We are seeing so much energy and activity in downtown Starkville these days. It is exciting and encouraging to think our downtown along Main Street is feeling the revival that comes with a renewed business and community commitment.
There are businesses that have been there for decades and businesses that are finding their new home where turnover occurred.
Sometimes it is through the circle of life and sometimes it is just the vagaries of business.
When Smith and Byars closed a while back, those of us who grew up knowing Sammy mourned its loss as we mourned his. When Mr. Evans closed his shoe store, we felt the loss of a friend, but watched with interest as something new painted and primped to introduce itself into that space.
We have the new city hall that should be in the ribbon cutting stage very shortly. We have an artisan bread store, DeRego’s, open offering fresh bread options daily; we have new residential living in the downtown core above a brand new candy store. The Biscuit Lady has moved downtown, and we are back into the fall season of weekend events.
You can feel the energy that comes from fresh ideas and enthusiastic and hopeful entrepreneurs. The balconies of Mugshots and Tyler and the Dawghouse bring outdoor life to downtown.
If you cast your eyes due east from our new city hall toward MSU you will see all the things that make a downtown and a community vibrant.
Boutique dress shops and a historic hotel; restaurants and law offices; a nationally recognized community theater and residences above commercial space, all come together to make up the Main Street landscape.
If you look to the south you can see churches and a trading post and new revitalizing construction in the downtown. You see banks and accountants and biscuits.
Looking west gives you a snapshot of a mix of an historic district and opportunities for revitalization of some residential sections that are within walking distance to our downtown. Opportunities abound for renewed vitality in that direction.
Unfortunately, it isn’t hope and promise you see when you go to the last point on the downtown compass. Cast your eyes to the north from Mugshots or Restaurant Tyler and the view stands in stark contrast to east, south and west.
It is a view of the “old” Starkville. That Starkville is the one that sends the wrong message. That Starkville seems to think that chain link and concertina wire are okay as a fencing alternative.
I wasn’t here when the jail was located in our central downtown district; all I know is what I have been told about the “why” of it. I will simply state it is time for the jail to be somewhere other than the heart of downtown.
It is hard to see the beauty of the heartbeat of commerce if it has razor wire wrapped around it. Now is the time for the business community, the county and the city to get together and work their collective magic to move the jail facility out of downtown.
The possibilities of city and county collaborations are sometimes daunting in their complexity, but this is one of the most obvious examples of benefits for both parties. A jail with all its attendant requirements shouldn’t be part of your sales pitch for your county seat or your city core.
I have always been a proponent of a regional jail. The cities and counties of the Golden Triangle and surrounding areas have long struggled to have enough jail space for their needs. I know Starkville has been renting space from surrounding counties for years. I imagine other counties have similar needs.
We have a great example of a regional facility in the regional landfill. There is vacant land near the landfill where it would be centrally located and easily accessible for all the surrounding governments: just a thought.
It is time to make a change in what we look like when we face the northern sky. It shouldn’t include the gleam of razor wire in the moonlight.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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