Mississippi Today
Who Investigates the Sheriff? In Mississippi, Often No One.
As Marquise Tillman led deputies on a high-speed chase through rural Mississippi in March 2019, Sheriff Todd Kemp issued a blunt order over the radio: “Shut him down and beat his ass.”
When the Clarke County deputies caught Mr. Tillman, they did just that, he later alleged in a lawsuit. He said they pummeled and stomped on him while he was handcuffed, leaving him with a fractured eye socket and broken bones in his face and chest.
The sheriff denied giving the order. But it was captured on tape and described under oath by four of his deputies.
Such an explosive revelation might have roiled a community elsewhere in the country and led state or federal officials to investigate. But in Mississippi, it was largely ignored, even after the county paid Mr. Tillman an undisclosed amount to settle his claim.
There was no news coverage and no state investigation. In an interview, Sheriff Kemp said he had turned the case over to the state’s police agency. But the agency could find no record of having pursued it.
That is not unusual in Mississippi, where allegations like those leveled against Sheriff Kemp often go nowhere, an investigation by The New York Times and the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today has found.
State authorities are responsible for investigating shootings and in-custody deaths involving sheriffs and deputies. But they are not obligated to investigate other potential wrongdoing by sheriffs’ offices, and may not even know about it: The sheriffs’ offices are also not obligated to report incidents to them.
The Times and Mississippi Today examined dozens of publicly available federal lawsuits that described severe brutality and other abuses of power, reviewing thousands of pages of court records and interviewing people involved in cases across the state.
At least 27 claims do not appear to have led to a state investigation, including accusations of rape, brutal assault and retaliation against sheriffs’ enemies.
Many of the lawsuits depicted incidents that had eyewitnesses or significant physical evidence. Some included transcripts of deputies admitting under oath to troubling conduct. All but five of the cases were settled, according to court files that do not disclose the financial terms.
Mississippi has a long history of powerful rural sheriffs breaking the law with little consequence. This year, The Times and Mississippi Today revealed how sheriffs and deputies dodged accountability after allegations that they had sexually abused women in their custody, tortured people for information or misused subpoena power to spy on others.
The lawsuits underscored how many similar allegations have been leveled in the state over the past decade, especially in small-town jails. A man in Itawamba County said that in 2020 his jailers tied him to a chair, choked him and squeezed his genitals until he vomited. A woman in Bolivar County said that in 2016 a deputy held her arms behind her back and raped her in her cell. A man in Simpson County said that the sheriff in 2012, Kenneth Lewis, choked him and slammed his head against a cell wall until he passed out.
All of their lawsuits were settled. Attempts to reach former Sheriff Lewis for comment were unsuccessful.
Officials with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office said they could find no records indicating that either office had investigated any of the 27 allegations. Jim Hood, who was attorney general during most of these cases, did not respond to requests for comment.
Reporters also reached people familiar with 12 of the claims, including plaintiffs, their family members and their lawyers. All said they were not aware of state investigators asking about the cases.
In a statement responding to The Times and Mississippi Today’s findings, the state’s public safety commissioner, Sean Tindell, said he was working toward more oversight. He said he would ask the legislature to empower Mississippi’s law enforcement licensing board, which he oversees along with the bureau of investigation, to investigate abuse allegations and consider revoking law enforcement officers’ licenses, an approach some states use aggressively.
Sheriffs are elected and not required to hold licenses, however. And it would not change how cases are investigated criminally.
The lack of investigations troubled experts who reviewed some of the cases.
James Tierney, a former Maine attorney general who now lectures at Harvard Law School, said the lawsuits described “corrupt” and “criminal” behavior that should have been investigated by the attorney general.
“This wasn’t one renegade cop or a renegade D.A. There is a systemic problem here,” he said.
In Mr. Tillman’s case, the accused deputies all denied beating him. They do not appear to have faced any consequences. “I don’t think there was any wrongdoing,” Sheriff Kemp said in an interview.
“Everybody kept their job,” recalled Mr. Tillman’s aunt, Kristy Tillman.
Mr. Tillman is serving 12 years in prison for crashing into deputies during the high-speed chase. Sheriff Kemp is retiring at the end of this month after 24 years in office. His elected successor, Anthony Chancelor, is one of the deputies accused in the beating.
Trails of Evidence
Across Mississippi’s 82 counties, candidates for sheriff are not required to have law enforcement experience or police training. Once in office, sheriffs can launch investigations, direct the use of force and put people in jail, where they control virtually every aspect of an inmate’s life.
“There is no transparency for what happens inside these local jails, and we know that abuse thrives in dark places,” said Michele Deitch, the director of a center at the University of Texas at Austin that studies jail oversight and operations. She said the allegations of brutality described in the lawsuits were a window into a world that sheriffs have been allowed to conceal.
Many of the lawsuits examined by The Times and Mississippi Today included trails of evidence — video footage, medical records, eyewitness accounts — ready for an investigator to follow.
In 2020, deputies at the Itawamba County jail beat Christopher Evan Easter relentlessly, he said in court filings and an interview.
He said one jailer put him in a chokehold until he passed out; he awoke to deputies doing chest compressions on him. They tied him to a chair, squeezed his genitals and punched his head until he lost consciousness again, he said. “When I come to, my ears are ringing. I’m covered in puke and blood,” he recalled.
Mr. Easter was taken to a hospital, he said, but when he returned to jail, he was stripped naked and thrown in a dark, maggot-infested room the deputies called “the hole,” where the plumbing did not work and the toilet was full of feces.
Mr. Easter’s father, Christopher Lewis Easter, said the jail’s administrator told him that his son had fallen and hit his head on a filing cabinet. The family filed a lawsuit, detailing the violence inflicted on Mr. Easter, which the county settled for $15,000, he said.
Some claims revealed patterns of similar allegations. In a three-year span, two men held in the jail used by Humphreys County filed lawsuits saying deputies had taken them to the chapel before beating them out of view of security cameras. The lawsuits said that members of each family had confronted then-Sheriff J.D. Roseman, who acknowledged one of the assaults happened. Both cases were settled. Sheriff Roseman remained in office until his death in 2020.
In other cases, deputies’ testimony supported some of the plaintiffs’ claims.
The county administrator of Tunica County, population 10,000, accused Sheriff Calvin Hamp of conspiring to have him arrested in 2014 in retaliation for trying to cut the department’s budget.
Two days after the men argued over a purchase order, a captain in the department pulled over an S.U.V. carrying the administrator, Michael Thompson. The captain instructed Mr. Thompson to get behind the wheel and watched him drive away, then pulled him over and charged him with driving with a suspended license. The sheriff’s office issued a press release announcing the arrest.
In a sworn deposition, the captain conceded that he had known Mr. Thompson’s license was suspended — because of an unpaid traffic ticket in another county — when he told him to drive.
Sheriff Hamp did not respond to questions from The Times and Mississippi Today. Mr. Thompson declined to comment.
On appeal, a judge dismissed the charge against Mr. Thompson, and a jury later awarded him $50,000 in damages.
Deflecting Responsibility
In 2022, state lawmakers formally gave the attorney general and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation responsibility for investigating police shootings and prosecuting those that involve criminal misconduct.
When a sheriff or a deputy is accused of other types of crimes, however, it remains less clear what is supposed to happen.
The F.B.I. and the Justice Department handle some law enforcement cases, but generally look into only the most serious allegations.
District attorneys can investigate and bring charges. But those local prosecutors can have “politically incestuous” relationships with sheriffs, creating pressure to overlook allegations, said Chris Toth, the former executive director of the National Association of Attorneys General.
To avoid conflicts of interest, sheriffs or local prosecutors can ask the attorney general or the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation to step in. But the system only works if local officials contact the state for help, and that often does not happen, The Times and Mississippi Today found.
Mississippi’s Board on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Training also conducts background checks and decides whether law enforcement officers who have been fired for cause or charged with a crime should be allowed to serve in other counties. But it does not perform its own investigations into officers’ conduct. Mr. Tindell, the public safety commissioner, argues that it should.
Some states, including Florida and Arizona, have long taken an approach like the one Mr. Tindell is proposing, with powerful licensing boards that require police agencies to report misconduct and then can hold hearings and potentially revoke officers’ certification.
More recently, other states have given their attorneys general additional authority. New York’s can now investigate any officer or deputy, and Illinois’s and Colorado’s can conduct wide-ranging civil investigations into patterns of illegal conduct.
In Mississippi, the lack of process has allowed some sheriffs and district attorneys to disregard reports of abuse within their jurisdictions.
In Clarke County, accounts that Sheriff Kemp had gotten on the radio and ordered his deputies to beat a fleeing man were widely known.
District Attorney Kassie Coleman said in a statement that she had heard about the accusation and that it was “general knowledge” that both the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and the F.B.I. had been contacted about the case.
“I was not provided an investigative case regarding any potential criminal acts that resulted from the investigation into the allegations,” Ms. Coleman wrote, “nor was I provided a copy of the federal lawsuit.”
But the state bureau of investigation said it had no file on the case, Mr. Tillman’s family said he was never contacted by the F.B.I. or anyone else, and the lawsuit is available in an online courts database.
People who have complained directly to Mississippi sheriffs’ offices have often found themselves speaking to someone close to the sheriff.
A man accused deputies in Forrest County of shackling him in a holding cell, beating him unconscious and breaking his ribs in 2016. He noted in his lawsuit that he filed complaints with the F.B.I. and Nick Calico, a chief investigator for then-Sheriff Billy McGee, giving him medical records and photos that could have served as evidence.
In an interview, Mr. Calico said he had investigated the allegations and found that nothing improper happened. After the lawsuit was filed, he said, he was contacted by the F.B.I., sent them a copy of his investigative file and never heard about it again.
Seven months after the alleged beating, he would marry Sheriff McGee’s daughter.
This article was co-reported by The New York Times and the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today.
Joel Engelhardt contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.
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.
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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Few showers possible Saturday night into Sunday
South Florida to see less showers in the coming days
Erika Kirks delivers fist remarks on husband Charlie Kirk's death: 'I will not your legacy die'
NW Arkansas Championship expected to bring money to Rogers
Watch out for 'fly-by-night' contractors
What we know about Charlie Kirk shooting suspect, how he was caught
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News from the South - North Carolina News Feed6 days agoReagan era credit pumps billions into North Carolina housing | North Carolina
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News from the South - South Carolina News Feed6 days ago
South Carolina’s Tess Ferm Wins Miss America’s Teen 2026
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News from the South - Kentucky News Feed6 days ago
3 states push to put the Ten Commandments back in school – banking on new guidance at the Supreme Court
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Local News6 days ago
Duke University pilot project examining pros and cons of using artificial intelligence in college
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News from the South - Missouri News Feed5 days ago
1587 Prime gives first look at food, cocktail menu ahead of grand opening in KC
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News from the South - North Carolina News Feed7 days ago
Powerball surges to $1.8B ahead of Saturday's drawing
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News from the South - Virginia News Feed5 days ago
On the record: Winsome Earle-Sears
