The water system of Jackson belongs to the people and taxpayers of Jackson, and they will decide on how the system will be operated and managed, NAACP president Derrick Johnson and Congressman Bennie Thompson were insistent at Monday’s Town Hall Meeting at New Hope Baptist Church in Jackson.
Jackson’s water system is a valuable asset,” said Johnson. “It is in fact the most valuable asset the city owns.”
Don’t buy the “snake oil” that Gov. Tate Reeves and other private interest groups are pushing to privatize Jackson’s system, Johnson said.
“Any municipality that owns a water system, a sewage treatment facility, and for some cities an electrical grid will generate more than enough money in some cases to support the city’s operations,” he said.
“Local control is absolutely crucial,” Johnson said. “Local control allows for the citizens to self-correct when things go awry, especially when it comes to your water bills.”
Jackson has been cheated of its share of federal funds for most of the past 25 years, Johnson pointed out.
“Out of 25 years of federal clean water funds coming to this state, the City of Jackson has received federal funds for only three of those years,” he said. “Clean, safe drinkable water. Keep the public asset public. Don’t allow anybody to bring in the concept that the market will do better if you privatize it, because everywhere they privatize it, the ratepayers will suffer.”
EPA INVESTIGATES
The NAACP has filed a complaint with the EPA under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, requesting “an immediate investigation into the use of federal funds related to drinking water in Jackson and to seek the rapid adoption of comprehensive enforcement remedies.”
Abre’ Conner, NAACP Director of Environmental and Climate Justice, has gathered evidence of the state’s abuse of and deprivation of money sent to benefit Jackson.
“Jackson is the only city in the entire state that has to go through two separate approval processes in order to get the project funded. It has to go through the Department of Finance Administration. It also has to go through the Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
“That in itself is a process that no other city (in MS) has to go through. And it was put into action after Jackson had requested funding. And now Jackson has an extra hurdle it has to go through.”
On October 20, the EPA announced it was opening a Title VI investigation into whether the state of Mississippi has discriminated against the people and the City of Jackson on the basis of race. Conner said the state should respond within 30 days after the EPA sends notice of its investigation.
Conner said the NAACP would like for the EPA to include the people of Jackson in the process of its find
The water system of Jackson belongs to the people and taxpayers of Jackson, and they will decide on how the system will be operated and managed, NAACP president Derrick Johnson and Congressman Bennie Thompson were insistent at Monday’s Town Hall Meeting at New Hope Baptist Church in Jackson.
Jackson’s water system is a valuable asset,” said Johnson. “It is in fact the most valuable asset the city owns.”
Don’t buy the “snake oil” that Gov. Tate Reeves and other private interest groups are pushing to privatize Jackson’s system, Johnson said.
“Any municipality that owns a water system, a sewage treatment facility, and for some cities an electrical grid will generate more than enough money in some cases to support the city’s operations,” he said.
“Local control is absolutely crucial,” Johnson said. “Local control allows for the citizens to self-correct when things go awry, especially when it comes to your water bills.”
Jackson has been cheated of its share of federal funds for most of the past 25 years, Johnson pointed out.
“Out of 25 years of federal clean water funds coming to this state, the City of Jackson has received federal funds for only three of those years,” he said. “Clean, safe drinkable water. Keep the public asset public. Don’t allow anybody to bring in the concept that the market will do better if you privatize it, because everywhere they privatize it, the ratepayers will suffer.”
EPA INVESTIGATES
The NAACP has filed a complaint with the EPA under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, requesting “an immediate investigation into the use of federal funds related to drinking water in Jackson and to seek the rapid adoption of comprehensive enforcement remedies.”
Abre’ Conner, NAACP Director of Environmental and Climate Justice, has gathered evidence of the state’s abuse of and deprivation of money sent to benefit Jackson.
“Jackson is the only city in the entire state that has to go through two separate approval processes in order to get the project funded. It has to go through the Department of Finance Administration. It also has to go through the Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
“That in itself is a process that no other city (in MS) has to go through. And it was put into action after Jackson had requested funding. And now Jackson has an extra hurdle it has to go through.”
On October 20, the EPA announced it was opening a Title VI investigation into whether the state of Mississippi has discriminated against the people and the City of Jackson on the basis of race. Conner said the state should respond within 30 days after the EPA sends notice of its investigation.
Conner said the NAACP would like for the EPA to include the people of Jackson in the process of its find
The water system of Jackson belongs to the people and taxpayers of Jackson, and they will decide on how the system will be operated and managed, NAACP president Derrick Johnson and Congressman Bennie Thompson were insistent at Monday’s Town Hall Meeting at New Hope Baptist Church in Jackson.
Jackson’s water system is a valuable asset,” said Johnson. “It is in fact the most valuable asset the city owns.”
Don’t buy the “snake oil” that Gov. Tate Reeves and other private interest groups are pushing to privatize Jackson’s system, Johnson said.
“Any municipality that owns a water system, a sewage treatment facility, and for some cities an electrical grid will generate more than enough money in some cases to support the city’s operations,” he said.
“Local control is absolutely crucial,” Johnson said. “Local control allows for the citizens to self-correct when things go awry, especially when it comes to your water bills.”
Jackson has been cheated of its share of federal funds for most of the past 25 years, Johnson pointed out.
“Out of 25 years of federal clean water funds coming to this state, the City of Jackson has received federal funds for only three of those years,” he said. “Clean, safe drinkable water. Keep the public asset public. Don’t allow anybody to bring in the concept that the market will do better if you privatize it, because everywhere they privatize it, the ratepayers will suffer.”
EPA INVESTIGATES
The NAACP has filed a complaint with the EPA under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, requesting “an immediate investigation into the use of federal funds related to drinking water in Jackson and to seek the rapid adoption of comprehensive enforcement remedies.”
Abre’ Conner, NAACP Director of Environmental and Climate Justice, has gathered evidence of the state’s abuse of and deprivation of money sent to benefit Jackson.
“Jackson is the only city in the entire state that has to go through two separate approval processes in order to get the project funded. It has to go through the Department of Finance Administration. It also has to go through the Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
“That in itself is a process that no other city (in MS) has to go through. And it was put into action after Jackson had requested funding. And now Jackson has an extra hurdle it has to go through.”
On October 20, the EPA announced it was opening a Title VI investigation into whether the state of Mississippi has discriminated against the people and the City of Jackson on the basis of race. Conner said the state should respond within 30 days after the EPA sends notice of its investigation.
Conner said the NAACP would like for the EPA to include the people of Jackson in the process of its findings and in what the solutions should be.
HOUSE BILL 1031
House Bill 1031, officially labeled the “Capital City Water/Sewer Projects Fund” forces Jackson to submit to a “special fund” in the State Treasury that is administered by the Department of Finance and Administration (DFA).
Freshman Democrat Shanda Yates of District 64, a white female, was lead sponsor of House Bill 1031, the legislation that put Jackson into a bind in trying to access the money it so badly needs for its water system and infrastructure. How did a freshman House Democrat get the responsibility to write and sponsor such a critical bill?
Yates was elected as a Democrat in 2019 and was sworn in in the January 2020 session. She has, since January 2022, jumped from the Democratic Party and declared herself an Independent.
Yates followed the pattern set by former Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck, who was also elected as a Democrat but jumped to the Republican side. And most recently, U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde Smith, who also was elected to the Mississippi State Senate as a Democrat, served 10 years there before she jumped to the Republican Party in 2010.
Yates was the Primary sponsor of HB 1031, the Capital City Water/Sewer Projects Fund, to create and require the Department of Finance and Accounting (DFA) to develop a plan for improvements projects.
This bill was called out by both Thompson and Derrick Johnson as the main obstacle to Jackson’s getting access to the federal and state funds already allocated for its water improvement. The bill requires DFA approval and oversight over all monies going to the city’s water project. Yates was not alone among the Democrats who gave life to this bill that put the shackles on the City of Jackson. Nine Black House Democrats signed on as co-sponsors.
House Bill 1031 made sure that Jackson would be the only municipality that required two-agency approvals for any water crisis funds from the state. All 1100 other municipalities only need one agency to approve their water funds.
BLACK DEMOCRATS
Republicans have supermajorities in both the Mississippi House and Senate and were able to lean on the Democrats enough to have them sponsor the bill that they have since come to realize was not good for Jackson vis-a-vis obtaining money for the city’s water system.
Rep. Greg Holloway, Sr. of Hazlehurst said that Speaker Phillip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann used the force of numbers to get Black Democrats to co-sponsor the House bill.
“To my understanding, they (Gunn and Hosemann) said that was the only way they would release the money,” said Holloway. “ That was the one condition under which they would do it. They wouldn’t release the money for Jackson under any other condition.
“The African American legislators really didn’t have much of an option. But we knew that Jackson needed to have some money released. And under the circumstances, we didn’t have much of a choice. You could fight it and not get anything or cooperate with that commission and get some funds released.”
Rethinking the origins of HB 1031, Holloway suspects that the right-wing forces of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the pro-business, anti-government national organization that has nearly half of state’s Republican legislators among its members, was behind the legislation. Gunn was national chairman of ALEC in 2020, and Gov. Reeves pledged his allegiance to ALEC as far back as 2013. ALEC specializes in writing legislative bills in states across the country and having their minions in the state legislatures pass them off as if the bills were their own local creations.
“I didn’t like it, the way it came down,” Holloway said. “Other Black legislators didn’t like it either, but they knew that under the conditions the white Republicans had the numbers. They could have decided it anyway they wanted, so they invited a few Black members to the table and said, ‘this is the only way we can get the money.’”
Holloway says that if he had to vote on the bill again, he would call for a lot more debate.
“If we had known the consequences, it would have been heavily debated, even though at the end of the day the Republicans would have still had the numbers the way they wanted them,” he said. “But I think it would have been done without the support of the Black legislators.”
FOR THE PEOPLE
Hinds County District 2 Supervisor David Archie weighed in on the Monday’s Town Hall, and said he felt good about it, although he felt that one critical feature – a plan – was left out.
“When there are major issues, we must have a comprehensive plan where elected officials are working together to get to a solution,” he said. There’s no one giant in the room. Like with this water issue, we’ve provided $6 million from Hinds County, but we have not seen a plan.
“I need a plan when I provide that kind of money to a municipality. We don’t know where the money is going to be spent. So I question those matters.
“I think the town hall meeting was great. But what I did not see in the town hall meeting was a plan laid out by who is at the table making decisions for the people. Is it going to be the elected officials, or is it going to be the NAACP? Is it going to be the federal government? Now the federal government provides the money to fix the problem, but it’s the elected officials who carry it out. My question is: Who’s leading the charge, and where did the charge get started and who’s at the table to help move this agenda forward?”
Going forward, Archie said, he anticipates a close working relationship with the City of Jackson.
“I’m very supportive of this city. I represent some of the poorest areas of this city and I’m very concerned. Unlike the other supervisors on the board, I represent parts of Wards 4, 3, and 7 and a portion of Ward 2. I think we’ve done a fairly good job of moving our agenda forward,” he said. “We’ve got to be committed to getting the job done for the people. It’s not about me, sitting in the seat. It’s the people’s seat and the people should send all of us a clear-cut message that we work for them and that we need to carry out their wishes.”
