Mississippi Today
Full transcript: Gov. Tate Reeves’ 2024 inaugural address
Gov. Tate Reeves was sworn into office on Tuesday and delivered his second and final inaugural address.
Below is a complete transcript of his speech.
Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice. It is a great day to be a Mississippian.
Lieutenant Governor Hosemann, Speaker White, President Pro Tem Kirby, Speaker Pro Tem Barton, members of the Mississippi Legislature, friends, family, and my fellow Mississippians joining us in person and those watching from home, it is my pleasure to stand before you here today.
It is the single highest honor of my professional life to serve as the governor of the great state of Mississippi. And it brings me tremendous joy to stand before great leaders, the people of Mississippi, and God to take this oath today.
Before I go any further, I’d like to take a moment to thank the most important Mississippian to me and my family, my wife and our First Lady, Elee Reeves.
There are no words that can properly summarize how much you mean to me. From the day we met, less than one mile from this Capitol, everything has been different, and better. You are a wonderful wife, an amazing mom, and a terrific ambassador for our state. Thank you for being right by my side over this wild ride together.
I also want to thank our daughters, Tyler, Emma, and Maddie. I know that each of you make sacrifices as well – and you have made them as long as you can remember. Your mom and I are incredibly blessed by you – and I am so excited to see the strong, confident young women you are becoming.
I want to thank my dad, my mom, my brother Todd, my Mamaw, and the rest of my family. None of you signed up for, nor do you deserve, the lies and false attacks hurled at you simply because you are related, but please know that I love you all and I’m grateful for each of you. The reason I find myself here today is rooted in the values and love that come from you.
Many years ago, just after college, Elee and I decided to plant our roots in our home state, and to do everything in our power to make it better. It was a conscious decision. We had other options. We could have gone other places and done other things. But the pull of Mississippi was too strong. We were all in from the start. We volunteered. We worked hard. Bought a house in the city of Jackson. We did not at that time imagine statewide office, but we were determined to make a difference.
Then, in 2003, in what was a surprise to a lot of people, the voters of our state took a chance on a conservative young investment banker, and made me the first Republican treasurer in the history of our state.
My gratitude to the people of Mississippi for placing their trust in me, that day and every day since, can never fully be expressed in words. I thank God each and every day that he has provided the opportunity to serve.
And I’d like you each to know, from the bottom of my heart, how deeply thankful I am for your support.
I’ve met a few Mississippians who have voted for me every single time since 2003. And not all of them are related to me.
And I’m fully aware there are people who have never voted for me, not once in twenty years – but pray for me to succeed never the less.
And whether you voted for me or not, this time or ever, I want you to know it matters not. As I did four years ago, I want to once again make this promise to all of you – that I will be a governor for ALL Mississippi.
The longer I have served, the more I have come to appreciate that the defining characteristic about Mississippi is that sense that we are all in it together.
It is not our food, our football, or even our music that makes us unique. It is our commitment to each other.
I don’t think anybody could have anticipated what we would face together as a state over the last four years. Tornadoes. Floods. Hurricanes. And a pandemic on top of it all. Yet, through every challenge encountered, we have emerged stronger.
Through every moment of despair, Mississippians showed the strength of our character and chose to be a light amidst the darkness.
That is a testament to the goodness of our people. And it makes me all the prouder to be a Mississippian.
I’ll tell you this, I have frequently turned to God in prayer over these last four years. As a matter of fact, I have prayed a lot more as governor than I thought I would when I was sworn in the first time. And I know that I will do so again over the next four years.
That’s why I’m especially thankful that we were once again able to start this inaugural ceremony with a prayer service Sunday. Mississippians are never bashful about our reliance on the Lord. We know that our faith is responsible for the ties that bind. And I am proud we come together so consistently to lift up our voices in unified prayer to an almighty God.
I promise all of you that I will continue seeking God’s guidance through every challenge that we face – and I ask that you ask God to guide me when you pray as well.
Four years ago, I stood before you and discussed what we aimed to accomplish over this first term.
Four years ago, I stood here and called for a history-making increase in workforce training.
Then, together, we created the Office of Workforce Development, Accelerate Mississippi – and invested millions to equip our people with the skills they need for good jobs.
Just last week, Site Selection Magazine said our workforce efforts passed Texas and Louisiana in 2023, and we ain’t done yet.
Four years ago, I called for a pay raise for our teachers.
Together, we secured the largest pay raise in state history.
Four years ago, I said we would travel the world to bring more great companies to Mississippi.
Together, we secured record breaking economic investment, which included the single largest economic deal in state history.
And you ain’t seen nothing yet! We’ve got some big things coming. Projects that will fundamentally change lives and transform our state for the better.
On top of this, we delivered the single largest tax cut in our state’s history and returned over half a billion dollars to Mississippians. We made historic investments in our state’s infrastructure. We’ve achieved the Mississippi miracle in education, with more kids graduating than ever before. We went from 49th to 21st in fourth grade reading, from dead last to 23rd in fourth grade math, and we were among the top 5 in the entire nation when it came to fourth grade reading test scores for African American students. We are making sure ALL of Mississippi has momentum.
We bolstered our state’s hospitals, expanded conservation efforts, increased training opportunities for medical professionals, committed more resources to public safety, and so much more.
And today, I am proud to tell you, we’re just getting started.
So what comes next for Mississippi?
There is no doubt that our bad numbers are getting better, and our good numbers are becoming great.
I love to talk about rankings and results. I’m a numbers guy. But we are not pursuing test scores to beat Alabama. We are not pursuing capital investment to have bragging rights over Arkansas.
We are pursuing excellence – to secure permanence.
For too many decades, Mississippi’s most valuable export has not been our cotton, or even our culture. It’s been our kids.
Mississippi minds dominate some of the top positions in government, business, and entertainment across the country. They carry with them the pride and grit that is engrained in every Mississippian. They made other places better – and we missed out on all they could have done here at home.
My goal is not just to ensure that Mississippi is a source of pride, but that it can be the place where they achieve their fortune and dominance in their field.
By now you know I love to say that Mississippi has momentum. And we do. But today I want to tell you what I believe we must DO with that momentum.
Our goal must be what I call Mississippi Forever.
I want to build a state where my daughters, and all of our sons and daughters can proudly stay and raise their families.
I want every kid, from the Delta to the Coast, from Tishomingo to Tallahatchie, to grow up with the idea that they’ll be Mississippi Forever.
I want every child to have the opportunities for an education, and a career, that enable them to be Mississippi Forever.
I want companies that are born here, to know they can grow here – Mississippi Forever.
And I want people who live in other states, many of whom grew up here, who are frustrated by the breakdown of culture and society where they live, who feel like they cannot get ahead, I want those families to look across the dinner table at each other and say: “honey, we need to go to Mississippi forever.”
We do not need to aim to merely get better. We need to make it our priority to be the best, at everything that matters.
To accomplish this, we must be realistic about the challenges that we still face.
We need to honestly assess the barriers in our economy – and boldly knock them down.
We need to recognize that the cost of healthcare continues to rise, and access seems too limited.
We need to make sure we do not rest on our success in education and workforce training. Momentum is our asset and inertia is our enemy. We cannot settle for better – we have to demand the best.
Here in this building, we need to be adjusting our sights.
We need to be bold in our goals and carry our Mississippi pride into our actions. We can compete with anyone and win. We can achieve the things that our neighbors have achieved.
When our sons and daughters say: “I am from Mississippi,” we can give them the pride to deliver that statement with a straight back and a strong voice.
Let’s continue to give Mississippians relief from taxes and eliminate the burdens on their families. Let’s be transformational in those efforts to compete with the best.
Let’s continue to invest in and bolster Mississippi’s nationally recognized education system.
Let’s protect mothers and babies by further expanding the Pro-Life Agenda – by making Mississippi the best place in America to have and raise a child.
Let’s protect the rights of parents and let’s protect our kids.
Let’s proudly defend our culture and our way of life.
Let’s make Mississippi the safest state in the entire nation.
And let’s relentlessly recruit new jobs not just to our prosperous counties but to all our communities.
The fact is that everything we do, we do together. There is no black Mississippi or white Mississippi. There is no red Mississippi or blue Mississippi. There is only one Mississippi – and it is Mississippi Forever.
We know that in our hearts, none of us ever leave Mississippi. Our task is to make sure our opportunities align with our sentiment.
I really do believe that this is Mississippi’s time. We have an opportunity ahead of us that we must seize. But it will require that we be bold and ambitious.
We must be bold in our reforms. We must be bold in winning new jobs and businesses. We must be bold in our commitment to principles. And we must be bold to build a brighter future for the state we all love.
I’d like to end this speech where I started. Back twenty years ago when I first took this oath. As I have prepared for this day these last few weeks, it has been apparent to me that this is my last opportunity to do the thing I have most wanted to do my entire adult life.
And I know that I am not alone. I am surrounded by people in this Capitol, in both parties, who have chosen a path to make Mississippi better. And as I campaigned this year, I was struck by the fact that virtually everyone was driven by a desire to bring Mississippi up.
We have all been placed in a position of great importance. We sit at a crossroads for our state.
We’ve been entrusted by our friends, peers, and neighbors to make decisions that will impact many lives, not just today, but for many years to come.
Let us take up this work with joy and determination. Let us come together and heal our differences. Let us all throw ourselves at the great mission. Let us be united by our mission to make Mississippi the home for all its sons and daughters – forever.
Thank you all for being here today. Thank you to all of our legislators for giving your time and energy to serve our state. Thank you all for your support. And thank you all for your prayers.
May God bless you. May God bless your families. And may God bless the great state of Mississippi!
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Presidents are taking longer to declare major natural disasters. For some, the wait is agonizing
TYLERTOWN — As an ominous storm approached Buddy Anthony’s one-story brick home, he took shelter in his new Ford F-250 pickup parked under a nearby carport.
Seconds later, a tornado tore apart Anthony’s home and damaged the truck while lifting it partly in the air. Anthony emerged unhurt. But he had to replace his vehicle with a used truck that became his home while waiting for President Donald Trump to issue a major disaster declaration so that federal money would be freed for individuals reeling from loss. That took weeks.
“You wake up in the truck and look out the windshield and see nothing. That’s hard. That’s hard to swallow,” Anthony said.
Disaster survivors are having to wait longer to get aid from the federal government, according to a new Associated Press analysis of decades of data. On average, it took less than two weeks for a governor’s request for a presidential disaster declaration to be granted in the 1990s and early 2000s. That rose to about three weeks during the past decade under presidents from both major parties. It’s taking more than a month, on average, during Trump’s current term, the AP found.
The delays mean individuals must wait to receive federal aid for daily living expenses, temporary lodging and home repairs. Delays in disaster declarations also can hamper recovery efforts by local officials uncertain whether they will receive federal reimbursement for cleaning up debris and rebuilding infrastructure. The AP collaborated with Mississippi Today and Mississippi Free Press on the effects of these delays for this report.
“The message that I get in the delay, particularly for the individual assistance, is that the federal government has turned its back on its own people,” said Bob Griffin, dean of the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at the University at Albany in New York. “It’s a fundamental shift in the position of this country.”
The wait for disaster aid has grown as Trump remakes government
The Federal Emergency Management Agency often consults immediately with communities to coordinate their initial disaster response. But direct payments to individuals, nonprofits and local governments must wait for a major disaster declaration from the president, who first must receive a request from a state, territory or tribe. Major disaster declarations are intended only for the most damaging events that are beyond the resources of states and local governments.
Trump has approved more than two dozen major disaster declarations since taking office in January, with an average wait of almost 34 days after a request. That ranged from a one-day turnaround after July’s deadly flash flooding in Texas to a 67-day wait after a request for aid because of a Michigan ice storm. The average wait is up from a 24-day delay during his first term and is nearly four times as long as the average for former Republican President George H.W. Bush, whose term from 1989-1993 coincided with the implementation of a new federal law setting parameters for disaster determinations.
The delays have grown over time, regardless of the party in power. Former Democratic President Joe Biden, in his last year in office, averaged 26 days to declare major disasters — longer than any year under former Democratic President Barack Obama.
FEMA did not respond to the AP’s questions about what factors are contributing to the trend.
Others familiar with FEMA noted that its process for assessing and documenting natural disasters has become more complex over time. Disasters have also become more frequent and intense because of climate change, which is mostly caused by the burning of fuels such as gas, coal and oil.
The wait for disaster declarations has spiked as Trump’s administration undertakes an ambitious makeover of the federal government that has shed thousands of workers and reexamined the role of FEMA. A recently published letter from current and former FEMA employees warned the cuts could become debilitating if faced with a large-enough disaster. The letter also lamented that the Trump administration has stopped maintaining or removed long-term planning tools focused on extreme weather and disasters.
Shortly after taking office, Trump floated the idea of “getting rid” of FEMA, asserting: “It’s very bureaucratic, and it’s very slow.”
FEMA’s acting chief suggested more recently that states should shoulder more responsibility for disaster recovery, though FEMA thus far has continued to cover three-fourths of the costs of public assistance to local governments, as required under federal law. FEMA pays the full cost of its individual assistance.
Former FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor, who served during Trump’s first term, said the delay in issuing major disaster declarations likely is related to a renewed focus on making sure the federal government isn’t paying for things state and local governments could handle.
“I think they’re probably giving those requests more scrutiny,” Gaynor said. “And I think it’s probably the right thing to do, because I think the (disaster) declaration process has become the ‘easy button’ for states.”
The Associated Press on Monday received a statement from White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson in response to a question about why it is taking longer to issue major natural disaster declarations:
“President Trump provides a more thorough review of disaster declaration requests than any Administration has before him. Gone are the days of rubber stamping FEMA recommendations – that’s not a bug, that’s a feature. Under prior Administrations, FEMA’s outsized role created a bloated bureaucracy that disincentivized state investment in their own resilience. President Trump is committed to right-sizing the Federal government while empowering state and local governments by enabling them to better understand, plan for, and ultimately address the needs of their citizens. The Trump Administration has expeditiously provided assistance to disasters while ensuring taxpayer dollars are spent wisely to supplement state actions, not replace them.”
In Mississippi, frustration festered during wait for aid
The tornado that struck Anthony’s home in rural Tylertown on March 15 packed winds up to 140 mph. It was part of a powerful system that wrecked homes, businesses and lives across multiple states.
Mississippi’s governor requested a federal disaster declaration on April 1. Trump granted that request 50 days later, on May 21, while approving aid for both individuals and public entities.
On that same day, Trump also approved eight other major disaster declarations for storms, floods or fires in seven other states. In most cases, more than a month had passed since the request and about two months since the date of those disasters.
If a presidential declaration and federal money had come sooner, Anthony said he wouldn’t have needed to spend weeks sleeping in a truck before he could afford to rent the trailer where he is now living. His house was uninsured, Anthony said, and FEMA eventually gave him $30,000.
In nearby Jayess in Lawrence County, Dana Grimes had insurance but not enough to cover the full value of her damaged home. After the eventual federal declaration, Grimes said FEMA provided about $750 for emergency expenses, but she is now waiting for the agency to determine whether she can receive more.
“We couldn’t figure out why the president took so long to help people in this country,” Grimes said. “I just want to tie up strings and move on. But FEMA — I’m still fooling with FEMA.”
Jonathan Young said he gave up on applying for FEMA aid after the Tylertown tornado killed his 7-year-old son and destroyed their home. The process seemed too difficult, and federal officials wanted paperwork he didn’t have, Young said. He made ends meet by working for those cleaning up from the storm.
“It’s a therapy for me,” Young said, “to pick up the debris that took my son away from me.”
Historically, presidential disaster declarations containing individual assistance have been approved more quickly than those providing assistance only to public entities, according to the AP’s analysis. That remains the case under Trump, though declarations for both types are taking longer.
About half the major disaster declarations approved by Trump this year have included individual assistance.
Some people whose homes are damaged turn to shelters hosted by churches or local nonprofit organizations in the initial chaotic days after a disaster. Others stay with friends or family or go to a hotel, if they can afford it.
But some insist on staying in damaged homes, even if they are unsafe, said Chris Smith, who administered FEMA’s individual assistance division under three presidents from 2015-2022. If homes aren’t repaired properly, mold can grow, compounding the recovery challenges.
That’s why it’s critical for FEMA’s individual assistance to get approved quickly — ideally, within two weeks of a disaster, said Smith, who’s now a disaster consultant for governments and companies.
“You want to keep the people where they are living. You want to ensure those communities are going to continue to be viable and recover,” Smith said. “And the earlier that individual assistance can be delivered … the earlier recovery can start.”
In the periods waiting for declarations, the pressure falls on local officials and volunteers to care for victims and distribute supplies.
In Walthall County, where Tylertown is, insurance agent Les Lampton remembered watching the weather news as the first tornado missed his house by just an eighth of a mile. Lampton, who moonlights as a volunteer firefighter, navigated the collapsed trees in his yard and jumped into action. About 45 minutes later, the second tornado hit just a mile away.
“It was just chaos from there on out,” Lampton said.
Walthall County, with a population of about 14,000, hasn’t had a working tornado siren in about 30 years, Lampton said. He added there isn’t a public safe room in the area, although a lot of residents have ones in their home.
Rural areas with limited resources are hit hard by delays in receiving funds through FEMA’s public assistance program, which, unlike individual assistance, only reimburses local entities after their bills are paid. Long waits can stoke uncertainty and lead cost-conscious local officials to pause or scale-back their recovery efforts.
In Walthall County, officials initially spent about $700,000 cleaning up debris, then suspended the cleanup for more than a month because they couldn’t afford to spend more without assurance they would receive federal reimbursement, said county emergency manager Royce McKee. Meanwhile, rubble from splintered trees and shattered homes remained piled along the roadside, creating unsafe obstacles for motorists and habitat for snakes and rodents.
When it received the federal declaration, Walthall County took out a multimillion-dollar loan to pay contractors to resume the cleanup.
“We’re going to pay interest and pay that money back until FEMA pays us,” said Byran Martin, an elected county supervisor. “We’re hopeful that we’ll get some money by the first of the year, but people are telling us that it could be [longer].”
Lampton, who took after his father when he joined the volunteer firefighters 40 years ago, lauded the support of outside groups such as Cajun Navy, Eight Days of Hope, Samaritan’s Purse and others. That’s not to mention the neighbors who brought their own skid steers and power saws to help clear trees and other debris, he added.
“That’s the only thing that got us through this storm, neighbors helping neighbors,” Lampton said. “If we waited on the government, we were going to be in bad shape.”
Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri, and Wildeman from Hartford, Connecticut.
Update 98/25: This story has been updated to include a White House statement released after publication.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Presidents are taking longer to declare major natural disasters. For some, the wait is agonizing appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
This article presents a critical view of the Trump administration’s handling of disaster declarations, highlighting delays and their negative impacts on affected individuals and communities. It emphasizes concerns about government downsizing and reduced federal support, themes often associated with center-left perspectives that favor robust government intervention and social safety nets. However, it also includes statements from Trump administration officials defending their approach, providing some balance. Overall, the tone and framing lean slightly left of center without being overtly partisan.
Mississippi Today
Northeast Mississippi speaker and worm farmer played key role in Coast recovery after Hurricane Katrina
The 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina slamming the Mississippi Gulf Coast has come and gone, rightfully garnering considerable media attention.
But still undercovered in the 20th anniversary saga of the storm that made landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, and caused unprecedented destruction is the role that a worm farmer from northeast Mississippi played in helping to revitalize the Coast.
House Speaker Billy McCoy, who died in 2019, was a worm farmer from the Prentiss, not Alcorn County, side of Rienzi — about as far away from the Gulf Coast as one could be in Mississippi.
McCoy grew other crops, but a staple of his operations was worm farming.
Early after the storm, the House speaker made a point of touring the Coast and visiting as many of the House members who lived on the Coast as he could to check on them.
But it was his action in the forum he loved the most — the Mississippi House — that is credited with being key to the Coast’s recovery.
Gov. Haley Barbour had called a special session about a month after the storm to take up multiple issues related to Katrina and the Gulf Coast’s survival and revitalization. The issue that received the most attention was Barbour’s proposal to remove the requirement that the casinos on the Coast be floating in the Mississippi Sound.
Katrina wreaked havoc on the floating casinos, and many operators said they would not rebuild if their casinos had to be in the Gulf waters. That was a crucial issue since the casinos were a major economic engine on the Coast, employing an estimated 30,000 in direct and indirect jobs.
It is difficult to fathom now the controversy surrounding Barbour’s proposal to allow the casinos to locate on land next to the water. Mississippi’s casino industry that was birthed with the early 1990s legislation was still new and controversial.
Various religious groups and others had continued to fight and oppose the casino industry and had made opposition to the expansion of gambling a priority.
Opposition to casinos and expansion of casinos was believed to be especially strong in rural areas, like those found in McCoy’s beloved northeast Mississippi. It was many of those rural areas that were the homes to rural white Democrats — now all but extinct in the Legislature but at the time still a force in the House.
So, voting in favor of casino expansion had the potential of being costly for what was McCoy’s base of power: the rural white Democrats.
Couple that with the fact that the Democratic-controlled House had been at odds with the Republican Barbour on multiple issues ranging from education funding to health care since Barbour was inaugurated in January 2004.
Barbour set records for the number of special sessions called by the governor. Those special sessions often were called to try to force the Democratic-controlled House to pass legislation it killed during the regular session.
The September 2005 special session was Barbour’s fifth of the year. For context, current Gov. Tate Reeves has called four in his nearly six years as governor.
There was little reason to expect McCoy to do Barbour’s bidding and lead the effort in the Legislature to pass his most controversial proposal: expanding casino gambling.
But when Barbour ally Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck, who presided over the Senate, refused to take up the controversial bill, Barbour was forced to turn to McCoy.
The former governor wrote about the circumstances in an essay he penned on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina for Mississippi Today Ideas.
“The Senate leadership, all Republicans, did not want to go first in passing the onshore casino law,” Barbour wrote. “So, I had to ask Speaker McCoy to allow it to come to the House floor and pass. He realized he should put the Coast and the state’s interests first. He did so, and the bill passed 61-53, with McCoy voting no.
“I will always admire Speaker McCoy, often my nemesis, for his integrity in putting the state first.”
Incidentally, former Rep. Bill Miles of Fulton, also in northeast Mississippi, was tasked by McCoy with counting, not whipping votes, to see if there was enough support in the House to pass the proposal. Not soon before the key vote, Miles said years later, he went to McCoy and told him there were more than enough votes to pass the legislation so he was voting no and broached the idea of the speaker also voting no.
It is likely that McCoy would have voted for the bill if his vote was needed.
Despite his no vote, the Biloxi Sun Herald newspaper ran a large photo of McCoy and hailed the Rienzi worm farmer as a hero for the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Northeast Mississippi speaker and worm farmer played key role in Coast recovery after Hurricane Katrina appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
The article presents a factual and balanced account of the political dynamics surrounding Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts in Mississippi, focusing on bipartisan cooperation between Democratic and Republican leaders. It highlights the complexities of legislative decisions without overtly favoring one party or ideology, reflecting a neutral and informative tone typical of centrist reporting.
Mississippi Today
PSC moves toward placing Holly Springs utility into receivership
NEW ALBANY — After five hours in a courtroom where attendees struggled to find standing room, the Mississippi Public Service Commission voted to petition a judge to put the Holly Springs Utility Department into a receivership.
The PSC held the hearing Thursday about a half hour drive west from Holly Springs in New Albany, known as “The Fair and Friendly City.” Throughout the proceedings, members of the PSC, its consultants and Holly Springs officials emphasized there was no precedent for what was going on.
The city of Holly Springs has provided electricity through a contract with the Tennessee Valley Authority since 1935. It serves about 12,000 customers, most of whom live outside the city limits. While current and past city officials say the utility’s issues are a result of financial negligence over many years, the service failures hit a boiling point during a 2023 ice storm where customers saw outages that lasted roughly two weeks as well as power surges that broke their appliances.
Those living in the service area say those issues still occur periodically, in addition to infrequent and inaccurate billing.
“I moved to Marshall County in 2020 as a place for retirement for my husband and I, and it’s been a nightmare for five years,” customer Monica Wright told the PSC at Thursday’s hearing. “We’ve replaced every electronic device we own, every appliance, our well pump and our septic pumps. It has financially broke us.
“We’re living on prayers and promises, and we need your help today.”
Another customer, Roscoe Sitgger of Michigan City, said he recently received a series of monthly bills between $500 and $600.
Following a scathing July report by Silverpoint Consulting that found Holly Springs is “incapable” of running the utility, the three-member PSC voted unanimously on Thursday to determine the city isn’t providing “reasonably adequate service” to its customers. That language comes from a 2024 state bill that gave the commission authority to investigate the utility.
The bill gives a pathway for temporarily removing the utility’s control from the city, allowing the PSC to petition a chancery judge to place the department into the hands of a third party. The PSC voted unanimously to do just that.
Thursday’s hearing gave the commission its first chance to direct official questions at Holly Springs representatives. Newly elected Mayor Charles Terry, utility General Manager Wayne Jones and City Attorney John Keith Perry fielded an array of criticism from the PSC. In his rebuttal, Perry suggested that any solution — whether a receivership or selling the utility — would take time to implement, and requested 24 months for the city to make incremental improvements. Audience members shouted, “No!” as Perry spoke.
“We are in a crisis now,” responded Northern District Public Service Commissioner Chris Brown. “To try to turn the corner in incremental steps is going to be almost impossible.”
It’s unclear how much it would cost to fix the department’s long list of ailments. In 2023, TVPPA — a nonprofit that represents TVA’s local partners — estimated Holly Springs needs over $10 million just to restore its rights-of-way, and as much as $15 million to fix its substations. The department owes another $10 million in debt to TVA as well as its contractors, Brown said.
“The city is holding back the growth of the county,” said Republican Sen. Neil Whaley of Potts Camp, who passionately criticized the Holly Springs officials sitting a few feet away. “You’ve got to do better, you’ve got to realize you’re holding these people hostage, and it’s not right and it’s not fair… They are being represented by people who do not care about them as long as the bill is paid.”
In determining next steps, Silverpoint Principal Stephanie Vavro told the PSC it may be hard to find someone willing to serve as receiver for the utility department, make significant investments and then hand the keys back to the city. The 2024 bill, Vavro said, doesn’t limit options to a receivership, and alternatives could include condemning the utility or finding a nearby utility to buy the service area.
Answering questions from Central District Public Service Commissioner De’Keither Stamps, Vavro said it’s unclear how much the department is worth, adding an engineer’s study would be needed to come up with a number.
Terry, who reminded the PSC he’s only been Holly Springs’ mayor for just over 60 days, said there’s no way the city can afford the repair costs on its own. The city’s median income is about $47,000, roughly $8,000 less than the state’s as a whole.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post PSC moves toward placing Holly Springs utility into receivership appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
This article presents a factual and balanced account of the situation involving the Holly Springs Utility Department and the Mississippi Public Service Commission. It includes perspectives from various stakeholders, such as city officials, residents, and state commissioners, without showing clear favoritism or ideological slant. The focus is on the practical challenges and financial issues faced by the utility, reflecting a neutral stance aimed at informing readers rather than advocating a particular political viewpoint.
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News from the South - Alabama News Feed6 days ago
Alabama state employee insurance board to seek more funding, benefit changes
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News from the South - West Virginia News Feed6 days ago
WV Supreme Court will hear BOE’s appeal in vaccine lawsuit — but not right away