Big news told to me at lunch by my dear friend and Jackson city council member Ashby Foote: Judge Henry Wingate, with the endorsement of the city council, has given sewer to our water czar, Ted Henifin.
This is a big deal. The size of the sewer infrastructure investment is equal to the clean water investment.
But it’s not as big as folks were once touting. One Jackson city council member, during the height of the water crisis, claimed it would take two billion dollars to fix both clean and dirty water systems.
But the water czar predicts it will be in the hundreds of millions, not billions, money that has already been allocated by the feds. And it should take years, not decades, probably no more than two or three.
This is great news for Jackson. Indeed, manna from heaven. We’ve gone from disaster to paradise. What a turnaround.
Currently Jackson has 250 or so “sanitary spills” in which raw sewage leaks out into the ground, or worse, into streets and even houses. Henifin has already fixed dozens. Now that he has full court authority, expect him to show the same competence that he has shown with the water.
In New York City, one sanitary spill would be a crisis. In Jackson, we have hundreds. Ultimately that sewage finds its way to the Pearl, polluting that beautiful river. High time to fix this mess.
Last week I spent time in Judge Wingate’s courts listening to him listen to complaints about Henifin’s lack of transparency. Most of this was orchestrated by Mayor Lumumba and his cronies. I saw the usual cast of characters and contractors in the courtroom.
These folks are going crazy because Henifin is hiring Brandon contractors to work on Jackson infrastructure. Henifin isn’t bound to follow normal bidding laws, including minority bidding. He’s getting whoever is competent to do the work, no matter where they work or the color of their skin. Good for him.
Wingate spent days patiently listening to their complaints. Far more than I would have if I was a life-appointed federal judge with complete authority. He displayed a huge amount of civility and tolerance, although he didn’t hesitate to dress down Lumumba and his crew when they failed to respect court procedures.
A defining moment was when some of the malcontents started pulling the race card. Wingate reminded them that he was a 15-year-old in jail waiting for Medgar Evers to visit him and help get him out. Evers was shot before he could get to the jail to help Wingate. As Holly Hunter said in the “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?”, “He’s bonafide.”
At the end of it all, Wingate wrote a seven page “Response to Status Conference.” After first detailing all of Henifin’s progress, including finding the massive leak off Adkins Boulevard that the city failed to detect for years, Wingate wrote the following:
“This accomplishment, ALONE, should elevate Henifin and his dedicated crew to heroic status but the staunchest of his (Henifin) critics can only see Race and Outsider Prejudice. ‘Ted is white,’ they protested. Jackson, they said, is more than 80% African American. As such, they reasoned, Jackson should have its water savior an African American and, more, someone from Jackson itself. These critics inexplicably did not appreciate the inexcusable impact of these racially-charged words uttered in a deep-South State they have attacked all their lives for racism. Lady Justice must have experienced a stabbing pain from these dagger-like words which are so reminiscent of times when African Americans have been on the receiving end. The speakers of these malignant sentences could not justify their statements. They have no experience in water management, and no logical rationale why an African American would be better suited to fix a lingering problem which has gone unsolved for decades by past African American leadership.
"Yes, Henifin is white, not African American; his detractors did get that right. And, he is not a native Jacksonian, nor Mississippian, for that matter. So, his critics win on that score also. Apparently, however, their victory on these two insignificant points have blinded them to Henifin’s color-blind passion for his mission and his success thus far over the very short time he has been on the job (November 29, 2022, until now). They did not quarrel with Henifin’s qualifications. They did not question his resolve or commitment. They did not dispute the overall progress he has engineered in the few months he has been on this mission. They did not represent, nor even mention, the numerous citizens who are grateful for what Henifin has achieved over this short time. Henifin has saved Jackson millions just for fixing “the leak” alone, but even those saved “green” backs have failed to clear the vision of those who can only view accomplishment through the lenses of black and white.
"Jackson is better than that. The majority of its citizens have remained loyal to this metropolis, convinced that they will solve the crime problem which has placed Jackson number one in homicides per capita in 2021 and 2022; the fastest shrinking city in the United States as described in the latest United States Census Bureau data, because of white and black flight premised on fears generated by a perceived lack of police protection; a declining tax base; and a challenging water/sewage system, which for decades, has frustrated Jacksonians and caused too many to go elsewhere.”
Henifin strikes me as a very fair and congenial fellow, in addition to his diligence and competence. I’ll bet he bends over backwards to be more inclusive with Jackson’s contracting class and political network. But not at the cost of expense and delays. This is as it should be.
The Mississippi legislature should follow the example set by Wingate and Henifin and repeal the state statute allowing minority set aside contracts just as the U. S. Supreme Court has outlawed the use of pure race in student college admissions. Our Republican leadership does not do this because it’s bad politics, thus squandering the public’s money for political gain.
Similarly, the state legislature needs to completely reform our state bidding laws, which have more holes in them than swiss cheese, allowing preferential “RFPs” rather than sealed bids. Our “lowest and best” standard needs to be changed to “lowest responsive bidder” as is the case in more progressive states.
With a total state budget of over $20 billion, much of it deployed through private contracts, this could easily save a billion dollars a year and raise the average annual household income by $1,000.
But they don’t. Too many political oxes to gore.
As for Henifin and transparency, I think it was a mistake to exempt JXN Water from state open records laws. Henifin should comply with them anyway. And the sooner he adopts proper bidding procedures the better. In the meantime, let’s enjoy his phenomenal progress.
