The Queen has always seemed like a strong and calming force in the world. Losing her is particularly awful, even if she only plays a symbolic role. Her generation shouldered so much in their lifetimes. It’s like the grownups have left the room.
The post Marshall Ramsey: The Crown appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said Tuesday that the city has had “many, many plans” to fund repairs for its beleaguered drinking water system.
But as of this week, Lumumba had not shared a comprehensive, long-term vision for improving the city’s water infrastructure system with state and federal leaders — the only ones who can pay for the needed repairs and replacements necessary to ensure safe, reliable water for the future.
Generations of Jackson elected officials neglected the capital city’s water system, culminating with its failure to produce running water last week. State and federal leaders, who for decades ignored city leaders’ dire warnings and funding requests, acted swiftly to restore water service to the city’s 150,000-plus residents.
With running water again flowing across the capital city, state leaders are now turning their focus to the critical negotiations about how — or even if — they can ensure Mississippi’s largest city won’t lose water again.
Jackson officials have been caught in a “fluid” planning cycle, city spokesman Justin Vicory explained. The city in recent years has planned spending based on what state and federal money is available. Meanwhile, state and federal officials say they need a plan from Jackson in order to free up funding.
Lumumba has, as recently as last week, mentioned creating a committee to formalize a new, long-term strategy. While staying quiet on many specifics, he has said that part of the new plan will include looking to contract out operations and maintenance services to support water treatment.
But without that plan in hand, state and federal officials are left with several unanswered fundamental questions as they begin to negotiate a long-term solution: Which repairs take top priority? Is a patchwork of repairs feasible, or is system replacement the only option? How much, even ballpark, might a long-term solution cost?
The mayor has repeatedly estimated that $1 billion would fix the city’s water system, although none of Jackson’s released spending plans tally up anywhere near that total.
During a meeting with the mayor and Mississippi’s congressional delegation at Jackson State University on Wednesday, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan was asked about what constitutes a plan.
“When I think about a plan, I think about what’s required to unlock federal dollars,” Regan said. “If we want to have access to the state revolving loan fund resources, the (money from the State Revolving Loan Fund) that currently exists, being competitive for the bipartisan infrastructure dollars that will exist, we need to see a plan in place that demonstrates how those resources will be spent and what they will be spent on.”
Regan said that there’s currently $43 million in existing funds from the EPA’s State Revolving Loan Fund that Jackson has access to, and that Mississippi will receive over $26 million through the program later this year.
Both Democratic U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson and Republican Gov. Tate Reeves in recent days have called out city leadership for not producing a long-term water improvement plan. The city’s Democratic delegates at the state capitol, Senate leader Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, and House Speaker Philip Gunn have all also said they haven’t seen a plan.
“I have not seen a plan. I’ve heard from the mayor and others that they have a plan, that they’re working on it, but I have not physically seen a plan with my own eyes,” Thompson told Mississippi Today last week. “… It would be difficult to get the kind of resources needed to fix the Jackson water system without a verifiable plan.”
“Unfortunately, we’ve never received a real plan from the city of Jackson on how to improve their water system so that the state could continue funding it,” Reeves said on Monday.
READ MORE: Rep. Bennie Thompson: Treat Jackson fairly, but if it can’t run water system, let someone else
The mayor disputed those assertions in a press conference on Tuesday. And in response to a Mississippi Today public records request, the mayor’s office sent several documents on Tuesday that lay out short- and medium-range water system funding ideas. The longest term spending published in this trove of newly released documents is from a 2020 report that laid out a water spending plan of five years.
Responding to Reeves specifically, Lumumba on Tuesday pointed to a letter he sent the governor on Mar. 3, 2021, asking for $47 million in repairs after last year’s winter storms knocked out water service to thousands of Jacksonians. Hosemann, Gunn, Thompson and Hinds County’s legislative delegation were all copied on the letter. State officials, Lumumba said, never replied to the letter.
“I know a good part of the narrative has been a lack of a plan for the city,” Lumumba said. “You, the media, have asked questions about that, and we’ve shared that we’ve had many, many plans.”
Lumumba’s office, for the first time on Tuesday, shared several documents with Mississippi Today that itemize specific needs, including improvements at the city’s largest water treatment plant, replacements of water main lines, and pay raises for the city’s water operators.
But it remains unclear what Jackson’s current spending proposal is.
One of the documents the city shared with Mississippi Today on Tuesday was a 45-page commissioned report from three private engineering firms that lays out $80 million in proposed water spending over five years. The $80 million in projects consists mostly of distribution line and water main repairs, and also includes some elevated water tank improvements.
A separate document the city released is a plan Lumumba said he presented to Hinds County’s legislative delegation last year, prioritizing spending of the city’s American Rescue Plan Act money. The slideshow lays out about $21 million in proposed repairs to the O.B. Curtis water plant, about $15 million in fixes for J.H Fewell water plant and about $34 million in distribution system repairs.
Another guiding document the mayor shared with Mississippi Today on Tuesday is a list of repairs outlined by the Environmental Protection Agency in an Administrative Order on Consent the agency entered into with Jackson in 2021. While the list includes deadlines for each repair, Lumumba said the EPA has been flexible in negotiating timelines.
The mayor added Tuesday that the city expects to finish rolling out its new water meters – which have been at the root of Jackson’s inability to bill customers, leading to a $90 million settlement with Siemens – by March of next year.
About an hour after Mississippi Today filed a records request for the plans the mayor discussed Tuesday, the city provided several documents.
Yet three weeks ago, when another reporter asked for the city’s plan, the mayor made no reference to those documents, instead saying, “We look forward to sharing our fully-outlined plan – one that is supported by the expert advice of the U.S. Water Alliance and the Kellogg Foundation.”
When the reporter, WJTV’s Richard Lake, asked the mayor’s office for a copy of any plan, Lake was told by a city employee, “You’ll need to file a records request.”
Ten days later, the request came back in the city’s automated filing system as “no records exist.” When Lake asked for clarification from a city employee, the reporter was told, simply: “There is a plan that is under review.”
Meanwhile, many people outside Jackson City Hall — Democrats and Republicans, Black and white officials, state and federal officials, reporters and Jackson taxpayers — are increasingly asking why the city has not produced a plan, leading to questions of whether the city can run the water system by itself any longer.
“If (the city’s) plan demonstrates that they can operate a system and get the state health department’s approval as well as the enforcement order from EPA lifted, then we’re off to the races,” Thompson said. “But you can’t put the lives of your citizens at risk … we just, in good conscience, can’t do that. If that’s not available, you then look, perhaps, at an alternative management.
“… I understand that there are some other interests out here that want to help the city get the plan done,” Thompson continued. “As soon as it’s completed, I would encourage that plan to be distributed as widely as possible. That, too, instills confidence in the public that something is being done.”
EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Bennie Thompson opens up about Jackson water crisis
Editor-in-chief Adam Ganucheau contributed reporting for this story.
Editor’s note: Mississippi Today is one of five Jackson-based newsrooms working together since 2021 as Mississippi Spotlight, a local news collaborative which is independently funded by Microsoft Corp. and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, in partnership with the Community Foundation for Mississippi. The collaborative’s current project — agreed upon by the cohort’s newsroom leaders, independent of guidance from the supporting grant makers — is the Jackson water crisis. As is our editorial policy since we launched in 2016, donors to Mississippi Today have no influence or control over editorial decisions.
The post With long-term Jackson water fix in mind, leaders ask the mayor: Where’s your plan? appeared first on Mississippi Today.
The wife of a man who sometimes experiences crises related to his bipolar disorder feels he has been “subjected to treatment that should not happen in a civilized society.”
The unnamed woman, who moved to Mississippi with her husband, told the court-appointed special monitor of the state’s mental health services that her husband was held in jail without medication and continued to decline as he waited for a bed at a state hospital. Another time, he was taken to a crisis stabilization unit (CSU), which can provide intensive treatment and serve as an alternative to hospitalization and to waiting in jails.
But after the staff called police, he wound up back in jail.
A year later, she took him to the CSU again, where a staff member said, “You can’t come in here because of how you behaved last time.” He was taken to jail again until his wife was able to get him a bed at a private hospital. He then had to wait for a state hospital bed to become available.
Monitor Michael Hogan included her story in his second report to illustrate how Mississippians can be subjectively denied admission to their regional crisis stabilization units, increasing the odds that they spend time in jail while waiting for a bed at a state mental hospital, without ever being charged with a crime.
Throughout his report, Hogan emphasized the issue of sick people waiting in jail for treatment.
“On average during FY ’22, according to DMH, on any given day 25 individuals waited in a jail cell for a hospital bed, a clearly unacceptable pattern,” Hogan wrote.
The monitor recommended the Department of Mental Health consider adopting “a structured, validated instrument” to help clinicians make placement decisions and bring uniformity to the admission process for CSUs.
In 2016, the Department of Justice sued the state over its mental health system. U.S. District Court Judge Carlton W. Reeves sided with the federal government in 2019, finding that the state had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by essentially segregating people with mental illness in hospitals far from their homes and families. Last year, Reeves appointed Hogan, a former New York State Commissioner on Mental Health with 40 years of mental health experience, to create twice-yearly reports evaluating the state’s compliance with the settlement agreement.
Hospital admissions have declined statewide since 2019. That could be a sign of progress: Reducing the number and length of hospital stays was a key requirement of the remedial order.
But the monitor also noted that some people were not admitted due to staffing shortages at the state hospitals. Staffing shortages also limited capacity at the crisis stabilization units (CSUs).
“In the view of the Monitor, gross numbers of admissions do not reveal much about whether these admissions could have been avoided,” he wrote. “Indeed, where admissions to Hospitals or CSUs may have been appropriate but beds were not available, the failure to admit is a problem.”
Hogan determined the state was in “partial compliance” with that piece of the order.
In an email to Mississippi Today, Department of Mental Health communications director Adam Moore said staffing challenges had increased wait lists by decreasing bed availability at two of the four state hospitals, as well as CSUs.
“DMH agrees that someone having to wait in jail to receive acute psychiatric treatment at a state hospital bed or a CSU is undesirable,” he wrote. “We are implementing strategies to increase staffing to reopen the remaining 30 acute psychiatric beds at East Mississippi State Hospital and 20 beds at Mississippi State Hospital and are encouraging the CMHCs to do the same in regard to the CSUs.”
Hogan’s report described significant differences across the state’s 13 regions, each of which is served by a different community mental health center. For example, the number of involuntary commitments – when a person with mental illness is forced into treatment by a local chancery judge after someone attests the person could harm themselves or another person – ranges widely, with some counties committing around one per 300 residents and others only one per 1,500.
“Since levels of serious mental illness do not vary this widely between counties, this variance reflect (sic) historical and local variability in patterns of care,” Hogan wrote.
Care coordination – identifying people with serious mental illness, offering appropriate treatment, and working to ensure they actually receive that treatment – also varies dramatically across regions.
Hogan’s team asked community mental health staff what happened if someone missed an appointment. Responses ranged from “Three strikes, you’re out” to “We go look for them, and if they aren’t home, we keep looking.”
Care coordination is a key part of the remedial order, and Hogan said that because of the variations across regions he could not determine whether the state was in compliance. He recommended the Department of Mental Health establish and enforce standards for care coordination.
In part, the differences across the regions are rooted in the history of the state’s mental health system. Since the community mental health centers were created 40 years ago, they operated with little oversight from the Department of Mental Health, which focused on running the state hospitals. Some regions are very poor and rural, while Hinds County, Region 9, is entirely urban.
“Differences in services organization and management also reflect the substantial autonomy in CMHC operations and may not in all cases reflect best practices in organizing care,” Hogan wrote.
Hogan’s first report, issued in March, described Mississippians waiting days and even weeks in jail for a bed at a state hospital. He also found that some people admitted to state hospitals did not have a serious mental illness – meaning the hospital wasn’t the right place for them and they were occupying a bed that could have been used by someone else.
In his second report, he surveyed North Mississippi State Hospital and community mental health centers in the northern part of the state and did not find patients admitted without a serious mental illness diagnosis.
If there were fewer denials at the crisis stabilization units, fewer Mississippians with mental illness would wait in jail to receive health care.
Of 1,275 CSU denials in the first half of Fiscal Year 2022, Hogan reported, about 30% occurred because no bed was available, in many cases because of staffing shortages. A fifth occurred because the CSU determined the person was too violent; other denials were based on the person’s substance abuse or medical issue.
The Department of Mental Health has increased funding to the community mental health centers for security in an effort to reduce the number of denials.
Hogan wrote that upcoming monitoring reports will focus on reviewing state data about utilization of key community services like mobile crisis teams. Previously, the state said it had funded those programs, but data to see how they work was not yet available.
Moore said the Department’s latest data indicates intensive community services have helped reduce rates of readmission to state hospitals. Of 2,424 Mississippians who received the services in Fiscal Year 2022, only 149 were readmitted to a state hospital.
More than a decade after the Department of Justice first determined Mississippi was unnecessarily institutionalizing people with mental illness, the lawsuit still isn’t over. The state appealed Reeves’ ruling to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and oral arguments will take place on Oct. 5 in New Orleans.
Read the monitoring report here:
The post An average of 25 mentally ill Mississippians wait in jail for hospital bed each day, report finds appeared first on Mississippi Today.
College football’s playoffs will expand to 12 teams. It could happen as soon as 2024 – and will happen no later than 2026.
If you follow college football at all, you probably already knew that. It was big news last week.
What you might not have known is that a former Northeast Mississippi Community College football center, Mark Keenum, led the way. Keenum – born in Starkville, raised in Corinth, and now his 13th year as president at Mississippi State – was integral in the process. His leadership was crucial. Indeed, many closely involved in the process say he made it happen.
Keenum serves as chairman of the 11-person College Football Playoff Board of Managers, the group of university CEOs who voted on the 12-team format. We are talking about presidents at colleges ranging geographically from Buffalo, N.Y., to Pullman, Wash., and in size from Ohio State to Troy. As you might suspect, finding common ground was not always easy.
In fact, there were many times, even last Friday before the final vote, when there were holdouts, presidents who thought the board was moving too fast and needed more time to consideration such a radical expansion.
“My message was simply, ‘It’s time,’” Keenum said in a phone conversation Tuesday. “I said, ‘It’s time for us to send a message to all the fans of college football. They want this. The country wants this. College football players and coaches want this. Let’s move. Let’s get this done.’”
The vote, when finally taken last Friday, was unanimous. We will have a 12-team playoff, up from four.
Said Keenum, “This a historic and exciting day for college football – more teams, more participation and more excitement are good for our fans, alumni and student-athletes.”
He is exactly right. And it should have happened sooner.
SMU president Gerald Turner, former chancellor at Ole Miss, and Troy chancellor Jack Hawkins both say it might not have happened at all – and certainly not last week – had it not been for Keenum. Both serve on the CFP Board of Managers.
“Mark’s skillful leadership was the key ingredient,” Hawkins said. “He moved us through any number of obstacles. He had just the right touch. He has a collaborative approach. He’s very diplomatic, but very determined as well. In this case, he was motivated by the right factors.”
Turner, who was chancellor at Ole Miss from 1984 until 1995, called Keenum’s stewardship “masterful.”
“Mark deserves much of credit,” Turner said. “I would describe his leadership style as smooth and effective. Certainly, there were other presidents who spoke up and were also influential, but Mark, more than anyone, got it done.”
When told what others, including several national football writers, had said about his leadership, Keenum said, “I’ll just say we got it done, and it was unanimous and I am proud of that.”
Pressed on his role, Keenum offered this: “Sen. Trent Lott once wrote a book about his life in politics and called it ‘Herding Cats.’ That’s a pretty good description of this playoffs expansion process. There were a lot of moving parts, a lot of different issues. Sometimes it seemed like you’d get one kitten back in the basket and another would fall out. In the end, we got it done.”
A cynic might say, “Yeah, but what does it matter, really? You can have a four-team playoff, a 12-team playoff or a 64-team playoff and you’re still going to have Georgia and Alabama playing for the national championship.”
And that might be true this season. It was true last season. It will not be the case forever. After all, Nick Saban is 70.
Said Keenum, “I just think back to 2014, which is the first year of the four-team format. That’s when Dak Prescott was our quarterback at Mississippi State and we were No. 1 in the country for longer than any other team that season. Now, obviously, we didn’t make the four-team playoffs in the end. But we would have been very much a part of this 12-team format. In fact, we would have hosted a first-round game in Starkville. Can you imagine what that would have been like?”
What’s more, Ole Miss, too, would have been part of a 12-team tournament that same 2014 season. In fact, Ole Miss would have been part of a 12-team playoffs system as recently as last season.
“For the Mississippi schools, this is very attainable,” Keenum said. “And once you get in the tournament, anything can happen.”
Southern Miss? The 2011 Golden Eagles, 12-2 and champions of Conference USA, might well have qualified for a 12-team playoff tournament and certainly would have if not for a narrow, upset loss to UAB that November.
The point being, with a 12-team format, it could happen. It is entirely possible. More playoffs berths means more playoffs access. It just makes sense, and it will make millions and millions more dollars.
If you are a college football fan, you should thank Mark Keenum next time you see him.
The post How MSU President Mark Keenum led college football playoff expansion appeared first on Mississippi Today.
A Hinds County Circuit Court judge has denied State Auditor Shad White’s motion to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought by University of Mississippi Professor James Thomas.
In his January 2021 motion, White alleged he could not be sued for defamation for allegations he made that Thomas, by participating in a two-day event called a “Scholar Strike,” violated state law prohibiting public employees from striking.
White argued that as a state executive officer, he is entitled to a legal doctrine known as “absolute immunity” – the complete protection from liability for actions committed in the course of his official duties – even though he acknowledged no Mississippi court has considered the issue.
Judge E. Faye Peterson was not persuaded, writing that Mississippi law is clear state officers have “no absolute privilege for any and all comments,” only those made during legislative, judicial and military proceedings.
“Hence, Shad White is not entitled to absolute immunity for any and all statements which he makes as a state governmental official,” Peterson wrote in a Sept. 2 order. “That blanket theory of immunity has not been recognized by our courts, nor does it comport with the laws of this state.”
Peterson added that “to the continued detriment” of White’s defense, Mississippi courts have found that immunity does not extend “to fraud, malice, libel, slander, defamation or any criminal offense.”
Peterson declined to issue a declaratory judgment just yet on whether or not Thomas’ participation in the Scholar Strike actually violated state law – a key argument in his case for defamation.
Fletcher Freeman, a spokesperson for the state auditor’s office, said White and his counsel from the Mississippi attorney general’s office will “continue defense against this case.”
“Auditor White absolutely has a right to tell people when they misspend money, which is what Thomas’ lawsuit is about,” Freeman wrote in an email.
The lawsuit filed in December 2020 centers on White’s claims that Thomas participated in an “illegal” work stoppage on Sept. 8 and Sept. 9, 2020, and thus violated state law. White sent Thomas a letter demanding he repay $1,912 – his salary and interest – for the two days and another letter asking the University of Mississippi chancellor to consider termination.
Thomas’ initial complaint alleged this was defamation in part because it was false of White to claim that the Scholar Strike was illegal.
According to state code, a strike is an action taken “for the purpose of inducing, influencing or coercing a change in the conditions, compensation, rights, privileges or obligations of public employment.”
Thomas’ participation in the Scholar Strike was intended to highlight racism and injustice in the United States, not to change his working conditions, according to the initial complaint.
“Shad White falsely claimed that Professor Thomas violated the law against public employee strikes when it was clear to anyone who could read that he didn’t,” said Rob McDuff, an attorney with the Mississippi Center for Justice who is representing Thomas.
White’s motion to dismiss argued that a declaratory judgment would be improper because “there are no ongoing legal relations between the parties to be clarified or settled.” Furthermore, it would “set a precedent inimical to the orderly and efficient disposition of Auditor demands.”
“This will effectively create a need for expedited review (and potential defense) by the Attorney General of all Auditor demands referred for non-payment, regardless of whether the Attorney General may otherwise have ultimately elected not to pursue a given claim—an inefficient use of State resources,” the motion states.
Thomas’ lawsuit does not ask for a set amount of monetary damages and says a jury should decide in the event White is found liable.
“If the jury says he should pay one dollar, that is fine,” the complaint says. “If the jury orders payment of more money, that is fine too.”
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Las Vegas oddsmakers have the over and under on Saints wins at 8.5. Deuce, a former Saints Pro Bowler and current radio analyst, believes eight or nine victories is the floor for the Saints and that the ceiling is much, much higher, despite a difficult late-season schedule. Deuce says a fast start is essential for these Saints.
The post Podcast: Deuce McAllister joins us to talk Saints … and a lot more. appeared first on Mississippi Today.
Mississippi Today has partnered with WJTV to provide video of press conferences regarding Jackson’s water crisis. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael S. Regan gave an update on the federal response to Jackson’s water crisis alongside Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba and Gov. Tate Reeves at 2:15 p.m. on September 7.
Watch:
The post Video: Jackson water crisis update with EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan appeared first on Mississippi Today.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has sent agents to Jackson to help with emergency water distribution efforts, but organizers who work with undocumented immigrants say its presence may prevent them from seeking assistance.
The Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity is distributing water from its headquarters at 406 West Fortification St. It is also collecting donations for two immigrant families impacted by flooding in central Mississippi about two weeks ago. Much of the operation is volunteer-based.
Organizers learned DHS agents would be in Jackson on a call where an agent announced they would visit distribution sites “to check things out,” said Jess Manrriquez, director of the Queer and Trans Justice Project for the alliance. The department also released a statement last week saying agents would be in the city.
“We don’t want anything to do with them because we have people on site who are vulnerable,” Manrriquez said. “As much as they say they won’t (conduct immigration enforcement), we don’t believe that. There are too many instances of people getting caught up.”
DHS includes Immigration Customs and Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol, which are agencies responsible for immigration enforcement.
In a Friday statement, the department said emergency relief sites, such as those to receive food and water and to apply for disaster-related assistance, are protected areas where “to the fullest extent possible” ICE and CBP don’t conduct immigration enforcement.
“ICE and CBP provide emergency assistance to individuals regardless of their immigration status,” according to the statement. “DHS officials do not and will not pose as individuals providing emergency-related information as part of any enforcement activities.”
Other examples of protected areas include schools, hospitals, places of worship and social services establishments.
Manrriquez said she doesn’t take the department’s word as a guarantee not to enforce immigraton laws. Although DHS says it won’t do it, the department relies on individual agents to determine whether to enforce the laws, she said.
People who the alliance has helped have reported ICE agents going to protected sites such as schools to request information about children’s parents, she said.
DHS has also deported people during crises, the alliance said in a Tuesday statement.
The alliance also highlighted the department’s impact in Mississippi. In 2019, a series of raids at poultry plants resulted in the detention of 680 people. Then-U.S. Attorney Mike Hurt called it “the largest single state immigration enforcement operation in our nation’s history.”
Unless DHS agents wear a badge, uniform or other form of department identification, Manrriquez said there isn’t a way to know whether they visited the alliance’s water distribution site.
The alliance’s headquarters is a DHS and ICE-free zone, she said.
The National Guard has been called in to distribute water, similar to how members administered COVID-19 shots earlier in the pandemic.
Manrriquez said people who are undocumented and in the immigrant community are not as comfortable around people in uniforms. There is a fear that they will be asked to show immigration documents, she said.
“It’s just the perception, it honestly is,” Manrriquez said.
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