and what happened? they didn t do their dang jobs. scott, let me ask you about this because there was this last minute change to senate bill 2822 there in mississippi about how the state would spend covid relief money on water. it forces jackson and only jackson to get state approval before spending money on water and sewer, also sets a deadline to spend the money or lose it. why set that for only jackson? if it s the mayor s responsibility, then allow him, give him the resources to then do it. yeah, to be candid with you i don t know. not familiar with the particulars of the bill. i do think the state government because it s in jackson has had a fraught relationship with the local leadership in jackson. i mean, look, i think municipal issues like water, garbage, police, i mean, these things are ultimately the job of the mayor and the city council, and although the state government is there, it s pretty unprecedented for the state government to have to take over the major functions
course an inconvenience, not just for my family but for families across the city of jackson. we ve got a picture that you sent us of the water that comes out of the spigot. this is at your bathtub. the mayor says that the city right now is under a boil water advisory. if you boiled that water, i mean, it s brown. would you even use that water after boiling it? so we have been on a boil water notice for almost a little over a month now, about a month, and we have not used that water to even cook with. today will be no other day. we still would not use that water. we don t boil it to do anything with it because grit is in the water, and so we will not use it. and so we ve been, you know, going to the store, you know,
to jackson. we need to make sure that these resources that need to come to this city, instead of them going to the state, we need to make sure that our legislators on the federal level and that there s some type of executive authority to make sure it comes directly to the city so we can do what we need to do even if that means getting a new water plant. and i ll add to, that victor, one of the things that, you know, tomorrow morning we have, of course, partnered the mississippi black women s round table have partnered with new horizon church and other par partners, people s advocacy institute, and so tomorrow morning we will be having truckloads of water that s going to be coming every day to be able to distribute to communities. again, one of the things that aaron talked about is and you said, we are 80% black community, but also a third of those folks live in poverty, and many of our children are on free and reduced lunch. and so when we talk about who s impacted those families,
since last night around 7:30, there was a 6,000 gallon tanker deployed in my ward at forester high school that is just providing flushing water. one of the first things that we realized is that people need to be able to flush because that becomes a problem as far as making sure that, you know, people have that quality of life they need, especially when school is out, children are at home, you know, people are at home, and so we wanted to provide those gallons of water in those tankers throughout ward six to make sure they re able to flush. on top of that, we are talking with partners, people like world central kitchen, people like my cox national black caucus to try to get help and to bring that bottled water, the city of jackson has stepped up and providing power so that we can continue that, but you know, at the end of the day, we need a fix, and the same attention that was given to flint, michigan, we need that same attention given
they have to stay at home, you know, with their families, and so we re talking about child care. so not only are we still coming out of covid, which is an economic security, you know, issue for so many families, we re still here trying to provide those kinds of resources. people don t have $1,000 saved up to be able to meet the crises that is before us, and so community has been doing this for two years now, coming to our own rescue, and so we will continue to do that, but definitely as aaron said, the state must kick in the money, the resources so that we can get our infrastructure fixed. there certainly needs to be a fix. i mean, every human deserves clean water, and the people there in jackson pay taxes so they re paying for that water. councilman aaron banks, cassandra welchland, i thank you