Two weeks ago, I wrote that the Jackson water crisis “has been one of the most colossal municipal government failures in the history of our country.”
Well, finally the rest of the world took notice. Dozens of major national news outlets have published stories. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves and the U. S. President Joe Biden have declared state and national emergencies. A command center has been set up at the O. B. Curtis water plant. The Mississippi Emergency and Management Agency is now involved. The Mississippi National Guard is distributing water bottles to residents.
It’s about time.
It’s not like this crisis sprang out of nowhere. And how high water levels in the Jackson reservoir from excessive rain caused undrinkable water is a complete mystery and probably a very tall tale. Yet another excuse from our mayor.
On March 30, 2020, the Environmental Protection Agency 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.
Mayor Chokwe Lumumba should do the honorable thing and resign his office immediately. He needs to get out of the way and let more competent people fix this horrible mess.
There is no possible way for Lumumba to blame anyone but himself. 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.
During all this time, Lumumba did nothing but talk, talk, talk, blame, blame, blame while Rome continued to burn. Lumumba loves to boast that Jackson is “the most radical city in the nation.” If radical means lacking drinking water, I’m guessing there are few radicals left in the city.
This crisis is costing the people of Jackson one million dollars a day.
It took 13,210 votes for Lumumba to win the 2021 Democratic primary for his re-election. I wonder how many of those voters were getting free water because their water bills had been suspended. That’s a great way to buy votes. Free water. Except now the water is not just free, it’s non-existent. And the cost of bottled water at the store far exceeds the suspended water bills.
The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money. As the water department revenues went into a tailspin, money for maintenance and salaries disappeared. There was no way to borrow the money. The city has long since maxed out its credit card. So what to do? Sweep it under the rug and hope for the best. That’s a helluva way to govern.
The appropriate action was to clang the alarm and beg state and federal leaders for immediate help. But Lumumba’s pride was too great. Pride goeth before a fall.
Even Bennie Thompson, a fellow member of the Democratic Party, criticized the mayor for his failure to present a plan.
Cities like Madison and Ridgeland were already communicating with state leaders to get matching ARPA funds for projects far less urgent. But Lumumba’s plan was nowhere to be found. Instead, Lumumba spent his energy getting embroiled in an idiotic battle with his city council over the garbage contract.
Roman Emperor Nero is still talked about today for fiddling while Rome burned. This is exactly what mayor Lumumba has done. He has fiddled while our wastewater treatment deteriorated into utter dysfunction.
All the mayor had to do was hire one good city manager. All he had to do was contract with a big-time headhunting firm and say, “Get me the best, most experienced city manager in the United States. I’ll pay him whatever it costs.” In fact, I editorialized on these very pages in 2017 urging the newly-elected mayor to do this.
Instead, he surrounded himself with academics and with zero experience running a city, much less a city on the verge of an infrastructure crisis. It was only a matter of time before reality set in.
News flash to Mayor Lumumba. This is not a game. This is not play. This is a real city with real problems and real people that need to consume water daily to live. It requires real management, not political hot air. We don’t need you to explain in great technical detail how the plant is failing, we need you to fix it.
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. Nice job.
The main functions of a city are to keep the streets safe, pick up the trash and keep the toilets flushing. Mayor Lumumba has failed on all three points. Our murder rate has tripled. We can’t drink the water. Our toilets don’t flush. Our restaurants and schools are closing. Our trash collection is mired in yet another stupid mayoral legal appeal which he is sure to lose costing millions in legal fees.
Look at the above chart. It is a listing of how Jackson plans to spend its $42 million in ARPA money. Unbelievably, the mayor plans to spend almost as much on Farish Street and the money-losing convention center as the water treatment plant. That is nuts! Please note, not a penny has been spent so far on “wastewater treatment projects.”
At this rate, the state takeover of Jackson will take another big step forward. Jackson water will be stripped from the city and put under, most likely, an independent board. So be it, it will probably be for the best.
But the easiest solution to this whole mess would have been for the people of Jackson to have elected a competent leader instead of a scion of sound bites and political blather.
Here's how Jackson has allocated its ARPA money.
