Mississippi Today
Jackson resident tries to fill communication gap over boil water notices
After years of Jacksonians feeling out of the loop about whether they were under a boil water notice, one resident has started a new text service to try to better inform those affected.
Amit Patel, a consultant with a background in aerospace, moved to Jackson from Los Angeles four years ago. He soon encountered the alerts that are familiar to everyone in the city: boil water notices. Patel said he grew up in South Africa where he became familiar with similar infrastructure issues, and got used to the frequent water disruptions in Jackson. But what stood out to him, he said, was the lack of official communication.
“It was always odd to me that it was hard to find out when there was a boil water notice,” Patel said, adding that he’d usually find out about the notices through word of mouth. “I’ve never actually gotten an email, a physical notice. Maybe we got something in the mail, I can’t remember. But the timing of it would be such that the notice might even be over by the time we got notified.”
Patel, who recently left a Silicon Valley-based tech job, said he came up with the idea for a text service for Jackson’s boil water notices while having drinks with friends, before realizing that it might be something people want.
The service, he explained, compiles boil notices for Jackson that appear on the website for the Mississippi State Department of Health, which regulates drinking water in the state. People who are signed up then get a text message saying when the notice was issued, for which streets, and a link to the MSDH posting. To get notices, residents can text “join” to 833-366-2498, or visit his website for more information.
Patel said that 150 people signed up for the tool in the first three days after launching it.
Such notices have become extremely common for Jackson — which has issued over 400 of them since 2020 alone — and officials attribute them to the city’s aging, undersized water lines, which are susceptible to weather changes and soil movement.
Boil water notices alone don’t signify that the drinking water is unsafe. But because reduced pressure after a water line bursts can allow contamination, health officials recommend as a precaution to boil water for at least a minute before consuming, or being used to brush teeth or make baby formula. Full instructions for what to do during a notice are on the MSDH website.
JXN Water, which has been in charge of the system for the last year, issues the notices on its website as well as with notifications on Nextdoor, a neighborhood networking website.
Last Thursday, the company issued a boil water notice for 20 homes just south of Lake Hico. Some of the residents became aware there were issues when a crew arrived on Friday morning to make an emergency repair and, without notice, shut off their water. While the water came back on that same morning, residents told Mississippi Today they were unaware they were under a boil water notice.
“I didn’t know nothing about a boil water notice,” said Robert Moore, adding that he’s usually out of the loop when those notices are issued.
When asked about notifying residents, JXN Water Communications Manager Ameerah Palacios said that the company’s current system goes “above and beyond the standard protocol for Jackson.” Both Moore and Patel said that the lack of communication goes back to before JXN Water took over.
According to MSDH guidelines, if a boil notice is issued to only “a few” residents, the system should “notify (customers) by personal contact, door-hangers, or notes taped to their doors.” If it affects a large number of residents, it says to also alert local media.
Patel said that he’s grateful for the work JXN Water has been doing and that he hopes he can collaborate with them, adding that there’s room for improvement in the way the company notifies residents.
“I think that’s one flaw with the system,” he said. “If you don’t have a Nextdoor account, how do you get that information?”
Palacios declined to comment on Patel’s new service.
Other residents and local advocates raised similar concerns to U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate, who is overseeing the role of JXN Water, back in September. In court filings, both Brooke Floyd and Danyelle Holmes — with the People’s Advocacy Institute and the Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign, respectively — wrote that Jackson residents were often unaware that their homes were under boil water notice.
“(Our) work to notify residents of boil water notices is necessary because the local, state, or federal government entities involved in the water crisis have not been providing consistent, adequate notice to residents,” Holmes wrote.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
An ad supporting Jenifer Branning finds imaginary liberals on the Mississippi Supreme Court
The Improve Mississippi PAC claims in advertising that the state Supreme Court “is in danger of being dominated by liberal justices” unless Jenifer Branning is elected in Tuesday’s runoff.
Improve Mississippi made the almost laughable claim in both radio commercials and mailers that were sent to homes in the court’s central district, where a runoff election will be held on Tuesday.
Improve Mississippi is an independent, third party political action committee created to aid state Sen. Jenifer Branning of Neshoba County in her efforts to defeat longtime Central District Supreme Court Justice Jim Kitchens of Copiah County.
The PAC should receive an award or at least be considered for an honor for best fiction writing.
At least seven current members of the nine-member Supreme Court would be shocked to know anyone considered them liberal.
It is telling that the ads do not offer any examples of “liberal” Supreme Court opinions issued by the current majority. It is even more telling that there have been no ads by Improve Mississippi or any other group citing the liberal dissenting opinions written or joined by Kitchens.
Granted, it is fair and likely accurate to point out that Branning is more conservative than Kitchens. After all, Branning is considered one of the more conservative members of a supermajority Republican Mississippi Senate.
As a member of the Senate, for example, she voted against removing the Confederate battle emblem from the Mississippi state flag, opposed Medicaid expansion and an equal pay bill for women.
And if she is elected to the state Supreme Court in Tuesday’s runoff election, she might be one of the panel’s more conservative members. But she will be surrounded by a Supreme Court bench full of conservatives.
A look at the history of the members of the Supreme Court might be helpful.
Chief Justice Michael Randolph originally was appointed to the court by Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, who is credited with leading the effort to make the Republican Party dominant in Mississippi. Before Randolph was appointed by Barbour, he served a stint on the National Coal Council — appointed to the post by President Ronald Reagan who is considered an icon in the conservative movement.
Justices James Maxwell, Dawn Beam, David Ishee and Kenneth Griffis were appointed by Republican Gov. Phil Bryant.
Only three members of the current court were not initially appointed to the Supreme Court by conservative Republican governors: Kitchens, Josiah Coleman and Robert Chamberlin. All three got their initial posts on the court by winning elections for full eight-year terms.
But Chamberlin, once a Republican state senator from Southaven, was appointed as a circuit court judge by Barbour before winning his Supreme Court post. And Coleman was endorsed in his election effort by both the Republican Party and by current Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, who also contributed to his campaign.
Only Kitchens earned a spot on the court without either being appointed by a Republican governor or being endorsed by the state Republican Party.
The ninth member of the court is Leslie King, who, like Kitchens, is viewed as not as conservative as the other seven justices. King, former chief judge on the Mississippi Court of Appeals, was originally appointed to the Supreme Court by Barbour, who to his credit made the appointment at least in part to ensure that a Black Mississippian remained on the nine-member court.
It should be noted that Beam was defeated on Nov. 5 by David Sullivan, a Gulf Coast municipal judge who has a local reputation for leaning conservative. Even if Sullivan is less conservative when he takes his new post in January, there still be six justices on the Supreme Court with strong conservative bonafides, not counting what happens in the Branning-Kitchens runoff.
Granted, Kitchens is next in line to serve as chief justice should Randolph, who has been on the court since 2004, step down. The longest tenured justice serves as the chief justice.
But to think that Kitchens as chief justice would be able to exert enough influence to force the other longtime conservative members of the court to start voting as liberals is even more fiction.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1968
Nov. 24, 1968
Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver fled the U.S. to avoid imprisonment on a parole violation. He wrote in “Soul on Ice”: “If a man like Malcolm X could change and repudiate racism, if I myself and other former Muslims can change, if young whites can change, then there is hope for America.”
The Arkansas native began to be incarcerated when he was still in junior high and soon read about Malcolm X. He began writing his own essays, drawing the praise of Norman Mailer and others. That work helped him win parole in 1966. His “Soul on Ice” memoir, written from Folsom state prison, described his journey from selling marijuana to following Malcolm X. The book he wrote became a seminal work in Black literature, and he became a national figure.
Cleaver soon joined the Black Panther Party, serving as the minister of information. After a Panther shootout with police that left him injured, one Panther dead and two officers wounded, he jumped bail and fled the U.S. In 1977, after an unsuccessful suicide attempt, he returned to the U.S. pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of assault and served 1,200 hours of community service.
From that point forward, “Mr. Cleaver metamorphosed into variously a born-again Christian, a follower of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a Mormon, a crack cocaine addict, a designer of men’s trousers featuring a codpiece and even, finally, a Republican,” The New York Times wrote in his 1998 obituary. His wife said he was suffering from mental illness and never recovered.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1867
Nov. 23, 1867
The Louisiana Constitutional Convention, composed of 49 White delegates and 49 Black delegates, met in New Orleans. The new constitution became the first in the state’s history to include a bill of rights.
The document gave property rights to married women, funded public education without segregated schools, provided full citizenship for Black Americans, and eliminated the Black Codes of 1865 and property qualifications for officeholders.
The voters ratified the constitution months later. Despite the document, prejudice and corruption continued to reign in Louisiana, and when Reconstruction ended, the constitution was replaced with one that helped restore the rule of white supremacy.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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