Jackson Jambalaya

It might be nice journalism KF, but after reading the piece, I'm finding this crisis exasperating.

Omg Does OSHA not regulate this site. I have seen them come in & lock equipment up and slap fines before walking out the door. This is too dangerous for employees & public both. Mr. Mayor this falls at your feet alone and you have the audacity to travel to Florida when you should be passing out water & checking on the City of Jackson!

Wait - this crisis isn’t all due to environmental racism?!?

Same as I've heard from someone on the ground inside the plant. This has nothing to do with the City Council, this is all on the Executive branch. Grizzell and Fat Melvin such as f*%k don't know squat.

Sounds like all OBC is lacking is a good landscape architect.

Yes, the national media should be required to read this. They have further diminished my confidence in their abilities and motives with the way they have reported misinformation to fit their narrative. Glad what is really going on is coming to light for all to see. I just wish there were consequences for those that have hidden the truth and mis managed. Of course, there are hereos, too.. Sounds like some have worked their tails off to try to keep the water running with little to no help.

Yes, the national media should be required to read this. They have further diminished my confidence in their abilities and motives with the way they have reported misinformation to fit their narrative. Glad what is really going on is coming to light for all to see. I just wish there were consequences for those that have hidden the truth and mis managed. Of course, there are hereos, too.. Sounds like some have worked their tails off to try to keep the water running with little to no help.

Hopefully, a full forensic investigation will follow concerning the conditions that have developed at the Water Dept. and the fault recognized and dealt with appropriately. The health issue alone is sufficient to warrant such. There is no racial bias, economic status, political affiliation, or any other factors which should trump the health of Jackson's citizenry which has been woefully neglected for some significant period of time. MAN UP City Council, Mayor, Jackson city officials and live up to your commitment to your citizens whom you "serve"!!!!!

Interesting. When this debacle started, I wondered why Jackson didn’t call contractors for rental pumps and temporary staffing. Why did the state have to do it?

Turns out, when a city chronically fails to pay for services received, contractors will refuse to render services. Kinda like that contractor that had to repo the 2 leased pump trucks… I think he said he hadn’t been paid for 2 years??

The amount of inaction and incompetence in COJ administration is staggering. Jackson collects plenty of revenue each year due to the sky high tax rates - despite claims of‘white flight’ they’re collecting more than ever before. Where is all the money going??

Why didn't they do something instead of just going back to their office for a cup of coffee? Sounds like they should be inspected. There is no use for them if they afre not going to do their job.

FYI: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11171019/Mississippi-capitals-water-disaster-developed-decades.html

How long before Lumumba denies this information and states it’s a racist attack on him, right?

The malfeasance goes far beyond a lack of attention to the basic maintenance needs.

and the truth finally comes out:

"staffing levels at the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Facility operated by the City of Jackson have long been an issue and were the primary issue in the diminished operation of the facility."

So, the root cause of the plant's ongoing failures is the lack of manpower. Chokwe A. Lumumba will only hire from inside Jackson, and will only pay GED-holder wages so that no one else wants the jobs, and he won't budge.

He would rather fill a critical position by educating and training a black man from Jackson for six years, than hire a white outsider now. He is here to implement his father's agenda from the Malcolm X grassroots Movement, and turn Jackson into the New Afrika Republic. Chokwe Antar Lumumba is a Black Nationalist with a Black Nationalist agenda, and that is a fact.

@ 10:39 AM

A more accurate statement is the water plant endured decades with of neglect in the brief time the mair has been in office. HTH

FACTS vs EMOTION

This is what journalism should look like. No frills, just the facts. Compare this to Anna Wolfe's bleeding-heart description of pastel reflections of sunsets off a water tower and wooden playground sets and you see exactly what the "so-called" press in this state and around the country looks like and it is BULLSHIT!

She wants to draw you in with emotion and say that it is "Racism" that is to blame for this crisis. No Anna, it is plain as day, and anyone that can root through the crap you have, understands it. It is simply incompetence. That is it. 100% the City of Jackson's fault about the water plant. Nobody else. Not Rankin and Madison, not the boogey man behind the tree. The Mayor, City Council and anyone in, I cringe using this word, leadership, with the city is to blame.

Good job Alan.

Being a homeowner in Madison city, I want to thank the mayor of Jackson for the upsurge in my house value.

The O.B. Curtis water plant is almost 40 years old and was built during the Dale Danks' mayoral administration. I don't recall Mr. Danks' political affiliation, but given the time (early 80's), I would guess that it was democratic. Kane Ditto was the next mayor of Jackson, and I also believe he was a democrat. After Ditto, you had Harvey Johnson, Frank Melton, Chokwe 1, Tony Yarber, and now Chokwe 2. So for the last 40 years, you've had democratic leadership in the CoJ, and for the last 30 of those 40 years, you've had Black democratic leadership. Chokwe 2 is not solely to blame for the current crisis, but all of his predecessors, including Ditto, are to blame for the failure to maintain Jackson's water system. How can the current state of affairs of Jackson's water system be blamed on anything else???

All you hateful people need to go to church and actually listen to a sermon about kindness and giving.

You just want to blame people

And when it gets fixed / starts to get fixed you get angry!

Go shoot yourselves

11:23 got it right.

Lil Choke has a different set of goals, apart from Mayoral/City Management competency. It is to rule New Afrika per Marx, Engels, Sol Alinsky, Farrakhan and their derivative radical 'equity' and Critical Race Theory marxist politics.

This punk mayor uses social misery, raped infrastructure and race based shakedowns to blood suck sympathetic sources of cash that he needs for his slush funds and to slide no-bid contracts to campaign donors.

He hates it when the State or Feds provide funding with controls.

That's a lie. Plant was built in 92 or 93. Doubled t o include membrane in early 2000s. The plant is neglected, not old.

The O.B. Curtis water plant is almost 40 years old ...

100% incorrect.

Why does the person, presumably the Director of HR, responsible for hiring new employees for the City/water plant still have a freaking job? What a failure! Did the Mayor not care that this person was not hiring people for the water plant?

11:28, The differences in the writing styles you describe may be attributable to the differences between news reporting and "feature writing." They used to occupy different departments at newspapers.

Yesterday the Emperor Polluter told the Morning Joe tools that he remembers the problem the water system was having in 1989 ... when Lumumba himself was 6 years old.

No doubt in 1989 while Chokwe Sr was the head of the New Afrikan People’s Organization and about the launch the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (in 1990) then 6 year old Chokwe Antar was in deep substantive discussion with his father about the operational condition and investment status of public utilities in Jackson, Mississippi.

This is an excellent article on recent events.
It says nothing about the stresses on the plant and its equipment from the deteriorating water coming into the plant.
Nor does it speak to the loss of revenue and not just from the old meters that failed and then the new meters that were dysfunctional.
City revenue everywhere comes primarily from property taxes. With a declining population of those who own property, revenues decline.

Those factors made more than a few good people recruited in the last several years leave and replacements impossible. They knew the ship was sinking.
Yet, mayors of our city could use revenues to try to address what they could fix when sufficient revenues to do those things made them doable.

Nor will reporters ever get those in authority to admit they had figured out that no " hundreds of millions" were ever going to come from anything except a disaster of a tornado or flood worthy of a national declaration.

And, we never ever talk about our piecemeal approach to governing where the county and city competes for revenue and doesn't cooperate. This dysfunctional competition is especially awful in law enforcement and essential services.
We can't take advantage of economies of scale that come with making large purchases. We can't share talent.

And we don't have the population size to generate enough wealth to have every single government supported agency compete for scarce revenue sources. Even our ad valorem approach in taxing causes us to see many a license from other States and cities that have a unified system for license plates.

It's high time to stop fighting over trees and to save the forest first.
And, please remember that media now is all about profit and sensationalism sells and generates and bigger audience. If that means some of the facts instead of all of the facts and getting it out quicker, all the more profitable. The day of the research departments of nerds who reviewed stories to be sure the facts were relevant in context of the subject are long gone.

Free the Water Operators

What is "deteriorating water"?

Half of Curtis is 30 years old and half is less 20 years old. Parts of Fewell are pushing 100 years old and easier to operate!!!

Current problem with water and sewer system is the Siemens fiasco! Lost revenue probably $100M or more over last 7-8 years. No money for general maintenance and staff. So this happened!!!

That’s the bottom line!!!

OB Curtis was completed in the early 90s, at the earliest 1990 itself. The upgrade to current capacity happened in 1997, which doubled it from 25M to 50M.



Reading about the lack of personnel and basic maintenance, I want to go back to the 2 main intake pumps. If I am hearing correctly, the same part(s) for each pump has to be milled. If we go back to when the "intake screens" failed boil water fiasco, we might now see what happened to the 2 main intake pumps and why a part has to be manufactured.

"And when it gets fixed / starts to get fixed you get angry!

Go shoot yourselves "

So, the guy who is accusing us of being angry says we should "Go shoot yourselves".

Thanks for demonstrating how not to be angry for us.

Just to clear up this white flight, water system woes, aging water system, etc.

I have lived in Jackson for over 50 years. The constant complaints about Jackson's aging water/sewer system has ALWAYS been the pipes. Attempting to use that as the basis for O.B. Curtis failing is false and an attempt to shift blame away from the lack of maintenance and staffing.

O.B. Curtis has been at less than 25% staffing under the current administration. This is why maintenance has not been done, at all. That staff has had to spend time fixing failures and have not had enough time/help to prevent failures.

12:50, I’m sure there are suckers who will buy that load of shit but I’m not one of them. I live in Jackson and I know.

This prissy mayor prancing around with his entourage and personal security and vacationing out of state every damn weekend. He couldn’t care less about the misery the rest of us are in. What he needs is a good ass whupping but I’d settle for a resignation.

This isn’t about hate, its not about race, it’s about accountability. This mayor has failed at everything except making things worse.

Lying Lumumba has got to go!!!

Antar Lumumba & John Horhn are trying to privatize the City of Jackson Water Dept. 2 get rich off poor citizens of Jackson back.

Seriously doubt that Horhn is in cahoots with Lumumba. Horhn sees right throught the charade.

Soon we will not only see the number of shooting deaths, but we will have to begin documenting water system related deaths. Probably outnumber the shootings.

I'm so done with Facebook comments on all of this. I swear, I think there are a lot of people in this city that would rather go without water than to give Tate Reeves any credit at all. I've never seen such hatred for one man.
This city is doomed. It'll never get better.
I don't care who helps us or what political affiliation they are or what color their skin is. I'm very grateful anyone wants to help us.
What's wrong with people?

John Horhn is not Lumumba's friend, and is well aware of the mayor's various shady dealings. He'll tell you so, too.

12:59, You do realize Siemens paid out $90 million in a settlement with the city, don't you? Where did that money go?

12:50, Jackson' property tax revenue has increased every year for the last 20 years, except in two years, where it stayed the same. There has been no decline in property tax revenue for the City of Jackson, in spite of white and black flight.

http://kingfish1935.blogspot.com/2022/09/flashback-friday-real-snapshot-of.html

@11:24 Close enough to say Lumumbalot has been in control of OBC for 20% of the facility’s lifetime. Soooo.. L just sat on his arse with the full intention for it to fail and await bailout from other than the users of the system. About sums it up. But NO! Wait! That’s RACIST! expecting someone to pay for what they use!

Find out what the highest paid certified operators in Mississippi and adjoining states are paid and double it with a 3 year contract. Thats would be a drop in the bucket ( pun intended).But that is what a business person would do.The current leaders have no business management experience.

There are people in line at the fairgrounds with out of county tags. Hello? Why are they allowed to pick up water of they don't live in Hinds County? Paging CJ Lemaster!!

Yeah 1:59 I know about where the money went. $30M to lawyers. $20-30M to replenish the reserve fund for the Siemens Bond Issue. $10-15M to pay back the general fund. Leaving $10-15M. And they still have to pay the bonds off over 20 years!!!

Chowke is:

Jackson new listing realtor of the year.
Bottled water salesman of the year.
Gun salesman of the year.
Spin doctor of the year.
Charlatan of the year.

@1154, first OB Curtis was built in 1992, not the early 80's And it was doubled in size with an addition ten years later. It is not an old plant.

Yes, every Mayor of the City of Jackson since the 50's has been a Democrat - and I'm pretty sure even before then. Yes, all the Mayors for the past 25 years have been black democrats since you want to make that point.

To me, the race nor the party of the office holders matters - what I look at is for responsible governing. The fact that the two might have overlapping facets is worthwhile, though.

Your mistake is in saying that the failures at OB Curtis belong to this long line of successive Democrat Mayors - black or white. OB Curtis works fine as long as it is staffed and maintained properly, which it has been except for the past five or six years.

The problems with Curtis are due to the failure of the city to provide adequate funds to staff and to maintain the plant. Prior to 2016, this was never a problem because the water/sewer enterprise fund made money (just as any properly run utility system should do). For the decade or so prior to 2016, the revenue over expenses for the system averaged $15-$20 million annually. This allowed --- within the expense column, not the excess - to provide proper staffing, proper maintenance, replace the redundant parts as they were employed; in other words, run the plant properly.

BUT - in 2016 the city (Mayor with the concurrance of the Council) implemented an idiotic policy that placed a moritorium on the cutoff of water service for non-payment of bills. This moritorium was not intended to be a lifetime action but it seems that some of the politicians in charge liked the idea of their constitutents not being required to pay their bills. Of course everyone was "encouraged" to pay their bill, or estimate what their bill should have been and pay that number.

But of course, many people ignored such advice and enjoyed the free ride. The moritorium continued from 2016 until 2022. Along with it came the idea that now many people had hugh debts due to their having gone several years without paying for their water, sewer or garbage collection. So our governing leaders went to the legislature and got the authority to write off these large debts - but one of the conditions was that the city had to reinstate a water cutoff policy.

During the six years that people were not required to pay for their city supplid utilities (of course, they still had to pay for electricity, gas, and the ever important cell phone and internet service) there were as many as 27,000 customers (out of the 66,000 metered connections) that were not paying anything.

RESULT - the water/sewer fund became essentially bankrupt. There was no money in the special fund to hire adequate staff, to purchase needed equipment, to fix broken parts. And the city refused to supplement the fund from the general fund due to their thinking other exenditures were a higher priority.,

No - this is not the result of those years of Democratic Mayors, black or white. The responsibility of this failure lies totally on those that instituted and continued such an idiiotic policy of not requiring users (can't use the word customers, that would imply someone engaged in purchasing a product) to pay for the service.

What other city/town this size or close in Mississippi or the South has the same water problems as Jackson? If none, why?

Let me clarify something within 4:33's comment.

The cutoff moratorium was due to the fact that the city was no longer reading the meters. The city, not Siemen, botched the readings when the new meters were installed by not logging the meter installation dates per address. Meters were read many months after their installations and the city billed for the actual use, twice. They had already billed using estimates and then when it was read, billed the actual usage on top. They then set up an estimated billing based on that faulty amount, plus placed a surcharge because the usage amount was too high, like everyone was filling their swimming pools every month.

This is not for every connection because there are many connections not even being billed. But for a vast number of connections, the exorbitant amounts owed are not based on actual usage. Therefore, Kingfish's AR numbers are also way, way flawed.

I, personally, had an amount that I was billed for that was impossible to flow through a 1" line, even if it was flowing 24hrs a day.

Perhaps David L. should have showed-up at a city council meeting a year ago.

( screaming, destroying furniture, and banging a gavel ) .... until toilets started to flush again.

But that's a moot point now.

Thank you Governor Tate for taking over !

11:54, you say all the hateful people need to go to church but then you say go shoot yourselves. You need to look in the mirror MOron!!!

Did I really see a news conference about one of the biggest tragedies in Jackson,the water crisis? It was impressive, having water director, governor, Everybody was at the news conference, oh, except the mayor of the city going through this crisis. Where in the hell is the mayor during one of the biggest crises in city history?

Where was his honor the mayor during the water crisis in Jackson broadcast with the Guy. etc tonight?

"Kingfish said...
You have no idea what you are talking about. None although I'm sure you thought it read well when you wrote it."

Kingfish: When you post crap like that, telling somebody he has no idea what he's talking about, guess what? Nobody knows what you're talking about.

OSHA isn't all over this because OSHA at the Federal Level does not regulate, oversee, investigate or sanction municipal or state governments.

In an interview with national and local media, h said that once pressure reaches its peak, pipes around Jackson may burst becaise they can't withstand that much pressure. He mumbled something about "PSI" (doubt he knows what that means) and was argumentative with a reporter about something he said moments previously.

He looked like a complete amateur - a child, really - and I'm sure intelligent people everywhere are wondering, "how the F&$K did this guy ever get elected to anything more lofty that dogcatcher.

He's an ideologue and he doesn't have a practical bone in his body. Spouting his father's "radical" rhetoric is all he had to offer this city.

He needs to go!

And yet there was Bennie Thompson and Mitch Landrieu backing him up today and handing out water at some distribution point. What a gaggle of jackasses.

Chowke and his administration drove the O.B. Curtis plant into the ground intentionally. It was the quick and easy way to get someone else to put someone else's money into repairing it. Sure, he could have done the right thing and done a bunch of paperwork to get some federal dollas, but the punk never would even complete his required campaign spending paperwork, right. And that would be a walk in the park compared to what he was facing. So drive it into the ground. Get them federal dollas. 50-50 matching funds. He gets things fixed for 50 cents on the dolla. Now the fool is claiming IF they get the water pressure (PSI) up to standards, it's gonna blow out the existing piping and create more leaks more problems more repairs MO money needed. He gone need a billion dollas to fix it all. Problem is, he aint got half a billion.
And that my friends is the bottom line.

Actually to edit my previous comment, Jim Craig of MDH said the PH monitoring system in the "little building on the Barnett Reservoir" was inoperable and the plant operators were having to monitor the PH levels onsite at the O.B. Curtis plant.

Who wants to bet it was probably inoperable due to electrical problems from getting wet due to the massive hole in the roof of the building, right?

Beautiful 10:16

I am curious if the Dept. of Archives and History are going to add this Water Crisis to the Mississippi Civil Rights museum since the left is pushing the narrative that this was caused by racism and not lazy incompetence?

I doubt Antar has broken a sweat in his life. He is incompetent + lazy + complacent. We can only speculate about his intentions to run OBCurtis in the ground and his willful disregard for the public trust in general. We do not have to speculate about his gross incompetence. That’s something we can be absolutely certain of.

Kudos to Wyatt Emmerich for his widely-circulated, blistering editorial calling for the mayor’s resignation.

• This is “one of the most colossal municipal government failures in the history of our country.”

• This crisis “didn’t spring out of nowhere” and Antar’s claim that high water levels in the Jackson reservoir from excessive rain caused undrinkable water “is a complete mystery and probably a very tall tale.”

• “In March 30, 2020, the EPA issued a scathing report of the Jackson water system. It listed dozens of major problems and gross understaffing. That was the time for Mayor Lumumba to take swift and immediate action. But he did not. Instead, he sat on the report, not releasing it to the media and not even reporting it to his city council. One city councilor called the mayor’s cover up ‘criminal’.”

• “When you cover up the start of one of the biggest municipal disasters in the history of the country and do nothing until it causes 200,000 people to be without water, then there is only one action left: resignation.”

• “He has been in office five years, during which our water plants have been allowed to fall into total disrepair. Complex systems were not maintained. Software wasn’t updated. Automatic systems failed and were replaced by impossible attempts at manual controls by understaffed and untrained staff.”

• “Lumumba arrogantly demands billions from the state and federal leaders to fix Jackson’s problems, but he won’t do the planning and politicking necessary to make it happen. Then he turns around and falsely blames state agencies for not paying their water bills.”

And this — “the problem with socialism is sooner or later you’re going to run out of someone else’s money.”🤣