When Stephen Jones first ran for his seat as Ward 5 city councilman in 2017, he “wanted to see change.” Now, Jones is running for mayor because staying on the council for more than two terms “just doesn’t work for me,” he told the Exchange Club of Columbus on Thursday during its weekly meeting at Lion Hills Center.
“Even being a mayor for more than two terms, I think it gets stagnant and it’s time to let younger people to come in,” Jones said. “They may have a vision you may not see. I think I’m at the right age now where I can communicate with older people and I can still communicate with younger people.
“If elected, I still only plan on going two terms, right now,” he added. “I can’t say what would change (that), but right now, I would only want to do two terms as a mayor because it takes on so much of your life that you’re giving up.”
Jones said by taking on the mayoral role instead of the council role, he hopes to take on the city’s day-to-day operations and give its citizens a better future. He presented a five-point plan to the club – including crime prevention, economic development, fiscal responsibility, promoting education and social infrastructure – in the first few minutes of the meeting.
While Jones’ plans were wide-ranging, they included finishing several of the city’s ongoing projects, like a crime prevention center where police can monitor all the city’s cameras live.
But when questioned by club members, he bore down on finishing one project in particular – the Sen. Terry Brown Amphitheater on The Island.
“If I’m elected, we will open the amphitheater by the end of the year,” he said.
Since 2017, the city has used $3.2 million in state legislative appropriations for the initial phases of the amphitheater, including the stage, but the site still hasn’t hosted an event. In 2024, the legislature gave the city another $1 million, enough to progress the work but not enough to complete the site.
The city opened a new round of bids last week, with the Weathers Construction bidding $3.5 million to complete the site in one go.
Jones moved to rebid the project during Tuesday night’s city council meeting, and then asked Chief Financial Officer Jim Brigham to come up with alternate ways to pay for the whole project – through the use of the city’s $5 million reserve fund, borrowing or both.
“We do have the money,” Jones said. “It just depends on how we want to use the money. We have enough to actually finish the amphitheater. That’s what our CFO (Jim Brigham) told me. Well, when we got to the (council) meeting, that was changed to something else because I think he talked to somebody else that didn’t want to do it the way I want to do it. Whether they don’t want me to get credit for it or not, I don’t know what it is.”
Jones said on three separate occasions during the meeting that Brigham changed his answers between private meetings in his office and Tuesday’s council meeting. However, Jones said if he were mayor, he would be in the mayor’s office day-to-day, a position that has “a lot of control” over those kinds of discussions.
Jones also said one of his priorities during his term as mayor would be to be financially responsible, including building up the city’s reserve fund.
Making Columbus a college town
By opening the amphitheater this year, Jones said, the venue will generate a lot more tourism taxes for the city, the county and the Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau. That will be a contributing factor to Jones’ other vision for the city: a college town that can rival Oxford and Starkville.
Jones said as mayor, he hopes to invest in every stage of education, including Columbus Municipal School District, the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science, East Mississippi Community College and Mississippi University for Women.
But when it comes to rivaling the city’s competition, Jones honed in on support for The W.
“Columbus should be covered with The W merchandise, and I plan to work with businesses to buy in,” Jones said.
Jones said to promote Columbus as a college town, the city will have to clean up its image. He believes that the city’s blight program – which aims to buy and market blighted properties for redevelopment – will be a contributing factor that helps to attract both new businesses and tourists to the area. The city was awarded $6 million from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to fund the program.
Another way the city can attract new businesses to the area, Jones said, is by working more closely with the Golden Triangle Development LINK to recruit retailers. Though, he also said there are expectations the LINK should meet as a part of that relationship.
“Whatever’s going on with the LINK, we want to be involved,” Jones said. “If they can bring retail, we want them to do that. But we continue to give the LINK a lot of money every year, and Columbus ought to expect something for that money. And I hope we can get it.”
Jones also said he hopes to add a city planner to its staff, a position that Jones voted to wait to add to the city’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget in September.
Jones said the council didn’t add the position this year to avoid going into debt from adding too many staff members at once. But he anticipated ad valorem taxes, or other possible cuts in other areas like the city’s public works and code enforcement departments, could cover the addition in the future.
As a part of changing the city’s image Jones said he also hopes to clean up how the city is portrayed in the media. When a club member asked about issues that prevent the current council from working together, Jones denied any exist – aside from the current council’s relationship with Mayor Keith Gaskin.
“I don’t think the council has a problem working together,” Jones said, as some club members audibly disagreed. “… The council doesn’t have a problem working together. … The mayor runs the day-to-day, the council legislates what the mayor should be doing.
“If you send an invitation to City Hall, we might get the invitation and we might not, or we might not get it until the last day,” he added. “It’s things like that that don’t nurture a good relationship with the council.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 32 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
