Jackson Jambalaya

Seeking Equity

Screw off Chokwe… your a brat!!!

Professional people doing a professional job. Wow, whoda thunk it.

He very nicely told Rukia Kai and her little brother to pound sand.

One question Mr. Henefin: how does Mayor Henefin sound?

@5:57
Chokwe may be a brat, but he knows the difference between your and you’re because he completed his education.
You’re an embarrassment.
And you contributed nothing to the discussion.

An adult having to appease and address stupid, selfish people. This will NEVER get fixed.

Henifin For Mayor!

A well crafted, detailed and appropriate response by Mr. Henifen on behalf of Jackson Water. However, those complaining (with an agenda promoted by the mayor) do not want and will not accept the reasoned response. Rather, they want answers and a resolution that cedes the authority of the 3rd party administrator to do his job. Where was all of this activism and interest when Mayor Lumumba was in charge? Where was their demand for transparency and accountability from the one they elected to insure the functioning of basic city services? Most Jackson citizens --- black or white, simply want the water and sewer system FIXED by whoever is most qualified to do so. It is not wise to bite the hand that feeds you. Doing so burns needed bridges. And where do you go after you've trashed those the federal government has put in place to resolve a HUGE issue? Again, not WISE, Mayor Lumumba. Learn and do better.

I think Henefin now realizes ... ( after riding down on his yankee steed to save jackson) ...is not what he expected.

"His new community is now trying to eat their own savior ".

The year is 2045. The City of Jackson water system has failed again.

Why? The “water czar” was more concerned about minority participation being set up to run the water system instead of the BEST contractor to run the water system leaving the water system in the same incompetent hands that created the need for a water czar in 2022.

Thanks Ted. You allowed your woke mind virus prevent you from setting up clean water for generations.

That yankee liberal ran into a bunch of communists! Probably not exactly what he was expecting. He’ll be gone in less than a year.

"They bravely stepped into the management and operational void at great risk to their reputations and careers."

He got that one right. Everyone who hitches up to Lumumba's wagon risks professional suicide (or assassination).

Chockwe and his buddies want that money, and they will not rest until they can divert the money to fully-fund the Republic of New Afrika, and of course their own lifestyles. Making white folks pay for their Black Nationalist dream is the delicious revenge they crave.

This bowing down to a bunch of whining ass residents that don't pay their own water bills makes me sick.

Consultants, consultants, consultants to waste endless dollars on endless meetings to hear nothing but complaints about who gets the contracts.

Reminds me of passing a dozen MDOT employees watching one doing the work.

8:40 gets the win here.

"I'll try to be brief".

Then he read for almost an hour.

@ 9:07 - You misunderstood. This is not about 'hitching up to Lumumba's wagon'.

My speculation is that a lot of commenters have changed their opinion about Heflin. Several months ago when Wyatt Emrich endorsed him he was blasted for doing so. I certainly don’t agree with the proposal to bill based on the assessed value of homes but otherwise I think Heflin has helped Jackson a lot.

@ 6:47 PM - Is a missing apostrophe all you've taken away from this, Mr. Mayor?

Henifin. H E N I F I N It's not that hard. I thought that this crowd's tendency to mock and misspell Chokwe Lumumba's name was due to intolerance, but it's apparently just IQ-related. At least the clown @8:40 can spell Ted.

It's a little amusing to watch SJW Yankee Liberals get a crash course in, If you are white...they hate you too.

And the minute you threaten the cashflow to minority contracts because (GASP) you are seeking to hire based on merit and get actual reliable water flowing...well, you become the enemy and no longer get the white savior glory they seek.

I have no problem with striving to get more minority-owned local businesses involved in operations of the water system as long as the second part of the commitment is upheld... "We are committed to engage with local firms even more extensively going forward - while insisting that they perform to the high standards we are trying to deliver as your water system."

Some people seem to forget that half the lawsuit against Siemens the mayor brags about had to do with Siemens hiring "sham" subcontractors to fulfill EBO requirements (or potentially side agreements in order to get the job) where these subcontractors either didn't actually do anything or didn't perform the work appropriately. I wouldn't be surprised if Siemens didn't settle due to breaking the terms of the contract but because they didn't want an even bigger corruption scandal coming out... probably was both, but largely driven by the subcontractor mess. Or at a minimum it drove the cost of the contract up tremendously for no additional work being performed. https://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2019/jun/11/jackson-sues-siemens-local-businessmen-bait-and-sw/

"Garrett Enterprises Consolidated Inc. was paid $4.6 million for construction management and quality control services. “However, it is unclear what services, if any, Garrett actually performed and how those services provided any commercially useful function for the project and benefit to the citizens of Jackson,” the lawsuit contends. “Like other sham subcontractors, Garrett received millions of dollars to serve as a pass-through entity under Siemen’s fraudulent EBO plan.”

"The lawsuit details “pass-through schemes” that use local minority contractors as “water meter middlemen” who got paid but who did little or no work. For instance, the City maintains, Siemens paid Marcus Wallace’s company, M.A.C. Associates, $19 million as a minority subcontractor responsible for water plant and sewer-line repairs and for installing new water meters. However, it says, Hemphill Construction Inc., which is a white-owned company, performed most of the repairs through either a separate subcontract with Siemens or a second-tier subcontract with M.A.C. Associates, who the City says was not qualified to do the work."

"The mayor said today that the city has hired local and out-of-state counsel to pursue its claims and the mayor says he has confidence in their attorneys. The City is seeking $225 million in actual and consequential damages."

If the mayor was so confident about the City's case, why didn't he hire a local minority-owned law firm to take it on and why did he settle for $89 million (less $30 million in out of state legal fees) instead of fighting for the full damages? Hell, we've got 15 attorneys on the City's payroll, let one of them take it on LOL.

@ 9:12 - Three words answer all of your questions, your assumptions and your concerns.

"It's Our Turn"

"Mayor Lumumba. Learn and do better. "

1) He is incapable of learning. He has proven that repeatedly.

2) He will never be capable of doing better, nor is he interested in improving things for those who are stuck living in Jackson. He will do more to destroy Jackson than the Union Army ever did.

It is disheartening to read that "[w]e are standing up a minority contracting program with the assistance of a local minority owned consulting firm..." and establishing a "new Black owned small businesses with the capacity to perform many of the needed long-term maintenance and operational support work necessary in Jackson and Central Mississippi long after this interim order has ended...".

The most qualified for the position should be hired. Until this mindset ends, the corruption and downward spiral will never end.

With all due respect, Mr. Henefin, please hire professionals who can do the job. Skin color does NOT have a thing to do with skill. We want skilled professionals handling the water please. I don't care if they are purple with yellow dots.

Observations:

✔ This courtroom hearing event was totally scripted and choreographed by the Lumumbas and Omari. Every soundbite, graphic, talking point, etc was 100% Lumumba directed.

✔ The Lumumba family rapid disgruntlement operation came away with essentially nothing from their multi-day tantrum. They received a promise for better communications and a guarantee of a Spanish language speaker in the call center. The call center can easily satisfy this commitment with A.I..

✔ Judge Wingate is a keen observer as to what has been happening with all these grievance groups in Jackson, more so than many realize. Judge Wingate is not going to be bullied or intimidated by the astroturfing.

✔ Judge Wingate exposed the selective outrage of all the cult groups with his (where-have-you-been?) questioning. Because he is watching, those speakers/groups that emerged from the woodwork to do Lumumba's bidding in the holy the name of transparency must now condemn publicly, and with the same ferocity, every transparency violation from Antar's administration going forward. Credibility is more than a word with Judge Wingate.

✔ The Jackson Fire Department dispatches to fires under the truck roll assumption that the proximate hydrants will be dry or of insufficient pressure. Let that sink in.

✔ In keeping with Antar's propensity to just say anthing, Jose Nuñez exaggerates the water system impacted Hispanic population living in Jackson by at least 250%. Census Bureau pegs Jackson's population @ 1.5% Hispanic, < ~3000 pop total, not 10,000 as Nuñez claims. No way the difference lives in Byram living on Jackson water.

✔ Don't believe and have seen zero indication that Receiver Henifin will hire minority firms that are simply administrative pass-throughs making money off the top only to then hire white owned subs to perform the actual work. Receiver Henifin looks like a trustworthy steward of money the likes of which Jackson hasn't seen in decades, at least since Danks.

✔ The only objective of demands for working groups, advisory commissions, and the like is to undermine Receiver Henifin, derail the decision making process and glean information to be used for the next Lumumba family coordinated political attack. Antar's efforts to run roughshod over the 1% commission is an example.

✔ Jordan Hillman (likely) makes more in salary than Antar and Rukia combined. Certainly more than either of them individually. The late emerging personal destruction attack on Hillman exposes the depraved depths the Lumumbas will sink to destroy.

✔ IMO Chokwe Antar Lumumba will never be provided access or decision making authority over the Federal money. The Federales through Judge Wingate will not return administrative and financial control of the system (from Receiver Henifin or his successor) to the City of Jackson as long as Chokwe Antar Lumumba is Mayor.

Antar is a saboteur. He sabotaged the water system and he’s doing everything he can to sabotage JXN water. He sabotaged the system through incompetence, willful neglect, dishonesty, and deception. He wanted it to fail so he could cry racism and get national attention. He doesn’t want responsibility for it because somewhere in his subconscious he knows he would run it right back in the ground and that would be too much personal embarrassment. Antar doesn’t want to do his job and he damn sure doesn’t want anyone else to do it.

"Antar is a saboteur."

I'd often wondered why he stopped collecting water bills. He knew the lack of revenue would kill the system. I'd often wondered what the end game for that was. I think now we are beginning to see. If he gets his hands on some of these hundreds of millions of federal dollars via "minority contracts" through pressure from these "community organizers" he and his sister pull the strings for, you will then be correct. He sabotaged the system for his own gain.

Kingfish, can you do a post on the Judge's latest filing? Thanks.