Jackson Jambalaya

Uses "I" word in press conference. 

Governor Tate Reeves may have pardoned a turkey today but he didn't pardon Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba at a press conference today.  Mayor Lumumba has been on quite a tear lately, blaming state leadership for Jackson's woes at press conferences and community forums.  A fed-up Governor took off the gloves and fired back at the Mayor today as he said the Mayor's allowed Jackson's water system to fall apart and that he was more than happy to let outsiders fix the water system until it was time to shovel out grub, er, make that contracts. 

Posted below is a transcript of the press conference.  JJ took the liberty of highlighting several passages for the speed-readers. 

Obviously, over the last several days, the mayor has irrevocably broken the unified command system that was put in place on August the 29th to deal with the absolute and total incompetence of this mayor and this administration. They have proven that they have no ability to manage the water system up until August the 29th. In fact, there was a city-wide boil water notice for 30 days prior to that. And it led to the point that we were in a position in which it was clear that the likelihood was that there would be no running water in the city of Jackson.  

Now, the mayor has gone on national TV and blamed that on a lot of things. He’s gone to local press conferences and blamed that on a lot of things. But what we have proven over the last 52 days is the water struggles in Jackson were specific to the incompetence of this administration and this mayor. Now, what we did when we came in on August the 29th, is we set up a unified command structure. We named both the Department of Health and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency as leads on that. And literally within 72 hours, we had ensured and restored water pressure throughout the system to the entire city of Jackson. Less than 72 hours. Less than 15 days later, we were able to lift the boil water notice.  

Again, running water systems isn’t that challenging. It’s not that difficult. In fact, there’s over 1100 water systems in Mississippi. If you parlay that over 50 states, there’s probably 30 to 40 to 50,000 water systems across America. If there are over 1100 in the state of Mississippi, and I’ve been in office now for almost 19 years, if you consider that every single morning I wake up and decide either we’re gonna take over a water system or we’re not, over 19 years I’ve made over 8.2 million decisions to not take over water systems in the state of Mississippi. Only once have I ever had to make the decision to sign an emergency proclamation so as to ensure that water was delivered to the city and to the residents of this great city. This city was once a great city, and it has the potential to be a great city again. 

What the mayor has done over the last three days has irrevocably broken that unified command structure. What the mayor has done is said, you know what? Back in late August and early September when the city didn’t have adequate resources because of their broken budget system to actually buy chemicals, the mayor was nowhere to be found. But the state of Mississippi stepped up and bought those chemicals to ensure that there was water delivered.

 When it was time to hire workers and make sure people were there, the mayor was nowhere to be found. Nowhere to be found. But the state stepped up and made sure that there were adequate people at the facility. In fact, as late as Monday, I’m told, there were 19 individuals from the state and resources that we brought in at that plant. There was one additional person from the city.  

What the mayor has said is that now that it’s time to pick a vendor, now that it’s time to reward a contract – much like the scenario that we have seen with garbage – the mayor has decided it’s the city and only the city that can participate. Now what we are looking at today is the mayor has said, through his actions – his actions speak a lot louder than words – that the city is prepared to run the water system. What the EPA has said is they are evidently okay with that. They certainly had the opportunity to, through a consent decree, to take over the water system. Certainly has seen similar actions in other jurisdictions over long periods of time.  

But the reality is that the emergency, the fact that the state has come in and run this water system, is nearing its end. We know that. In fact, the initial emergency was in effect for 30 days. We extended it 30 days later, until basically the end of October. I think it’s October 30th. I don’t know the exact date, but we’ll get you that should we need to do so. But what we’re looking at is in the request for proposals, the city says that they can have a water operator into that plant by November the 17th, and so I would anticipate that the state and the state of emergency will end some time between now and November 17th, but no time later than November 17th. We will continue to work to ensure that that occurs.  

What we have seen is that yesterday, the EMAC teams concluded their work at the water treatment plant. I can tell you with absolute certainty that the water treatment plant today looks very, very different than it looked on August the 29th, because we’ve had confident, capable people not only running it, but actually doing maintenance on it. And every single time there was a need to buy chemicals or to buy equipment, the state of Mississippi was there to step up and do it.  

But now that there’s a contract to be handed out, now that there’s an opportunity to put the thumb on the scale as to who gets it, the mayor has now decided that maybe he needs to decide. Now I don’t know what he has in mind. He hasn’t worried too much about the safety of Jackson residents. He hasn’t worried too much about what costs and what doesn’t. But now that there’s an opportunity to put the thumb on the scale as to who wins this contract, he decided that the city and only the city should be involved and engaged. 

So while even today as we stand here, the state has many individuals up working with the very few actual operators at the plant to operate it, the mayor has decided to show back up. Although I don’t know if you’ve seen him lately. I don’t know that he’s been in town the last several days, nor has his Chief of Staff. 

  But that’s where we find ourselves today. I will tell you that what we’ve found as we went into the plant on August the 29th is one of the reasons that there was a real challenge for the city to operate the plant in July and August is because virtually every vendor in town that did anything around water treatment facilities, virtually every one of them was unwilling to do any work for the city. Why? Because they don’t get paid.  

And so we’re obviously going into next week, in which we will find out if there are any legitimate contractors that are willing to work for the city to operate the O.B. Curtis and the Fewell treatment facilities. I will tell you that I have a great fear that there is no legitimate water operator that would be willing to work for the city, but time will tell. 

  But the state has an emergency declaration that currently extends to the end of October or thereabouts. We are in the process of making the decision if we’re going to end that early or if we’re going to extend it beyond the end of October. We have not made a final decision on that. But the mayor has determined through his actions that he has the expertise and the competence to run the water system, and that’s going to be a decision ultimately for the EPA, the regulators to decide.  

Obviously, the mayor wants you to believe that he hasn’t backed out of the unified command structure. That is absolutely laughable. You don’t get to be part of the unified command structure when the state is buying chemicals to make sure there’s clean water in the city, but when contracts come about…  

And by the way, the reason the state has issued this RFP is because for the last several weeks, the EPA has strongly encouraged us – this is the Biden administration – has strongly encouraged us to be engaged in the process. 

I want everybody in the state to understand what we tried to accomplish through the RFP that we issued. We asked for bids. We were very clear as to who would grade those bids. It was a three-person grading team: one from the city of Jackson, one from the state regulator - the state Department of Health, and one from the federal regulator - the EPA. Of those three, not one of them reports to me. And I’m perfectly happy with that. I don’t want to pick the operator. All I want is someone capable and competent of managing the system so that it doesn’t fail yet again under this mayor.  

If you go and you actually read the two documents, as I appreciate it, 95% of the wording is the same. The mayor said in his statement that the city hasn’t had an opportunity to look at it. If that’s the case, let me ask you a question. How on earth do we have a 65-page document that’s issued by the state on Monday, and the city issues a similar document. It’s beyond anybody’s ability to comprehend. In less than 48 hours later, the city issues virtually the same document, two days later. But yet they had not looked at it or seen it? That’s just not true. Everybody knows it’s not true. It was a joint effort to put out the RFP on Friday. It was strongly suggested and recommended by the Biden administration’s EPA. The state, acting in good faith, did exactly what the feds wanted and what we thought was right. 

Because at the end of the day, I never would’ve taken over the water system to begin with knowing that I had to deal with this mayor, but for the fact it was the right thing to do. It’s not about politics. I’m tired of the mayor playing politics. I’m tired of him going on national news and lying about the people of Mississippi. Am I a little bit upset about it? Yes, I am. Because he’s lying about the people of this state. I don’t care what he says about me. I’ve been in politics a long time, and I’m a big boy. I can handle it. But when he goes and claims what he claims, he’s not attacking me. He’s attacking the people of the city of Jackson. When he goes on national news and makes the claims that he knows are lies, he’s not attacking me. He’s attacking the people of the great state of Mississippi.  

We have a lot of good people here. We have a lot of good people that live in this city. By the way, a lot of them disagree with me on political issues. And that’s okay. The right thing to do was to get beyond politics. And as long as the state, over the last 52 days, was doing little things to make sure the water system operated, the mayor was perfectly fine with it. But when it comes time to put your thumb on the scale for a contractor, just like he did in garbage – exactly like garbage – he decided, “Hey, not only do I want to have a seat at the table, I want to control it.” 

Because you go back and you look at the two documents that came out this week. 95-99% exactly the same. You know what’s different? Who chooses the vendor. Who chooses the contractor. In what the state issued, three people: city of Jackson, state Department of Health as the regulator, and the EPA. In the city of Jackson, I don’t know how many people are involved, but the state regulator has no vote, the federal regulator has no vote, but they mayor controls everyone else that decides. 

I don’t have any idea what the EPA has said. I have not seen that. You would have a difficult time finding me in agreement with [Congressman Bennie Thompson] on virtually anything, except when the congressman said the city is not capable of running the water system, I had to take a step back and be surprised that the congressman said that.