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A FrIEND FOr LIFE
Bulldogs face Kentucky today at noon on ABC
Gordon Cotton reports on Charlie Gholson
SUN DAY, mA rch 14, 2010 • $1.50
Coming
Down ‘I’ve been hoping this would happen for years’
WEAThEr Today: Mostly sunny; highs in the mid-60s. Tonight: Partly cloudy; lows in the lower 40s. Mississippi River:
24.7 feet Fell: 0.6 feet Flood stage: 43 feet
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DEATh • Mary Floyd Anderson
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TODAY IN hISTOrY 1794: Eli Whitney receives a patent for his cotton gin, an invention that revolutionized America’s cotton industry. 1883: German political philosopher Karl Marx dies in London at age 64. 1923: President Warren G. Harding becomes the first chief executive to file an income tax report. 1964: A jury in Dallas finds Jack Ruby guilty of murdering Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, and sentences him to death. (Both the conviction and death sentence were later overturned, but Ruby died before he could be retried.) 1967: The body of President John F. Kennedy is moved from a temporary grave to a permanent memorial site at Arlington National Cemetery.
INDEX Business ............................... B8 Puzzles ...........................A8, B9 Dear Abby ........................... B5 Editorial ................................A4 People/TV ............................ B5
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ONLINE www.vicksburgpost.com VOLUME 128 NUMBER 73 5 SECTIONS
End of razor wire fence spells relief at Waltersville By Steve Sanoski ssanoski@vicksburgpost.com As Carolyn Ross watched the razor wire-topped fence at Waltersville Estates come down, the six-year resident said the stimulus-funded improvements at the Vicksburg Housing Authority subdivision are as needed as they are appreciated. “I’ve been hoping this would happen for years,” said Ross. “It looks like it’s going to be a lot better out here.” Waltersville Estates, one of six VHA subdivisions in the city, has been abuzz with the sound of skill saws and roofing hammers for more than a week now. All 27 buildings on site are being re-sided and reroofed, and repairs are also being made to damaged dormers and facia boards. The energy-efficient windows are set to arrive this week — around the time the siding and roofing are completed — as should the new bathroom vanities and added insulation for all 150 apartments. The VHA is paying for all the upgrades at Waltersville with the $888,780 it was awarded last spring through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly referred to as the stimulus package. It is the first stimulus-funded construction project to get underway in Vicksburg or Warren County. Built in 1981, Waltersville
merediTh spencer•The Vicksburg PosT
Workers remove the razor wire at Waltersville Estates... Estates has, like almost every other public housing project across the nation, long struggled with image problems. With its brick and wrought iron gates surrounding the complex, its security checkpoint and its razor wire fencing, Waltersville is, in many locals’ minds, synonymous with crime and drug activity. VHA Executive Director Dannie Walker said he hopes the renovations help change the public image of Waltersville, where tenants must meet low income requirements and pay their rents on a sliding-scale basis. “I really think the crime issue here has been a little
...and roll up fencing, opening the yards for movement through the complex. bit overblown,” Walker said as he oversaw renovations Thursday morning. “A lot of
it is perception.” “And this certainly didn’t help,” interjected Jay Kilroy,
VHA board chairman, who joined Walker. “You see a razor wire fence, what do you think? You think it’s either a military installation or a prison.” Walker does not entirely dismiss the break-ins, domestic disputes and drug activity frequently reported at Waltersville, and he said the VHA is still hoping to contract with the Vicksburg Police Department to take up overnight security detail. A private security firm currently operates the check point from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., however, the guards do not have arresting powers and have to instead call the police if they see a crime taking place. Walker first proposed the police department take over Waltersville security last fall, and the city has since been researching the legality of the arrangement and working on an offer. Walker said a law that will make its way to Gov. Haley Barbour’s desk this year would explicitly give all Mississippi police departments clearance to contract with housing authorities. The bill, he said, was initiated through a lobbying effort by the Mississippi Association of Housing and Redevelopment Organization and will hopefully help the VHA get the VPD under contract. Meanwhile, other secuSee Waltersville, Page A9.
Seale’s conviction upheld on appeal
Obama vows improvement in nation’s school systems
By Emily Wagster Pettus The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is promising parents and their kids that with his administration’s help they will have better teachers in improved schools so U.S. students can make up for academic ground lost against youngsters in other countries. A proposed overhaul of the education law championed by President George
JACKSON — A federal appeals court has upheld the 2007 conviction of a reputed Ku Klux Klan member in the kidnapping of two black men who were abducted and killed in rural Mississippi in 1964. In a 2-1 ruling, the panel of judges said the evidence in the case against James Ford
Seale was sufficient for the jury conviction in the trial that took place 43 years after the crimes. Friday’s decision came from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans. The judge who dissented said that too much time had elapsed to try Seale and that incriminating statements Seale made should have been barred from his trial. Seale, now 74, is in federal
By The Associated Press
James Ford Seale prison in Indiana. A Mississippi jury convicted him of two counts of kidnapping See Seale, Page A9.
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W. Bush will put the impetus for change on states, school districts and schools, Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday. “We set a high bar, but we also provide educators the flexibility to reach it,” he said. At issue is the rewrite he intends to send Congress on Monday of the No Child Left Behind law that Bush signed in 2002. That law See Education, Page A9.