JACKSON - When real estate tycoon Leland Speed, 71, was confirmed as Mississippi Development Authority director last month, he refused the $153,000 salary because he relished tackling chronic woes bedeviling the state's economy.
Speed spoke candidly to Associated Press staff Thursday about how a history of poverty and a racism shadow Mississippi and make it easier for dilapidated towns to fall into permanent ruin.
"Let's face reality; we've got a dark past," Speed said. "We've got to face and deal with it."
He called the weekend memorial services marking the 40th anniversary of the murders of civil rights activists Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman "a very meaningful step by Mississippi and that community."
He plans a tough-love speech next week for public servants at the Mississippi Municipal League.
"I beat up on leaders in Yazoo City recently," Speed said ruefully. "I drove around town and counted the abandoned automobiles with kudzu vines growing through the broken windows. You have to think of how the city you're trying to sell to employers looks. Show me a town with downtown houses that people live in and a night life and you'll see a town that works."
Speed revealed surprises on the MDA's list of counties that generated the most jobs since 2001. Lafayette, Neshoba, Pearl River, Covington, Scott, Attala and George counties topped the list. Neshoba reaps jobs from Pearl River resort, a melange of casinos, a water park and restaurants owned by the Mississippi Band of Choctaws. The other counties benefited from what Speed sees as the future for Mississippi workers: health care and tourism.
"We're all hard-wired to say bring me a factory, a groundbreaking and we'll have plenty of jobs," Speed said. "We had a groundbreaking two months ago. Big men flew in on a jet for a groundbreaking for the world's first unmanned helicopter factory. Anything sexier than high tech helicopters? It was time to break out the shiny shovels for the VIPs. I counted 21 shovels for a plant that would employ 35 workers."
Speed wants to change state laws allowing Mississippi to offer hefty incentive packages for manufacturers employing dozens but few tax breaks for small research and development firms with job growth potential.
"We need to update our incentive packages for the way the world works now," Speed said.
While Speed sent an MDA official to Japan recently to court automakers, he approaches the bargain table as cautiously as a player in high stakes poker. "States have kept raising the ante, giving more away until sometimes companies want a free plant," Speed said.
Speed said that the tourism industry can elevate a town's standard of living far beyond cashier and waitressing jobs.
He singled out Oxford, the hometown of Nobel Prize winning novelist William Faulkner, as a key example. The university town has been praised by endless travel magazines for its beautiful architecture, quirky bars, good restaurants and historic sites.
"Property values are through the roof yet people who can't afford a house there are willing to commute from miles away to work in Oxford," Speed said.
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