Jackson Jambalaya

Like her mentor, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, Holly Springs voters threw out Mayor (and former Jackson city attorney) Sharon Gipson in April after she blew up the city's electric utility system.  A consultant investigated the utility for the Public Service Commission and issued a damning report today.  The system was understaffed, underfunded, and operated by managers with no experience in electrical utilities.  Sound familiar?  

The Holly Springs public utility has been troubled for quite some time.  The report's opening will sound familiar to victims of the Jackson Water Crisis: 

 Both the Mississippi Public Service Commission (Commission) and TVA have, in recent years, received numerous complaints from HSUD electric customers. Many of these complaints related to operational issues such as substandard reliability and poor restoration performance, while others pertained to customer service-related issues like billing. The City is also out of compliance with certain operational and financial regulatory requirements of its TVA contract.1 In October 2023, the Tennessee Valley Public Power Association (TVPPA) completed an on-site assessment of the City’s electric department. The resultant report described a lack of qualified management and
engineering expertise, seriously deficient system maintenance, unsafe crew work practices, and the absence of reliability- and outage-related data and analysis.

The legislature changed the law last year to allow the Public Service Commission to investigate municipal utilities.  The Commission can place such a utility under receivership if warranted.  

 

 

Unfortunately for Silverpoint, Mayor Gipson and her administration did not exactly cooperate with the investigation: 

;Although Silverpoint officially began its investigation in August 2024, we were unable to obtain any meaningful cooperation from HSUD for nearly six months. This was likely at the direction of City leadership, who ultimately retained outside counsel. Silverpoint submitted more than seventy-five comprehensive document requests, although much of the material we were ultimately provided was either non-responsive or irrelevant to our questions. Our team had no access to HSUD employees until the end of April, when we were finally permitted to conduct some brief interviews at the Commission’s Northern District office.

 It's no wonder Mayor Gipson tried to coverup the truth as the truth was the Holly Springs utility was falling apart and she had no clue how to fix it: 

The entire distribution system is still terribly overgrown. System reliability remains seriously compromised from years of neglected asset maintenance and inadequate capital investment. Work order backlogs are growing due to chronic understaffing and service quality continues to erode. The utility’s metering and billing process is in chaos. Current management is incapable of achieving any real improvements moving forward.

The report states the Gipson administration is "incapable of" fixing HSUD.  Allowing the utility to limp along in its current state would be "fruitless."  

Silverpoint points out the Commission can place the utility into receivership.  However, it does not recommend receivershipo but instead recommends the selling the system or converting it to a co-op.  

Highlights of the report: 

* The system has been overgrown with vegetation for years

* Holly Springs spent much less than similar utilities on investment, operations, and maintenance.  

* HSUD losses are 75% higher than similar utilities.  Translation: The utility lost an additional $465,000 because it lost more than industry norms. 

* Holly Springs hired the Blackmon law firm to defend against the investigation.  The city argued the statute was unconstitutional. Unmoved, the Commission scheduled a show cause hearing and served a set of 65 data requests on city.  

The city asked for a rehearing and appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court after the Commission denied the request. 

* No general manager hired after 2019 has utility experience.  Recent managers include a former State Senator and two former Mayors.  You can't make this up.  The utility had no manager in 2023 as Mayor Gipson served in that role. 

The city hired a general manager a year ago BUT he had no utility or electrical engineering experience.  He was a bridge inspector.  

*  There is no current map of the utility system.  

* HSUD has on disaster or emergency response plan.   The utility could not even describe its storm preparedness and response practices. 

 * Crews refused to use the brand new radio system as they preferred their cellphones. 

The Holly Springs Utility Department makes up 80% of the TVA's complaints.   TVA sued the city for misusing utility funds.  

 

The Public Service Commission issued a statement on the report that is not too heavy on the gobbledygook: 

Silverpoint Consulting officially submitted the final report on their investigation of the Holly Springs Utility District (HSUD). Silverpoint Consulting was hired by the Mississippi Public Service Commission (PSC) to conduct a third-party investigation into HSUD and evaluated critical aspects of the utility’s performance, including system operations, maintenance practices, emergency preparedness, and metering and billing.

Underscoring a persistent and severe decline in service reliability and quality issues that align closely with the sustained volume of complaints submitted by HSUD customers to the PSC, the report outlines significant concerns, including what it describes as a “death spiral” in the utility’s metering infrastructure, brought on by chronic mismanagement, lack of maintenance, and poor planning. It further details an overstressed operations group, dangerous overgrowth around the distribution system, and long-neglected substations that continue to threaten system reliability, concluding that HSUD and the City of Holly Springs have demonstrated an inability and unwillingness to adequately serve their customers by citing longstanding failures to act on practical, previously issued recommendations.

In treating these findings with the seriousness they deserve, Chairman Chris Brown emphasizes the importance of a swift and methodical approach, stating, “the Silverpoint report lays bare just how dire the situation is at Holly Springs Utility District. This crisis didn’t happen overnight — it’s the result of decades of neglect and mismanagement. The system is in a severe state of disrepair, and turning it around will require an extraordinary, coordinated effort. TVA, along with federal, state, and local partners, must come together to confront this crisis and ensure reliable service for the people of the HSUD service area.”

As the Commission continues to carefully examine this extensive report in its entirety to ensure a decision which fully reflects the scope and urgency of the situation and prioritizes the long-term interests of HSUD’s customers, the PSC will have an announcement at the next Docket Meeting on August 5th as to what the next step is to act on these findings.

 Kingfish note: Gipson's lack of performance is no surprise.  She was probably the most incompetent city attorney ever employed by Jackson although Tori Martin is a close runner-up.   Never underestimate a Lumumba clone's ability to mess things up.  Ever.