal at the intersection of Mike Parra Road and Highway 45 in Columbus.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: A Changeorg petition started to that end in memory of Nick Jenkins has garnered more than 1,200 signatures to date, and the Mississippi Department of Transportation is looking for ways to make the intersection safer.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Number two and this one's a mouthful Lowndes County has been left holding the bag for what would amount to $200,000 annually to house Columbus inmates.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: After the Mississippi Attorney General opined, the deal the county and city struck in 2022 is illegal.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Columbus was paying the county $45 daily per inmate to house them in the county's adult detention center.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: A pair of AG opinions issued earlier this year, however, say statute doesn't allow cities to pay more than $25.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Board of Supervisors President Trip Hurston said the county plans to lobby the legislature to change the law.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Number three Columbus plans to dip into its capital reserves to the tune of $516,000 next fiscal year to help pay for needed equipment for public works.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: The decision comes a week after the city opted not to raise taxes for the next fiscal year.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: I can't believe you didn't put anything in your three things to know about the Arizona State getting their tails handed to them at the end of the game in Starkville.
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: Oh no, Did that happen?
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, that's very, very newsworthy.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: I'm always a big fan.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: Because it's expensive.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is expensive.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: Lord have mercy.
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: Half a million dollars.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: Half a million dollars to storm the field after you beat the number 12 team in the country.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: I'm not like anti-storming the field, Like if it's done responsibly, you know you get down, or if you beat Alabama.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: Beat Alabama, okay, and you know, politely shake the state trooper's hand as you go out there and dance around and take, but this was I don't know, it was just weird to me.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: I've really only got one question for you about this, David.
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: And I want you to be honest with me.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: You promised to be real in the studio.
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: You say that all the time.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: I would have it, no other way.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, do you have the goalpost at your house?
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: I think it's at Sid Salter's house, but he has no comment.
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: All right, that will do it.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: We thank you all for joining our show today.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: Be sure to follow the show and share our show.
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: Help get the word out and make our hometown a better place.
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: As always, send us your comments tips at cdispatchcom.
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: You can also follow me on Facebook or x at dchism00.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: Leave us a public comment, Signing off until next week from Catfish Alley Studio in historic downtown Columbus.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: Your host has been Zach Player and I am David Chisholm.
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: Y'all keep it friendly and we'll keep it real.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: Chisholm, y'all keep it friendly and we'll keep it real.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: Opinions expressed on this show are those of the speakers and not necessarily those of the commercial dispatch.