[jlisenbe]

Our state capitol city of Jackson has been a liberal dem stronghold for MANY years. Their water supply, an ongoing disaster, has basically failed. Water pressure is very low, the water must be boiled to be consumed, and so many residents and local businesses, and restaurants in particular, are in emergency mode. There is no plan in place to correct any of this other than to say the city needs a billion dollars (What a conveniently round number!) to fix the mess they have created.

So our state newspaper, the Clarion Ledger, decides to run an article on the primary problem behind all of this. Their conclusion? Why, it's RACISM of course, the default position of all liberals when things don't go well in minority communities. The article contends that if Jackson was 70% white, then this problem would not be happening. Aside from the obvious problem of the author having no real idea of what might be happening if things were racially different, his contention is just an exercise in feel good journalism, and it provides an unfortunate excuse for the Jackson residents to say, "Oh well, there is no telling what all those racist white people will do next, so let's just continue to elect the same group of hopelessly inept, liberal democrats since, after all, the Clarion Ledger says none of this is their fault."

As a result, the problem will continue year after year until people begin to wake up and decide that many problems can actually be fixed if competent people are in charge and long-term plans have been made. Neither is the case at present.

[Wondergirl]

What is the problem? Why does the problem exist in the first place?

And the Republicans would have handled it how?

[jlisenbe]

There are several contributing causes, the least of which is racism

1. The city has been bleeding population and taxbase for about 40 years. It grew rapidly until 80, but the condition of the schools proved to be a problem and much of the middle-class/upper income pop fled to the suburbs which have grown like weeds.
2. Since the city's resources are pinched, the tendency has been to look at infrastructure and hope that a savior of sort will come along.
3. The leadership has been disgraceful. The last two mayors, a father/son duo, were elected largely because of having a jazzy sounding last name..."Lumumba".
4. There is, at present, no plan at all for correcting problems with infrastructure or schools.

Republicans would have hopefully run the city properly and put in place long-term plans to correct the problems.

The point remains. Shouting "racism" is a loser's game. It amounts to saying that it's all someone else's problem, so we don't need to change a thing.

[tomder55]

It is not all that unusual when rivers crest and ground water gets contaminated that boil orders and even emergency distribution of clean drinking water happens . Pearl River is cresting at 35 ft above . This happens all over the country

[jlisenbe]

It's true that this latest crisis is due to flooding from the Pearl. It knocked out one of the two pumping stations. However, the city had been on a boil water notice for several weeks prior to that due to conditions related to trying to balance the pH of the water. And the water situation has been worsening for a number of years since the city is not engaged in upgrading the many decades old main pipes around Jackson.

What any of that has to do with racism is just puzzling.

Now we find out that not wearing a mask is also a symptom of racism. This from Fox News.

A professor at Northern Illinois University (NIU) outlined to students that they all must wear masks while in his class, arguing that not wearing face masks indoors "is a manifestation of ableism and racism."
"Refusing to mask indoors is a manifestation of ableism and racism, an exercise of individual privilege that tells the most vulnerable that their health and the health of their loved ones does not matter. Thus, masks are required here. They are NOT optional," a message from Northern Illinois University physics professor Jahred Adelman says, according to a photo of a projector screen from the class.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/illinois-...liant-students

[tomder55]

someone posted this

There is a another side to this catastrophe that has not been reported in the national news.
* Half of the plant was built in 1992. The other half in early 2007. It is NOT an old plant. It was not maintained and allowed to fall apart. Buy a Lexus but don’t replace the oil, transmission fluid, and timing belt and see what happens after 200,000 miles or so. The plant is no different.
* The city entered into a bad deal with Siemens in 2013 to replace all water meters for some new-fangled ones that would allegedly bring in more money. What it really was was a $90 million bond deal that allowed the Mayor to pass out the bond fees to his friends and stuffing minority subcontractors who weren’t licensed or qualified down Siemens’ throat. The meters didn’t work and blew up the water/sewer billing system. Bond services aren't subject to bidding laws so its an easy way to give your lawyer and consultant friends a quick $50-200,000 which the Mayor did.
* As happened when New Orleans under Landrieau installed new billing system software, thousands of residents got crazy bills or no bills at all. The Yarber administration literally told people not to pay their bills and instituted a moratorium on cutoffs. When you tell people you won’t terminate service no matter what, guess what? They don’t pay their bills. It never occurred to leadership to tell customers to pay a monthly minimum. 14,000 customers had stranded bills (no bills at all) if that tells you anything. Lumumba continued the moratorium on cutoffs. A moratorium has been in place half the time he has been in office.
* This resulted in a water/sewer department that made a profit of $7 million a year to losing $20 million a year. Public utilities are usually a money maker for cities. A city has to work real hard to lose money on these services but lose money Jackson did.
* Media says white flight decimated city finances. Uh huh. Check the city audits. On the overall budget side, the city is getting more revenue than ever. Read that sentence twice. It gets more money than ever. It’s just losing nearly $20 million on its utility. The audits are on the city website.
* The city sued Siemens and settled for $90 million. $30 million went to attorneys, including the Mayors friends at a Birmingham law firm that did the real legal work and his Jackson lawyer friend, Winston Thompson, who is a criminal defense lawyer and had no business being on the case. $14 million shored up the water/sewer finances. Some was used to repay the $90 million bonds and their ever ticking interest rates. Some was spent on other stuff.
* None of the Mayor’s staff have any management experience. He was a criminal defense lawyer in a two man firm. His Chief of Staff was a professor at JSU. His first Chief Administrative Officer was a music professor at JSU. His current CAO came from Energy but from the marketing department, not operations. The Public Works Director who was JUST reassigned after the flood was an architect. They are down to one engineer in public works and his speciality is roads and traffic. The previous Mayor had two knuckleheads for a CAO as well. One was a former deputy who never ran anything but was his bud while the other one never ran anything either. Getting the idea?
* They got caught two weeks ago not even posting online the openings for the Class A Water operators they so desperately need. They don't have Class A operators but can't seem to advertised for the jobs. They fail performing basic management tasks in the water/sewer dept.
* Worst off all. They Blew off the Health Department of years. MSDH finally called the EPA in winter of 20. EPA inspected plant in Feb. 2020. EPA was appalled at how poorly maintained and staffed the plant was. The EPA placed the city under an emergency administrative order. The Mayor hid it from the City Council, media, and public for over a year until yours truly busted it in the. Media. The Mayor refused to discuss it in the open but would only discuss it behind closed doors with the Council. He even blamed the public and media for being ill informed about it when he is the one who covered it up and refused to discuss it.
How incompetent is the leadership? A fire took place at the plant April 2021. 9 months later, several pumps were still down. The problem was the electrical panel controlling said pumps was damaged in the fire and not replaced. He blamed supply chain issues. The media filed FOIA's w/Health Dept. and found out the city had not even ordered the panel until the state told it to order the part and gave it a 30 day deadline in December. The city finally ordered the part on the last day of the deadline in January. The part arrived around May.
The city repeatedly blew off EPA mandates and deadlines in the order and continues to do so.
The plant did not flood. Period. The problem is the flooding upriver changed the chemical composition of the water entering the intakes at the reservoir. The lack of staff and failing equipment meant the water leaving the plant was barely treated.

[jlisenbe]

But as well all know, the entire article you posted can be summed up in one word...RACISM!! ***

[tomder55]

What I see is the gross incompetence and corruption that plagues most Democrat bastions .

[jlisenbe]

Exactly correct. The national news media, in its never ending effort to prop up the dem party, is tending to lay the blame on the governor. The mayor with the jazzy sounding last name is getting off scot free.

[tomder55]

wsj takes on the Jackson water supply issue .


The city’s progressive mayor, Democrat Chokwe Lumumba.......

say no more

The Water Woes of Jackson, Miss., Explained - WSJ

Jackson’s competence problems read like those in Detroit and Flint, Mich. State receiverships helped fix their chronic fiscal and management problems, and this is an idea worth considering for Jackson. Gov. Reeves has promised to cover half the costs of the repairs for the current crisis, but Jackson needs more help than money alone can provide.

Yes it needs new leadership ....

[jlisenbe]

I don't have a sub to the Journal. Can you copy and paste that article?

[tomder55]

It is the only daily newspaper I subscribe to


The Water Woes of Jackson, Miss., Explained


The Mississippi city is another example of failed local government.


It’s inevitable these days that any urban calamity immediately becomes a progressive parable of systemic racism and “anti-government ideology,” as one columnist put it. That’s been the media spin after last week’s failure of a water treatment plant in Jackson, Miss., but the truth isn’t that simple. This is another local government failure of the kind that is becoming all too common in America’s cities.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said Monday that “we have returned water pressure to the city,” but Jackson residents suffered a week without a reliable water supply after flooding of the Pearl River overwhelmed the 30-year-old O.B. Curtis water treatment plant. Much of the blame belongs to chronic mismanagement by elected officials in the city of about 150,000, which is also the state capital.
***

Ensuring safe and reliable drinking water is fundamentally a local responsibility under the U.S. federalist system, with the state and federal government providing some oversight. But many cities like Jackson are struggling to perform this core government responsibility.
Jackson’s water woes aren’t new. In 2014, 90% of city voters approved a one percentage-point increase in the sales tax in part to fund water and sewer repairs. In the past nine years, the city has allocated nearly $490 million from its capital budget to water and sewers—about $3,200 per resident. But much of the money hasn’t been well spent, and the city’s water problems have worsened.
In the month before the flood, Jackson residents were under a boil-water notice—a frequent occurrence in the city—due to failed pumps at the Curtis plant. In April 2021, an electrical fire caused the plant to temporarily shut down, and a winter storm that year also interrupted the water supply for many residents for weeks. The city’s progressive mayor, Democrat Chokwe Lumumba, blames white state Republicans for not providing sufficient funding.
Yet the state made available nearly $170 million in loans and grants from 2016 to 2021 for Jackson’s water and sewer infrastructure. Earlier this year, Mr. Lumumba grumbled when the state offered another $25 million from federal American Rescue Plan Act funds because lawmakers insisted on exercising oversight on how the money was spent. The state had good reason.





In March 2020, the federal Environmental Protection Agency issued an Emergency Administrative Order to Jackson citing conditions “that present an imminent and substantial endangerment to the persons served” by the water system. The city had “failed to perform filter maintenance” at both of its water treatment plants, EPA noted. Jackson residents say the city doesn’t respond to calls when pipes burst or sewage backs up in their homes.
The progressive media narrative is that Jackson’s problems are the inevitable result of whites fleeing the predominantly black city, resulting in a shrinking of the local tax base. But many blacks have been escaping too. Blame lousy schools and infrastructure and a homicide rate that is among the highest in the U.S. In any case, city revenue increased to $264 million from $242 million between 2018 and 2020. Yet the city’s water and sewage disposal system ran $27 million in operating deficits during that time.
Uncollected bills are one problem. Faulty meters installed under a $90 million contract with Siemens in 2013 have resulted in the city losing as much as $1.8 million a month, according to the Jackson Water Sewer Business Administration. In March 2020 as Covid hit, the state imposed a two-month moratorium on water shutoffs owing to unpaid bills. But the city maintained a moratorium until September 2021, which meant the city collected less money to fund repairs.
***

Jackson’s competence problems read like those in Detroit and Flint, Mich. State receiverships helped fix their chronic fiscal and management problems, and this is an idea worth considering for Jackson. Gov. Reeves has promised to cover half the costs of the repairs for the current crisis, but Jackson needs more help than money alone can provide.

[jlisenbe]

Thanks. It's the honest reporting that our state newspaper refuses to do.