My Hattiesburg

Hattiesburg Primary Reminder

Just a quick reminder for all our visitors that the Hattiesburg primary is coming up on May the 3rd, that’s this Tuesday. Clear your schedules as I’m sure as the votes are counted, it’s going to be an interesting night. Absentee ballots are due today.

About the negative political ads

During the WDAM Candidate Forum, Betsy Rowell mentioned Think Hattiesburg as being one of the potential people behind the negative ads about Lee Jarrell Davis. I really have no idea how this connection was made since I try to make every article on the website fair and unbiased. Our visitors have an opinion, and I can’t help that, as a matter of fact, it’s one of the things I enjoy about the site, all the opinions. I can’t help the fact that Rowell is winning our poll or that some Rowell supporters visit here. I (and my site), however, do not endorse any candidate, unlike some of the other media in Hattiesburg.

I really hope that none of the people that visit here think that this is some political train that is supporting a candidate. I don’t care about politics that much to create an entire site that took me many many hours to complete, just to publicly denounce one candidate or another. As I’ve said before, we endorse “None of the Above”

Hattiesburg Primary Election Summary

For those last minute decisions, I’m posting all candidates and their names will be linked to their websites. The entire purpose of this site to begin with was to promote the local internet in Hattiesburg, so I intend to help out all those who have internet sites by promoting them here, no matter who they are. If you know of a site that I missed, please let me know.

Republican Candidates

David Senne

Walt Coker

Lee Jarrell Davis

Betsy Rowell

Democratic Candidates

Johnny Dupree

Catherine Starr

Independent Candidates

Shawn O’Hara

Ward 1

Darth “Scooter” Borgman (R)

Kim Bradley (R)

Larry D. Carroll Sr. (R)

LaJuana Richardson (D)

Ward 2

Denard Delgado (D)

Eddie Holloway (D)

Ward 3

Carter Carrol (R)

Jerry Shemper (R)

Ward 4

C. Jerome Brown (D)

Rick James (D)

Andrew Ellard (R)

Brian Lucas (R)

Rink Russell (R)

Red Bailey (I)

Ward 5

Henry Naylor (D)

Oliver Johnson (D)

Andrew Mott (D)

There they are folks, it looks like it’s going to be an interesting race. WDAM is showing a live debate on Tuesday, April 26th, at 7:00 p.m. Then talk about the next day on our forums!

Mississippi Education Crisis

The State Legislature has failed to come up with an agreeable budget for the 2005-2006 school year. The question at hand? “Where will the cuts come from?” I’d love to know why we are having to cut teacher’s jobs from schools. Obviously, the amount of taxes going in, does not equal the amount going out. I don’t know how this could happen since the casino’s that we all voted on to come to Mississippi is reportedly paying the school system $500,000 per month. This money that we didn’t have 10 years ago, when we didn’t have budget problems. We’ve also had a lot of new industry arrive, such as the Nissan plant, and we’ve got billions from tobacco companies.

The web site for Haley Barbour has other things to say about our situation though. This is taken directly from the site:

“The question during this budget debate is not whether education will be cut or not, but how big an increase it is going to get. The Legislative Budget Recommendation calls for a $29 million increase and the Governor’s budget calls for a $70 million increase. This year the State Department of Education has asked for a $266 million increase over last year – and only about a third of that increase is the teacher pay raise ($98 million).

Education spending has risen 46% over the last five years with virtually the same number of students. Interestingly, the State Department of Education has reported that, even if the MAEP formula is fully funded this year, their request for next year will be at least $200 million over this year, an increase of 30% in two years! 15% a year increases aren’t sustainable.”

After reading this, I have to ask, where is the money going? Surely the teacher raises could not be responsible for this. I’m sure there was a plan 5 years ago when the teacher pay raises were passed, just to get us to the national average. I know teachers have a much tougher time than anyone over this. Not knowing if your going to have a job next year or not. Frequently, first year teachers take any job they can get. What does this say to college students wanting to teach? I think sends a clear message, be a politician.

If you’d like to see what your school’s budget is for this year, as opposed to what the state is proposing to give them, just click the link below. You must have Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice to view this document.

2006 MAEP District Allocations

Blog update

Due to the amount of visits we are getting everyday, and limitations with the server, I’m closing the comments for the “Who will be the next mayor” blog. Several users have contacted me about errors on that particular blog and the long time it takes for their computer to download 441 comments. You can still make comments on all other blogs, but I don’t think this software was meant to handle that many comments. Thanks for your continued visits and making this site a success. I will continue to make it free of advertising and as user-friendly as possible. Our forums can handle 400 comments, or even 2000 comments, since it breaks it up into pages, but a blog was meant for “lite” discussion.

I would like to again encourage all visitors to register/post comments at our forums. I have setup a forum that guests can make comments in case you have registration problems. As others have said, if your concerned about anonymity, you can register a hotmail or yahoo mail address free. Your email or personal information will of course never be given out to anyone.

The Republican Roundup

The Comcast political forum was very informative and at some points, very entertaining. I’ll post a quick rundown of what I heard as each candidates number 1 issue (and none gave just one). Again, this is only the Republicans.

David Senne - Re-establish trust with USM, pay-as-you-go financing of city repairs, economic development, and school reform

Walt Coker - Police department reform, urban development reorganization, and street repair

Lee Jarrell Davis - Our relationship with USM (or lack thereof), economic development, city police problems, and he was the only one to mention Homeland Security

Betsy Rowell - Police department reform, and long-range planning

I thought the candidates started off kind of shaky, but most of them really impressed me with their poise and preparedness after their opening statements. I would have loved to have seen a open forum where the crowd can ask questions on the spot, but apparently, this country doesn’t do that anymore.

I’ve posted a poll over at our forums to give our members a chance to vote and to see who others are voting for.

MyHattiesburg Republican Primary Poll — I have 4 of the candidates websites posted there, and you can make comments there as well.

Also, over at our forums, a representative of WUSM let us know that they have the mayoral debates at Hattiesburg High School available for download.

Hattiesburg Website Directory

If your looking for a particular website, we may have it in our Hattiesburg website directory. If you have a site and are based in Hattiesburg, you can submit it to our directory for free to let our visitors know about it.

Visited our Forum?

I’m curious as to why so many people chose to discuss ideas here at our blog. I welcome all the comments, enjoy reading all the opinions, and I’m sure our readers do too. Our discussion forum is set up for exactly this purpose though, discussion. 100+ comments would be easier to read, and it would be much easier to tell if there were new comments that you haven’t read. Is it because it’s easier to leave a comment here? Is it because your not required to register? If you have a minute, please leave a little feedback, so I can improve the site for our members and visitors in the future.