Frank Melton

Jackson, MS. mayor has been acquitted of charges stemming from bashing the living daylights out of a "crack house" and using children to do most of the bashing. Like many of us believed, a Jackson jury wouldn't find him guilty, hating crack houses like we do.

Even so, this man is out of control. He is high-profile and busy, and Jacksonians apparently love it. Meanwhile, crime on his watch is substantially up and businesses are leaving town. There is no revival of spirits concerning the city, only a revival of the Buford Pusser reputation of its mayor.

I am a Jacksonian, and I am staying put. But no one questions any longer those who high tail it out of town to the burbs. If there are fools, it is probably those of us who stay while a council member talked this morning about raising millage to finally fix the problem. The problem is a mayor without a leadership clue. Raise billions more and apply it to our "problems" and that won't be fixed.

All this makes good TV for Geraldo, but a bad future for The Bold New City. And don't be fooled, his embarrassing antics are hardly over. Egocentricity finds a way...