The Mississippi Free Press sent the following questionnaire to Jackson Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba ahead of the April 22, 2025, municipal Democratic primary runoff, in which he is running for a third term against his challenger, Sen. John Horhn. We present his responses with no edits.
You’re running for re-election. What do you hope to accomplish in the next four years that you have not done in the previous 8 years? What challenges remain today?
Although I am grateful and humbled by what we have been able to accomplish together – including securing $800 million for our water infrastructure, paving 144 streets, and preventing the state takeover of Jackson Public Schools – I am acutely aware that there is much more to be done. We have many more paving projects to complete, including Woodrow Wilson, which took years of study to identify how to make the repairs without damaging the water main that runs underneath the street. We have identified creative ways to finance these projects and it would be important to see them through.
We have developed the necessary partnerships to streamline blight remediation of state owned properties and have improved our services and communication with commercial and personal property owners in this regard. As a result, we are poised to advance blight removal at a greater pace. It is my hope to build on this work.
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We have made some significant investments in public safety including pay raises for officers, upgrading equipment and training for JPD, and launching the Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery. All of these initiatives are part of our comprehensive approach to making Jackson a safer city. JPD now has a homicide solvability rate of 81 percent. This means that 8 out of 10 homicide cases result in an arrest and conviction. This is up from 65 percent in 2023, which was still higher than the national average of about 50 percent. Still, whether it’s 8 out of 10 or 9 out of 10, if a
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