Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba strongly objected to the State Health Department's boil water notice for all surface water connections in Jackson at his weekly press conference today. The presser is streamed below.
* Mayor Lumumba said the water treatment system is "old and fragile." It needs "resources" and "revenue", "not someone else to take control."
* The Mayor is speaking more loudly and waving his hands more than usual.
* Hizzoner said the Health Department encouraged Jackson to move away from a lime slurry system to a soda ash system in 2016. Lime slurry allegedly causes fluctuations in turbidity. The plant was retrofitted with a soda ash system to provide more consistent turbidity levels. The turbidity problems should disappear when weatherization of O.B. Curtis is completed in October. Raising his voice, the Mayor said that meant "building a building around the membrane." Building such a structure meant taking the soda ash tank offline and go back to the old lime slurry system. "Darned if you do, darned if you don't," said the Mayor.
* The water system has staffing challenges due to the age of the plants. Um, O.B. Curtis is only thirty years old. Fewell is over 100 years old but there are additions to the original plant that are not 100 years old.
* City is considering hiring a private contractor for maintenance.
* Mayor Lumumba said there is a dispute over the replacement electrical panel at O.B. Curtis. The Mayor made a point to say "I have supporting documentation" to support his statement. The contractor who installed the panel configured it to operate manually instead of automatically. The EPA requires such panels have an automatic capacity.
* Weatherization of plant should be completed in October.
* The Mayor could not provide a date for the end of the boil water notice.
* A reporter asked the Mayor about 911 refusing calls in Belhaven and Fondren. The Mayor blamed Capitol Police for the problem. He said the state put its resources into the Capitol Police instead of JPD. He said JPD responds to calls in the Capitol Complex. Ross Adams said people have told him JPD refuses to take the calls but Mayor Lumumba disagreed, stating he had better information.
* Mayor Lumumba accused the Capitol Police of poaching JPD for officers.
Note: This is the briefing the Mayor should have done over the weekend.
40 comments:
I bet he gets re-elected with 70% of the vote again.
Doesn't he know that the state's budget year doesn't start till July 1st. The money isn't there yet. They can't get up to speed without the money. This guy is so stupid. He has an excuse for everything. How do you dispute the fact the water is dirty. I could tell by this press conference he is in panic mode.
The state government ate my homework.
How do you disagree with a boil water notice? Is he saying the water is safe? Blaming someone else for taking your officers is your fault. He is living in a bizarro world.
Kingfish, you need to present a request to the city for the number of billable water connections and the number of invoices submitted to the owners of those connections. It is impossible for those numbers to match or be correct. My business has not received a water bill for years, nor has my residence. It is not Siemen's fault. The responsibility is precisely on the mayor and his minions. How is not willful embezzlement BY city employees to deliver services at no charge? As to the boil water notice, our smarter than anyone else mayor now claims the health department is wrong in their notice?
Chowke says they had to take tanks off line to move them so they can "weatherize" part of the water plant by building a building around it including a roof, yet the basketball sized hole (and getting larger) is still in the roof of the small building over the intake structure in the Ross Barnett Reservoir near the spillway dam? Obviously, a water treatment plant needs to operate with less "worker" intervention than a shake machine at a McDonalds.
Just curious...what other municipal police department has resources put into it? I thought the whole point of a municipality was to ensure local public safety officials (not county or state officials) would respond quickly.
What a clown.
Gross incompetence is an understatement.
* City is considering hiring a private contractor for maintenance.
Enter Socrates Garrett Water Plant Maintenance & Management Consulting.
Ross Adams said people have told him JPD refuses to take the calls but Mayor Lumumba disagreed, stating he had better information.
This can easily be verified by getting the 911 recordings of the calls in question.
Taking your officers? Can you recap that?
It’s a free market for officers. Jackson, Clinton, Madison, Flowood, every county and the state have law enforcement departments. If you want to keep good people, train them well, pay them well and manage them well. If you don’t, they leave.
Lumumba throws out a bunch of "in the weeds" information to dilute the real issue: he has lost all control and is in over his head.
Speaking of Belhaven. When are they going to get those 20 or so blue light cameras they purchased months ago? I've only seen three. The neighborhood and college raised the money, purchased them to my understanding, but the city can't do its little part.
Entergy is also partially at fault or so I hear.
Capitol (not Capital!) Police are taking their officers? Is he trying to keep "his" JPD officers on the plantation?
3;30. garrett blue camera mounting consultants to the rescue!
Moyor Lumumba is a successful advocate for social justice and a civil rights leader. He is invited to speak about his accomplishments globally. What have any of you accomplished?
This is the most bullshit I have ever heard spread within a 30 minute 'talk'.
Everything is the fault of having an 'aging' plant - according to this idiot. The Curtis plant is barely 30 years old, which is young for a facility such as this. Many major cities are operating with facilities two to three times this age - the difference is that those cities maintain their treatment plants and Jackson has done no maintenance over the past five years (thanks to the moritorium on water cutoffs starving the funds).
The Florida folks that were coming in were not to address the staffing shortage, they were coming for a short term (three weeks or so) to straighten out the plant operation and put it back into proper functioning.
The staff shortage has been ongoing for the past few years (maybe the CCID water treatment group poached those operators?? - except, of course, there is no such group). The city has not recruited individuals for these jobs - those that were sent to the training class either did not stick with the training or failed out when tested. Maybe recruit some eligible individuals to take these jobs - cut out a couple of the Mayor's protective detail to pay their salaries.
To say that as long as they are using lime slurry the DOH should ignore the high turbidity is as stupid a concept as this idiot has thrown out in a while. The rules are the rules, no matter what system one uses to treat the water. For 25 years, the water from the Rez was treated with lime slurry and there were not consistent or ongoing boil water notices. Yes, the soda ash is a better system - but that doesn't mean that we should except turbid water for a few months because they are constructing a building over the plant. Manage the lime slurry so that the turbidity gets below 0.3 'most of the time' rather than 'none of the time'.
And - his lies about the police responding in the CCID are nothing more than wanting to blame the state for his failures. For years, the city has fought the CCID police program but finally after last years record homicides they had little argument to make so they accepted the "joint jurisdiction'. Now, they want to throw it to 'primary' for the CCID - the exact opposite of what they refused to accept. Either way - there is no excuse for the 911 operators to not accept calls from within the district - but of course he blew that matter off since there is no excuse he could make.
Someone ask the mayor if he lets his family drink the water. That should tell you all you need to know about the validity of his "objections".
Will retain his seat as Mayor like Bennie will retain his seat in Congress. Only one qualification for both candidates.
He really should just record a list of excuses into a smart phone dictation app and have the good Dr or Sistah Rukia press play for these pressers, right?
This has to be cutting into his Atlanta/Chicago/Harvard speaking engagements and that is unacceptable.
@3:49 PM
I have accomplished having clean drinking water in my home.
What about the $2m in unspent police funding since 2019 we read about a few weeks ago? Oh wait - that’s assuming this lameass mayor knows where it is, hasn’t spent it and actually gives a jack about Jackson and everything and everyone in it. Blame game is always easier for liars and thieves.
HE objects?
No.
The residents paying for crappy water and his salary object. But they don't object enough to elect a legitimate mayor and city council.
I believe the good mayah is an order of fries short of a happy meal.
" This has to be cutting into his Atlanta speaking engagements and that is unacceptable."
No doubt.
Watch his opening statement. He says,(and I'm paraphrasing):
" Last week I was unable to have our scheduled press briefing
because I was in Atlanta at the National League of Cities
Conference ...talking about violence reduction efforts.
I found that meeting to be incredibly fruitful.
One thing we all figured out ... is we're seeing
the exact same thing ...interpersonal conflicts that are
replicated time & time again".
My Gawd, how much bullshit can this idiot spew with a straight
face ?
Right ?
He is invited to speak about his accomplishments globally.
That must be a real short speech.
Every single one of you is a racist spewing hate speech and deserve to be exposed!
3:49, exactly what are the mayor’s accomplishments? What has he done for the city of Jackson?
It needs revenue? Well, no s@@T genius. I moved houses in November and haven’t received a water bill since.
"Moyor Lumumba is a successful advocate for social justice and a civil rights leader. He is invited to speak about his accomplishments globally."
Hahaha That chump ain't even Al Sharpton, much less Malcolm X. The Grassroots Movement is gonna have to be renamed. How about "Spoiled Rich Kids Who Were Born on Third Based and Think They Hit a Triple"?
@5:51 “crappy water”
Ha ha. I see what you did there.
I veto his objection.
2:41, you can't obtain 911 recordings in Mississippi. They're exempt from public disclosure.
"Moyor (sic) Lumumba is a successful advocate for social justice and a civil rights leader. He is invited to speak about his accomplishments globally."
I don't recall either of those 'positions' being on the ballot.
The mayor said “WE object”. Who else objects besides him?
so the “fair” way to deal with this is to not say anything and let people drink water that’s contaminated? isn’t that public endangerment?
Is anyone OCD enough to count how many times he says "right" ?
I just can't with this fool.
It’s common practice to for 911 operators to transfer the call to the appropriate jurisdiction. Someone should ask the mayor why they are refusing to transfer the call and instead saying call xyz agency.
He can just VETO the notice, right?
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