Jackson Jambalaya

Yes, please collect my $200 water bill that I refuse to pay. You can send the bill to my new house in Madison when I move next month. Bye Jackson

All good until Ashby said that putting JPD in charge of collecting overdue water & sewer bills represented "out-of-the-box" thinking. ROFLMAO Hey Ashby, why don't we put JPD in charge of fixing water pipe leaks too?

Stokes ain't gonna like this

12:49, don't expect to get away without paying your water bill in Madison.

The City Council is a joke. Absolute JOKE! On one hand you got Foote
saying collect bills owed to the city. That money is lost. You can't collect any money from welfare folks, dishonest landlords, or crack house owners. Just shut off the water faster. and lock down the water meter whereby the good peeples of Jackson can't turn it back on. Then you got Stokes renaming every street to honor drive by shooting victims and crying about how the state needs to bail out Jackson for overspending. Mayor, City Council don't you see you are the ones who destroyed Jackson NOT the White people. Mayor City Council don't you see the Seimens Water meter project is a big scam that you'all swallowed hook line and sinker.

Ashby's comments are very well taken. Glad someone is looking at alternatives to raising the Jackson tax millage rate. I appreciate Councilman Foote's efforts to bring some business sense to the process.

Keep up the good work Ashby. We may get there yet.

Kinda hard to enforce water bill payment when there is no late fee or penalty for late payment. Stamps proposed removing all penalties when rates went up last year so people could pay on their schedule without being hurt too bad all at once. It was approved by the Council.

at 1:23 PM

Does a $200 water bill for a single person household sound correct to you?

We used to own a water company and my mother ran it. People pay their water bill, or you pull the meter. It's mechanically real simple. The threat of having the meter pulled collects a lot of it for you. And for those that you never collect, at least you aren't furnishing them your product for free anymore. You don't spend a lot of time trying to collect money. You send bills. If they aren't paid, you pull the meter. Again, it's pretty simple.

We may get there yet?

Having JPD collect unpaid bills makes ZERO business sense.

What happened to Foote's campaign bullshit about parking meters?

Did the past due just recently swell to $20M or is that what it ran in the 60's & 70"s when there was a larger population?

Why charge for water. EVERYTHING else is nearly free. School lunches, rented housing, a good portion of store bought food, Christmas gifts, Holiday Meals, clothing that includes school uniforms, School Supplies, Free phones and free dental care. Medical bills aren't paid and it doesn't matter because the credit is beyond repair. Ever notice there's an awful lot of $100 bills being presented at the cash registers come payday? I've had close to 40 of them in my register drawer at one time at a Jackson Walmart and not one single customer or their kids appeared to be suffering. Clothing, nails and hair were pristine. I know for a fact these customers are not employed. Makes me wonder why a bother coming to work every day.

I rented a house in Jackson last year and called them paranoid about paying the water bill before it got shut off because the water was not in my name and I wasn't getting the bill. Told them I wanted to make sure I paid everything that was owed so it wouldn't get shut off. The girl on the other line laughed and said Oh don't worry sir we don't cut anyone's water off. I was amazed.

Why would we need JPD to collect past due water bills? People disregard creditors all the time...myself included. Water Dept staff don't care enough to pursue aggressively.

Rankin County enforces Garbage charges through its License Plate fees, why can't Jackson enforce Water Dept bills through JPD? It's gotten to be a criminal level of abuse and neglect. $20M exceeds the current $15M shortfall...you have a better solution?

Anyone who disagrees with JPD taking on Water Dept enforcement is part of the problem. Do you honestly think there is a better solution? What's your option? Just let the Water Dept figure it out? You can't fire those people. You can't count on the Mayor to fix your problems.

Ashby's plan goes back to stopping the bleeding before the Mayor's Admin. gets any more money. It makes no sense to feed the destruction any longer, no more fuel for the flames.

Keep at it Ashby!

Water is a right protected by the Constipation, just like free heafcare!

Anyone who thinks an already understaffed Jackson Police Department whose Job #1 is public safety should be the collection arm of the Water Department is completely out of their minds. If that is the best Ashby Foote has to offer then he, like Yarber, is completely outmatched by the job.

Number one: When the Water Meter is pulled, the people know how to go to the hardware store and buy fittings and pipe to continue receiving water.

Number two: Jackson has had some water meter readers who would take cash for reading the meters wrong or for not reporting hot-shot meters.

Number three: There are people working in the water billing department who will let Aunts,Cousins, etc. pay less than is owed.

The new automatic meter reading is going to help reduce water theft. Can't say much else good about the Siemens' Contract.

Sewer usage cannot be stopped; there is no way to stop the gravity flow. Not sure about garbage pick up. All of these services are on what is referred to as the "Water Bill".

A large percentage of the water bills owed can probably be collected. Particularly if some type of lien, can be placed on their tax refunds or something else. Many of the bills will never be collected as the people are dead or in prison, or otherwise missing. Madison is not far enough away to escape. If your bill was a mistake, which is happening often during this change over, get it straightened out.

As far as Stokes goes, keep talking. We are all embarrassed by him and his antics. But so far, no one in his ward has been able to defeat him. Sad that his type of thought is still receiving so much attention. I compare him to some of the white yahoos who embarrass me with their behavior. There does not seem to be a cure for their need to garner attention and there are those who willing oblige their egos with plenty of attention, albeit negative.

It's a start... I two meters in my yard, one for the house and one for the yard irrigation. Here is the break down from the bill(s) I just paid:

YARD: 5683 cubic feet: $197.30
HOUSE: 3559 Cubic feet: $305.95 ( Water: $129.12, Sewer: $135.13, Sanitation: $41.60)


TOTAL: $503.25

Really? WTF? Make no mistake, we don't use this much water. Our sin is that we have a 39211 zip code. We have called the water department several time and talked to "Mrs. So & So", asked for a correction only to be told the meter is correct and pay the bill. So now I see there is as much as $20,000,000.00 owed by slackers to the city and the best that dumbass mayor can do is raise the rates on us that ACTUALLY our bills? I have never seen such a collection of stupid people in my life....really....

I have never gotten a bill for my irrigation meter since it was changed out last year. I call the water department every other month to report this issue and do the right thing. They say they'll investigate, but nothing has changed. No bill. I expect I'll be getting a bill at some point with lots of zeros on it.

I can't believe I just read through all this shit.

"A large percentage of the water bills owed can probably be collected. Particularly if some type of lien, can be placed on their tax refunds or something else. "

Tax refunds? You mean like cut off their EITC? That might work.

I can't tell if 4:23 is a genuine moron or just doing a bad job making fun or morons. But when Detroit started disconnecting deadbeats the United Nations got involved, saying that water is a human right, yada yada yada....

This may not get posted, but I have to say it. I didn't abandon Jackson, it abandoned me. I was born and raised in Jackson and lived there until a few years ago. After numerous thefts of property, house being burglarized several times, outrageous property taxes, horrible streets, kids being abused at schools (not by teachers), rude & uninformed city employees and a laundry list of other problems, I made the sad decision to leave my home. The problems started at least twenty five years ago and have only gotten worse. With a few exceptions, the people running city departments as well as those under them are incompetent. Their attitude has nothing to do with performing their job correctly, but rather acting like fools and collecting a check. Jackson didn't have these problems 40, 50 or 60 plus years ago. Now the scum think the city owes them everything free. The city fathers seem to agree. $20,000,000.00 in past due water bills? Absolute craziness! Go ahead and raise taxes. In two years you'll have to double them to make up for those that pulled out. You'll have to keep doing so until one day the entire tax base will be gone. Fix the problem. Hire smart, competent and ethical people. Please save my hometown!

Maybe JPD SHOULD collect water bills. It's not like they are doing anything else.

THUG LIFE!

@2:17. I agree.
Question. When a house no longer has water, is the house condemned?
As for JPD acting as a collection agency, that is a stretch.

People stealing water by piping around the meter need to be arrested by the police and shown the inside of a jail cell. There can be no excuse for theft from the City. Poverty is not an entitlement to dishonesty or theft. Enforce the law Jackson! Enforce the law Mayor! Throw the thieves---all of them who are stealing Jackson's water--in JAIL.

@12:28
I guess they need to throw the busted water pipes along with the wet streets in jail too!
F***ing dumbass. You go and buy a jail big enough for all the people you want locked up. I'll sit back and wait for that shiznit to never happen.
I guess you don't know that the corrupt city government made a deal with a corrupt multinational corporation and now you're seeing the fallout.
The list of countries just off the top of my head that have been documented over the years of Siemens global corruption:
Greece
Egypt
Iraq.

If anybody needs to be investigated, it's the people that voted in favor of that contract.
Of course you don't care about that aspect- you just bust a nut at the thought of people going to jail over some f***ing water.
There are bribery cases of political officials documented by this very company on a world wide basis that's undeniable.
Billion dollar fines and convictions.
Here's something for ya, flipper.------ I wonder how much money was passed under the table for those votes?
You can sit here and try to contain the situation on this website, but the information is there for all to see.

Good luck collecting the *correct* amt. in due time.

Water leak bubbling at surface on Ridgewood in front of Spann at least 8 days now. Still leaking this morning. Those are dollars washing into the storm drain back into the Pearl River. Yarber administration is riddled with incompetence.

I can't believe I just read through all this shit.

Even more telling that you bothered to comment.

Our water rates approach those of New York City. In fact our rates are the highest in the South at $3.21/100 CcF. And NYC is $3.70. Other comparable markets to Jackson are half our rate and you actually pay LESS the more water you use. So let's review what are band of city incompetents have done to date:
1. 50% rate increase
2. Automate the meters
3. Declare a FEMA emergency
4. Propose an 8% property tax increase
5. Pass a sales tax increase

And the result? More debt and the infrastructure continues to fail. And now we find out the city does not even collect what they are owed.

Can you say DETROIT! We promise we will leave just as soon as we can sell the house. We promise. Unfortunately we are having s hard time finding anyone stupid enough to buy in NEJ.. Of course Detroit did reach the point they could find no one to buy the abandoned homes even for a dollar!

2:50 am: Large, multi dimensional problems can still be solved, one part at a time. Part of the problem is people straight piping past City meters. So the solution there is to make a start arresting some of them so others will move to correct it or be deterred from straight piping. It is not an answer to ignore the thefts of City water. Ashby is proposing taking action to start on addressing a problem that must be addressed--not give in to barbarism.
Part of the problem has been the Siemans contract. City legal needs to address that to the extent Siemans fails to make meter corrections. And make better contracts from now on.
But Asby is trying to get at the revenue problem. Starting with stopping the stealing of City water is an important start to fixing the revenue short fall.
One problem at a time. One day at a time, but Ashby should continue to push hard for action. We should all be supportive of his efforts to correct these problems with an action plan.

The issue is the city incompetence. The meter issue was just a few meters that read in gallons, very few compared to the total.

The billing issue is that no one in the Water department is smart enough to figure out how to add/subtract. I received a new water meter in July 2014. I was billed from that time to January 2015, what appears to be, correctly. I received a bill in March 2015 that showed my previous meter reading at 95K ft3 and current at 5K ft3. In the March billing period, they seemed to have loaded the last billing from the old meter (July 2014) and then added the difference to 100K ft3 plus the 5K ft3 that was used from July, when the new meter was added, to March. Effectively billing me nearly 3 times for the same water usage.

The fact that meters are bypassed would seem to suggest that meter readers were not reporting this fact if it was recognizable.

8:31
Indeed it was the barbarians who destroyed Rome by taking down the last water acqueduct, causing the City of Rome to contract from over a million to a village living in the ruins. Can't let the barbarians win here. Arrest enough water thieves to make the point that Jackson is still civilized. Ashby please stick with it.

those that owe past due water bills are voters so cannot press them very hard. There are a lot of tricks to keep from paying water bills. When water is turned off, customer turns it back on. meter is locked and then customer cuts lock. Meter is removed then customer puts in a straight pipe. on and on. Then, customer gets a cousin or friend to go to water department and say they just moved in and need water service. Parents also use child's SS number or anyone else's SS number. It is like trying to get rid of roaches by stomping them. No end. Now, question is if the city is trying to do all those things. I think probably not. They are voters.

Don't be fooled. There are a minimum of 4 votes on the Council right now, probably 5, for increasing property taxes. It is too easy to dodge the massive problems that way and that is why Yarber is proposing the approach because he's long on talk and way short on courageous action. Plain old issue avoidance from our elementary school Principal.

Yarber will pay $27.33 more annually in his property taxes while Foote's bill, for instance, goes up by $185.41. This is nothing more than a taking from the few remaining neighborhoods of value in a city headed down the exact same path doing the exact same things as they did in Detroit.

And next year the other shoe in the scam will drop when the HindsCo Tax Assessor's office comes up with a bullshit rationale for jacking up assessments even further.

9:57
Voters have no right to steal water. The solution is to start arresting them for theft of City services, regardless of the politics.

It would be helpful if the Hinds Co Tax Assessor's office would raise the assessed values of homes west of State Street, too. Leaving them at rock bottom values while increasing NE Jackson home values is another obvious mechanism of wealth redistribution.

Agreed 4.21 - In 2005 I purchased a rental home in 39211. The taxes have more than doubled since then, but the value of the house certainly has not doubled.

Jackson, the poorest capital city in the U.S., seems destined to become a ghost town. Why would any intelligent and sane person want to live here? I am almost at the point of being willing to walk away from my entire equity (which I'll never recover anyway)just to leave this place.