The NFL Draft has become such a monstrosity of a production. We’ve had mock drafts coming out for weeks, if not months. Talking heads have been talking about it, and writing fingers have been typing about it — ad nauseam. The event is nationally televised over three days before a packed house of seemingly crazy people.
It has not always been thus. If you don’t believe it, ask Archie Manning. Fifty years ago, in 1971, he was the second pick of the first round. He almost missed it.
“I’ll never forget it,” Manning said Friday afternoon from his New Orleans home. But 50 years ago, he almost did forget about it. He almost forgot the draft itself.
“Back then it was in January, less than a month after we played in the Gator Bowl, just a couple weeks after I played in the Hula Bowl.”
Rick Cleveland
Yes, and somewhere in that busy time preceding the draft, Archie and Olivia Manning were married and honeymooned in Acapulco. They had just moved into an apartment in Oxford.
On the day before the draft, which was held in New York, Manning’s phone rang. The caller was Billy Gates, the late, great Ole Miss sports information director.
“Arch, did you know the NFL Draft is tomorrow?” Gates said.
“I guess I kind of forgot,” Manning replied.
Gates told him that indeed the draft was the next day and that seemingly everybody and his brother was calling him, asking him where Manning would be the next day.
“The Patriots have called,” Gates told him. “The Saints have called. So have the Houston Oilers. I’m pretty sure one of those three teams is going to pick you.”
The Patriots were picking first, the Saints second and the Oilers third. All needed a quarterback.
“Why don’t you come over to my office tomorrow morning at 9 and I’ll let them all know you’re going to be here,” Gates said.
Manning said he would, and he did. And that’s where he heard the news the Patriots had taken Jim Plunkett, the 1970 Heisman Trophy winner out of Stanford, with the first pick. Just minutes later, Gates’ phone rang and the New Orleans Saints were on the line. Gates handed the phone to Manning who learned he was to be a Saint.
“I talked to John Mecom, the Saints owner, for I guess two minutes,” Manning said. “Then Mecom put their general manager, Vic Schwenk, on the phone and I talked to him for a couple of minutes. And then he put J.D. Roberts, the head coach, on the phone and we talked a couple minutes more. There was an Associated Press photographer in the office taking a few pictures.”
And then?
“That was it,” Manning said, laughing. “That was my draft day. I had a 10 o’clock class. I made it to class on time. There just wasn’t a whole lot to it.”
Remember, this was after Manning, himself, almost forgot about it.
The draft just wasn’t that big a deal back then. Actually, it was more of an ordeal. The 1971 draft went 17 rounds, during which the Saints took 21 players. I use loosely the term “players.” The Saints missed on a whole lot more of those picks than they hit.
Manning remembers getting out of class, going home and learning that Michigan offensive tackle Dan Dierdorf, an All American whom Manning had befriended at the Hula Bowl, had somehow not been picked in the first round.
“I was pretty excited about that,” Manning said. “I knew the Saints needed some offensive linemen, and I knew how good Dan Dierdorf was. I told Olivia: Looks like we’re going to get Dierdorf.”
Then came the news: With their second round pick, the Saints chose Grambling offensive tackle Sam Holden.
Dan Dierdorf played 13 seasons, was named All-Pro five times, made the All-NFL team of the decade of the 1970s and eventually was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Holden lasted one season and started as many games as you and I.
There was a lot of that kind of buffoonery going on with the Saints back then. As a result, Manning was often running for his life and sometimes throwing to receivers he scarcely practiced with. Still, 50 years later, he remains one of the most beloved Saints of them all. You go to the Superdome on a Saints Sunday, you still see hundreds of fans wearing No. 8, and you also see No. 8 hanging from the rafters. There’s a story about that, too.
The day after the draft, the New Orleans newspaper ran a photo of the Saints brass holding up a Saints jersey, No. 18, which was the number Manning famously wore at Ole Miss, and the number the Saints were planning for him to wear with the Saints.
And this will tell you something about Archie Manning. Hugo Hollis, a Saints safety, was No. 18. Manning wasn’t about to take another player’s number. That’s how Manning became No. 8. And the 1971 draft, 50 years ago, was how he became a Saint.
More than 14 months after COVID-19 reached Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves has rolled back all COVID-related restrictions except one.
Reeves’ new executive order, issued Friday, essentially returns the state to the way things were before the pandemic. The only remaining statewide order that remains in place is the requirement that masks be worn inside school buildings through the end of the 2020-2021 academic school year.
Seating caps for collegiate sporting events and K-12 extracurricular activities are being lifted by the new order, which is set to go into effect at 5 p.m. today. On Twitter, Reeves cited upcoming graduation ceremonies as a motivator for removing capacity restrictions.
In the order, Reeves does recommend that Mississippians continue to follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Mississippi State Department of Health guidelines on COVID-19 safety, which include wearing a mask in all public spaces, social distancing and hand-washing.
Reeves repealed most COVID-related restrictions in early March. Reeves has drawn criticism from both sides of the political spectrum over his handling of COVID-19 in Mississippi, with some decrying any COVID-related executive order as “tyrannical” and others panning his patchwork approach to mask mandates.
The Mississippi State Department of Health reported on Friday that 949,833 people in Mississippi — about 32% of the state’s population — have received at least their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Just over 788,000 people have received both doses since the state began distributing vaccines in December. Thousands of vaccination appointments are currently available on the MSDH vaccine scheduler. All Mississippians ages 16 and up are currently eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
Gov. Tate Reeves, the top elected official representing the blackest state in America, said on national television Thursday that systemic racism does not exist within the criminal justice system.
In a Fox News town hall Thursday with several Republican governors, Reeves was asked to respond to President Joe Biden’s comments this week about justice system racism and police reform.
“There is not systemic racism in America,” Reeves responded, garnering applause from the live Fox News audience. “We live in the greatest country in the history of mankind. In Mississippi, I was proud of the fact that we had peaceful protesters but we did not have one event in which there was a riot. The reason for that is in our state that we back the blue, we support the police.”
In some political circles, the term “systemic racism” is often misunderstood (or purposefully portrayed) as meaning that every individual within a system is racist. The opposite is true. The term means the systems, by the way they were originally designed and regardless of the intentions of the individuals involved today, disproportionately harm people of color.
In Mississippi, with its well-documented history of overtly racist policymaking and policing, the effects are especially clear. Many of the justice-related laws that still disproportionately harm Black Mississippians were crafted in the 1890s — the start of the Jim Crow era, when white politicians worked to grab power back from Black leaders following Reconstruction.
Reeves was asked to respond to a clip from Biden’s State of the Union speech on Wednesday.
“We have all seen the knee of injustice on the neck of Black Americans. Now is our opportunity to make some real progress,” Biden said. “The vast majority, men and women wearing the uniform and a badge, serve our communities and they serve them honorably. I know them, I know they want — I know they want to help meet this moment as well. My fellow Americans, we have to come together to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the people they serve, to root out systematic racism in our criminal justice system and enact police reform in George Floyd’s name that passed the House already.”
In America and in Mississippi, the numbers speak for themselves. Setting aside illustrative data in other sectors of society and government, here is just a sampling of data that shows vast racial disparities within the Mississippi criminal justice system:
• As of April 2021, 64% of incarcerated people in Mississippi are Black, despite only making up 38% of the state’s total population.
• On average, 1,052 of every 100,000 Black Mississippians is currently incarcerated, compared to 346 of every 100,000 white Mississippians being currently incarcerated.
• On average, 383 of every 100,000 Black juveniles were in custody, compared to 83 of every 100,000 white juveniles being in custody in Mississippi, according to 2015 data.
• A 2018 analysis by Mississippi Today found that 61% of the Mississippians who have lost their rights to vote based on felony charges are African American, despite the fact that African Americans represent just 36% of the state’s total voting-age population.
• 16% of voting-aged Black Mississippians had lost their rights to vote because of the felony disenfranchisement laws, according to a 2020 study by The Sentencing Project.
• National studies suggest prosecutors disproportionately strike Black citizens while selecting juries. While there is no comprehensive state-level data, several anecdotes suggest this is a major problem in Mississippi. American Public Media’s “In the Dark” podcast reported in 2018 on the 26-year career of central Mississippi District Attorney Doug Evans. Reporters found that his office struck 50% of prospective Black jurors versus just 11% of whites.
So when it finally came time for the New Orleans Saints to pick in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft Thursday night, many folks, including this one, thought they might opt for Ole Miss wide receiver Elijah Moore, the best college player in Mississippi this past season.
ESPN’s draft expert Mel Kiper was calling Moore the most under-valued player in the entire draft, rating him as the 16th best talent. New Orleans, picking at No. 28, has long needed another wide receiver to take some of the pressure off Michael Thomas. Moore has many attributes including speed and ability to make people miss, but what I like most about him is the same attribute I love about Thomas: He catches the ball. He would have given Sean Payton one more badly needed weapon in his offensive arsenal: Flank Thomas wide, put Moore in the slot, and then swing running back Alvin Kamara out to that side. Good luck, defense.
Rick Cleveland
Still, there was no way I was surprised when Roger Goodell did not call Moore’s name. That’s because the Saints did what they usually do when it comes to their first pick of the draft. That is, they went for a lineman — in this case Houston defensive end Payton Turner, a guy few if any had going in the first round.
And that makes seven straight drafts the Saints have used their first pick for an offensive or defensive lineman. You can knock that policy all you want, but you also must realize that since 2016 only two NFL teams, the Chiefs and the Patriots, have achieved more victories than the Saints. Clearly, the Saints have been doing a lot of things right and drafting is certainly one. One thing never changes about football: Most games are won in the trenches.
The Saints have made some amazingly good first choices during those years, such as All-Pro tackle Ryan Ramczyk in 2017. They also have missed on occasion, such as when they traded up in the 2018 draft to the No. 14 position to choose UTSA defensive end Marcus Davenport. In three seasons, playing in 37 games, Davenport has produced 12 sacks, including just 1.5 last season. Those aren’t first-round numbers. Put it this way: Had Davenport been what the Saints thought he would be, they would not have been drafting another defensive end in the first round three years later. And while it’s true that it’s too early to call Davenport a total bust, he seems to be trending in that direction.
So, let’s take a look at Turner, the long, limbed, 6-foot-5, 270-pound defensive end the Saints chose Thursday night. He is the proverbial late bloomer, a former two-star recruit from the Houston area. That’s one reason why he might not have been high on a lot of draft charts. Another reason is this: He played in only five games in 2020 because of COVID-19 and injuries.
Turner, Houston’s team captain, did make those five games count. Turner recorded 25 tackles, five sacks and 10.5 tackles for loss in those five games. One of those was against Tulane, where new Southern Miss coach Will Hall was the offensive coordinator for the past two seasons.
Asked about Turner, Hall replied: “He’s a really dynamic pass rusher who improved dramatically from 2019 to 2020. He’s got tons of upside, could be a legit edge guy in the NFL. He’s an Alabama or Georgia type talent. Long and physical.”
Against Tulane, Turner finished with 4.5 tackles for loss, two sacks and seven tackles overall.
Said Hall, “He dominated us. We could not block him.”
The Saints would have loved to have used the pick for a badly needed cornerback, but the four best available all went before New Orleans had a pick. The Saints reportedly tried to trade up to pick South Carolina’s Jaycee Horn, son of former Saint Joe Horn, but the price was just too high.
Time will tell if the choice of Turner, which many consider a reach, pays off. Time also will tell about whether all the teams that passed on Moore made a huge mistake.
I suspect it might turn out like the 2019 draft when every team picking in the first round passed on Rebels A.J. Brown and DK Metcalf in the first round. Remember? Both lasted well into the second round before the Titans chose Brown and the Seahawks took Metcalf. In two seasons, Brown has scored 21 touchdowns, Metcalf 17. Both have played in a Pro Bowl.
More than $4 billion in loans have now made its way to Mississippi after Congress approved another round of federal support for businesses earlier this year.
As was the case after the first round of the Paycheck Protection Program last summer, the state’s top recipients so far include restaurants, doctors’ and dentists’ offices, legal practices, construction companies, car dealers, hotels and religious organizations.
In total, over 79,000 businesses in Mississippi have been approved for PPP loans. Borrowers are eligible for full forgiveness as long as they maintain the same level of employment and compensation for a certain period and spend most of the loan on their payroll.
Mississippi Today published info on many of the businesses receiving money last summer, but the Small Business Administration has since made public more information on PPP recipients following a lawsuit from the Washington Post and other outlets. The published data now include specific amounts businesses have received, as well as the names of places that got smaller loans.
Disbursements to Mississippi businesses ranged from $100 to a $10 million loan, which went to Staff Pro LLC, an employment agency in Gulfport.
The SBA states that the PPP program is designed to help small businesses keep workers on payroll. In Mississippi, nearly all — 96% — of loans were directed towards payrolls. On average, businesses in the state received about $7,000 per employee.
Yet that rate varies greatly; J&W Transport LLC, a trucking company in Jackson, received a loan of over $260,000 to pay one employee. Several other companies, shown below, received enough in loans to pay each employee over six figures. The program caps forgiveness for salaries at $100,000 per employee, more than twice the state’s median household income.
For the most part, Mississippi’s recipients were small individual businesses — over 80% reported 10 or fewer employees, and only 1% were part of a franchise. Yet franchisees in Mississippi from dozens of large national chains came away with millions in loans; 28 of McDonald’s locations in Mississippi, for instance, received a combined $14.8 million, despite the chain being a multinational corporation that made $4.7 billion in profit last year.
In fact, the franchise locations combined for each of McDonald’s, Sonic, Applebee’s and General Motors received more in loans than any of the state’s non-franchise businesses.
The loan data also include demographics of the borrowers, although most businesses left those fields blank. Most of those that answered were white and male-owned, shown below:
Use the tables below for full lists of Mississippi’s PPP recipients, by business and industry.
By industry:
By business:
Disclosure: In 2020, Mississippi Today sought a Paycheck Protection Program loan, which was approved and disbursed.
Clarification: The story has been edited to clarify that franchisees of national chains applied and received PPP loans rather than the chains’ corporate bodies.
The Mississippi Gulf Coast hasn’t been closer to getting Amtrak access back in the last 15 years than it is now.
But even with $77 million in awarded funds and a 2022 proposed start date, the return of the passenger rail line — which some prominent officials believe would be an economic boon to the state and help complete years of recovery efforts following Hurricane Katrina — still isn’t a sure thing.
Amtrak’s leadership says after years of failed deliberations that have become mired in politics, they’re done waiting on languished negotiations with freight companies they’re not sure will ever end in an agreement to run the line connecting Mobile to New Orleans.
So, Amtrak has filed a case with an independent federal agency called the Surface Transportation Board, petitioning its members to speed up the process. Mississippi leaders have already thrown their support behind Amtrak’s decision to file, hoping the board could be the last major step in restoring service to a region that’s been cut off from the nation’s passenger rail network since Hurricane Katrina.
“Assessments have shown this route has the capacity to accommodate both Amtrak and freight movement,” U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, a long-time supporter of the plan, told Mississippi Today. “Restoring this route has been delayed long enough.”
The proposed Gulf Coast route would have four stops in Mississippi: Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi and Pascagoula. It would stretch over 200 miles from start to finish and have two trains running both ways — once in the morning and once in the evening.
Amtrak says it can begin the service Jan. 1, 2022. But doing so requires the cooperation of CSX Transportation, which owns some of the needed tracks. The freight company has called that start date an arbitrary deadline and ambitious goal in documents filed with the board.
In his own letter to the Surface Transportation Board, Wicker wrote restoring the rail service “would serve as the culmination of Mississippi’s efforts to recover from Hurricane Katrina.” But it isn’t just Mississippi leaders and businesses longing for transportation options and economic development waiting on the decision from the railroad court.
This long-running Gulf Coast problem has turned into a national test case in passenger access to freight-owned railways. Experts say the results could shape Amtrak’s ability to grow more routes nationwide.
“This isn’t just about the Gulf Coast anymore,” said Knox Ross, a Mississippi representative with the Southern Rail Commission. “It’s become about the expansion of Amtrak.”
In 2006, the freight companies replaced the Gulf Coast tracks that were washed away by Hurricane Katrina. Freight trains soon resumed but the passenger route never came back.
“All those Gulf Coast communities took it as: We don’t count,” said Jim Mathews, the president and CEO of advocacy group Rail Passenger Association.
Amtrak and CSX have been in regular back-and-forth over the future of the route since the grassroots effort for its return picked up steam about six years ago.
The previous route that ran through southern Mississippi was part of a line called the Sunset Limited that stretched from Florida to California. Even Gulf Coast rail advocates admit the former route wasn’t an ideal setup for locals. Trains from the West Coast arrived at the Gulf Coast at odd times and on-time performance was poor.
The new Gulf Coast route, though much shorter, would connect to other nationwide routes like up to Chicago or through Texas to California. More importantly, it allows for day trips to New Orleans or to the Gulf Coast beaches.
“It’d be huge for our small destination,” said Nikki Moon, the owner of Bay Town Inn in Bay St. Louis. “You’re going to have everything from day trippers from New Orleans to vacation home owners coming seven days a week. People will be coming to our shops, our galleries, our restaurants. You can’t put just a dollar figure on that.”
A University of Southern Mississippi researcher came up with a number, though. According to a study from the university, new tourism spending from the train could reach nearly $495 million in one year if the amount of visitors went up by 20%. Should visitors to the Gulf Coast increase by just 1% from the train, new spending would still reach nearly $25 million, the study says.
John Robert Smith is the four-term mayor of Meridian best known for redeveloping the city’s Union Station into a transportation hub that generated tens of millions of dollars in economic development. He can see similar development coming from the Gulf Coast route.
“The trend among the young workforce and aging boomers is to have options of mobility,” said Smith, now a senior policy adviser with Transportation for America. “Mississippi has been exporting their talent for decades and fails to retain our own children, our own talent. The world is changing, time is changing. If we want to play seriously in this new economic development paradigm, our economic choices are key.”
CSX, meanwhile, wants the case to be dropped. In its filing calling for a dismissal, the freight rail says engineers need to complete an impact study before the board can make any decision. A study conducted by a firm commonly contracted by CSX to model how freight and passenger rails would interact has already been started.
Alabama officials, including Gov. Kay Ivey, and the Port of Mobile have sided with the freight companies in pushing for that study to be completed before any passenger route begins.
“I am particularly concerned about the impact to the Port of Mobile, which has been critical to Alabama’s substantial growth in exports in recent years,” Ivey wrote. “An operational modeling study is needed to adequately understand the impact of new Gulf Coast passenger service on freight rail traffic.”
Every mayor from each Gulf Coast city has spoken out in support of the rail. Unlike the Port of Mobile, the Port of Pascagoula and Port of Gulfport say passenger and freight can easily coexist along the route
Bay St. Louis has already spent $1.5 million improving its downtown depot. Gulfport has its new aquarium, and Biloxi casinos are eager for a funnel of new visitors.
Following Amtrak’s March 16 filing, one of its executives, Dennis Newman, said the decision to go to the board was to prevent more delays. Now it’s the board’s job to weed through hundreds of pages of reports, public comments, and train data. It will apply its findings to federal law and determine whether Amtrak can access the tracks.
“We want to deliver this service next year, not some day far away,” Newman said.
TIM ISBELL/SUN HERALD
The Amtrak Inspection Train arrives at the Gulfport Depot, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016.
Critics of the freight companies say the impact study is another CSX tactic.
“When this study is done, they will want another one,” Mathews said. “They’ll just keep going until it’s delayed into the ground.”
When a contract with the engineers handling the study ended at the start of this year, Amtrak didn’t renew it. It was supposed to take six months and finish in October.
“It dragged on and on,” Ross said.
In their documented response to Amtrak’s filing, the freight rails say they “have not said no” to the passenger route. CSX also says Amtrak needs to continue to cooperate in the engineering analysis that will show if there is “actually a disagreement” that calls for the transportation board’s role as an arbitrator.
“Amtrak elected to abandon the long-standing practice of completing an impact study when the introduction of new passenger service is proposed,” CSX said in a statement to Mississippi Today. “From the onset, CSX prioritized this Amtrak Gulf Coast study, treating each step as expeditiously as possible.”
Both Amtrak and the freight company denied further comment now that the dispute is in front of the transportation board.
Amtrak describes the route as two short and quick trips. CSX says it’s not that simple because the bulk of the route is a single track, according to its filings with the board.
Amtrak, state officials, and the 2017 study by the Gulf Coast Working Group — created by Congress to study the route — have all said the addition of two trains should not congest a corridor that typically services eight freight trains a day. The Federal Railroad Administration was involved in determining those results.
That study also said it would cost about $5.4 million to improve the stations along the route and another $95 million in other improvements, such as adding more siding tracks so the trains can pass each other.
CSX disagreed with the 2017 Gulf Coast Working Group study estimates and said needed improvements were more complex and would cost $2 billion.
Mathews pointed out NASA’s latest Mars rover mission is estimated to cost about $2.7 billion.
Ross said in the years following the 2017 study, the Southern Rail Commission tried to work through the freight rail’s concerns, hosting several meetings with all the players. He’d think they made progress, but plans would continue to stall out.
“We want something that works for everyone,” Ross said, referring to both passenger and freight rail. “We’re all interested in what the Surface Transportation Board has to say because it will be a transparent process to tell us the truth.”
Conflict between freight rail and passenger services is nothing new.
The 1970 act that would lead to the creation of Amtrak also gave the passenger rail right to access freight-owned railways. Before the Rail Passenger Act, railroad companies endured decades of financial distress while handling both transporting people and goods. The act was a bailout plan that forgave railroads of their debts and gave passenger responsibilities to the newly created Amtrak.
If Amtrak and the railroads can’t negotiate over track access, they can go to the Surface Transportation Board, which was established in 1996.
The board, with a growing focus on passenger rail, also has new responsibilities tied to a law passed last year by the Department of Transportation.
That law allows the board to open investigations should passenger trains consistently miss an on-time-performance of 80 percent. Freight companies can face fines or be ordered to update infrastructure if they’re found to be at fault.
“The easiest way to avoid that problem is to just not have passenger trains on your track,” Mathews said.
Amtrak ran what it called an inspection train that started in Florida and made stops in the Gulf Coast in 2016. It was a test run.
The stops were quick — just 10 minutes — as they would be if the route started up again today. But that didn’t keep each city from throwing a party complete with pep rallies, marching bands and speeches. The train didn’t even stop in Ocean Springs, but there was a crowd cheering there, too.
Kay Kell, a long-time Southern Rail Commission member and Pascagoula’s former city manager, remembers how each city fought to out-do the other. She said it felt like a president was passing through.
“I think it’s going to happen, but I’m not foolish enough to think there won’t be hurdles,” Kell said.
The Surface Transportation Board doesn’t have any statutory deadline to decide cases. As of Wednesday, more than 40 letters or comments had been submitted to the board from Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama officials.
Gulf Coast leaders are hopeful this could be it. In Mississippi, it’s become a bipartisan issue — not always the case when it comes to transportation.
“Our counties, our cities, have been hugely supportive not only in words but in money,” said Moon, the hotel owner. “I hate that we have had to wait this long, but it will be worth it because it’s going to be even better.”
She sees herself taking day trips for Saints games and, more importantly, New Orleanians taking weekend trips away from the city to relax at her pool.
With a tourism economy still in recovery from the pandemic, many Gulf Coast business owners think the passenger rail’s return can’t come too soon.
“It will link six major and smaller urban centers,” said Smith, the Meridian mayor turned transportation expert. “It links them for job creation and from one economy to the next.”
On Monday, around 20 bus drivers in Greenville Public School District went on strike to protest reduced hours, low pay and what they say is poor treatment by the district.
The move left school children standing on corners with no transportation Monday and Tuesday morning, and the district’s board of trustees and superintendent scrambled to fix the issue at a board meeting Tuesday night. By Wednesday morning, the bus drivers were back at work after their concerns were addressed.
The Greenville bus drivers took the rare measure despite the existence of state laws that explicitly prohibit public employees from striking, which comes with threats of jail time and fines. And State Auditor Shad White, citing those state laws, recently investigated and punished a University of Mississippi professor for a work stoppage.
Bus drivers in the Greenville district work either 5, 6 or 7-hour routes. But at the beginning of the current school year, all drivers were cut down to 5-hour routes as a result of the school district’s virtual-only instruction amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Superintendent Debra Dace said they were also offered a voluntary furlough so they could collect unemployment but keep their jobs, though none opted to take it.
Yolanda Lewis, a 19-year veteran bus driver with the district, said she and others met with Dace on the issue in November, but were given no relief. They asked to meet with the school board, but Dace told them the school board “didn’t want to meet with them.”
Then, last month, the board voted to reduce the number of days of work for bus drivers and custodial employees by from 187 to 182 days in the 2021-2022 school year. Dace said she made the recommendation for the reduction of days to the board because she and the director of transportation determined there were “idle days” when students weren’t in school and didn’t need to be transported.
Drivers received the letter informing them of the cut on Friday, and, as one school board member described it, it was “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” The letter also stated drivers would only be paid for days worked, which raised fears about the loss of paid holidays.
Following the bus drivers’ strike, however, the board on Tuesday reversed that decision.
Edwin Young, who has driven for the district for two years, told board members on Tuesday that he made $16,000 last year.
“We’re not making anything … We are certified drivers, we got CDLs and we’re living at the poverty level,” he said, noting the additional lack of hazard pay amid the pandemic.
And there are other issues in addition to the low pay, he and other drivers said. He still hasn’t been paid for hours he worked in October of last year despite repeatedly requesting the payment from the district.
Lewis said she was exposed to COVID-19 earlier this month by a student on her bus. She had to quarantine for 10 days with no pay, and when she went to human resources, they said she wouldn’t receive pay, she said.
She was already living on a smaller paycheck after having her hours reduced from 7 to 5. She had to give up her dental, vision and other supplemental insurance after she was no longer able to afford it working the 5-hour route.
After the strike, however, she received a call Wednesday letting her know she would receive pay for those days.
The district did not immediately respond to questions about these allegations. Dace is set to meet with the drivers on Friday.
Mississippi law prohibits public employees from striking. The law defines a strike as “a concerted failure to report for duty, a willful absence from one’s position, the stoppage of work, a deliberate slowing down of work, or the withholding, in whole or in part, of the full, faithful and proper performance of the duties of employment, for the purpose of inducing, influencing or coercing a change in the conditions, compensation, rights, privileges or obligations of public employment.”
Mississippi resumed the use of Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, ending a temporary pause that began on April 13.
Around 40,000 of the 90,000 Johnson & Johnson doses the state has received sat unused during the pause, according to State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs.
MSDH has updated its recommendations for healthcare providers administering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. These recommendations include measures such as informing vaccine recipients of the risk of developing the rare blood clots that prompted the pause, and having an alternative COVID-19 vaccine available for patients who request it.
Federal health agencies ended their recommendation for a temporary pause in the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on Friday, and since then a majority of states have resumed its administration. The pause recommendation was ended after an extensive safety review by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.
Acting out of an abundance of caution, federal health agencies issued the pause recommendation after six people were discovered to have developed a rare blood clot, known as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, after receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. A subsequent safety review found that 15 of the nearly 8 million people that have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the U.S. developed the rare blood clot.
Less than 5% of Mississippians who have received a COVID-19 vaccine received Johnson & Johnson, so the pause has had little impact on the state’s overall vaccine supply-chain. The number of COVID-19 vaccines being administered in Mississippi has decreased 35% over the last two weeks, marking a growing rift between the state’s supply of vaccines and the population’s demand for them.
In an attempt to curtail existing barriers to vaccine access, MSDH and its community health partners have begun administering at-home vaccinations for Mississippians that cannot access traditional vaccination sites. Those interested in setting up a vaccination appointment this way should reach out to MSDH by email at COVIDhomebound@msdh.ms.gov.
“We have recognized that this is the stage of the response where we need to bring vaccines to where people live,” Dobbs said.
