I always hang around after the Rotary Club of North Jackson’s Tuesday noon meeting because I get great feedback on my columns and what’s going on in Jackson.
I don’t mean to slight Ridgeland and Madison, where most Northside Sun subscribers reside, but, let’s face it, Jackson news is so much more interesting. Plane wrecks make better news than safe landings. As a journalist, I call Jackson the gift that keeps on giving.
Which doesn’t mean I’ve lost hope in Jackson. I live in Jackson. I love Jackson. To quote Faulkner, I believe Jackson will not only survive, it will prevail. And it’s exciting to be part of that messy process. It’s always been about the struggle for me.
Jeff Adcock, Don Roberts and Pete Perry are three of the after-meeting hanger ons. They all have great experience about Jackson and I find their insights dead on.
Pete Perry may know more about Jackson and Mississippi politics than anybody I know. He is super smart. So I cringed when he confronted me with the words, “Your column last week was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read.” O boy, I thought, here we go.
I responded, “The second you engage in hyperbole, I immediately discount whatever comes after it.”
Pete stared at me. “What do you mean?”
I said, “I know that my column is not the most ridiculous thing you have ever read. You disagree with it. I got that. But it was describing an idea from a very competent individual, which, though you may disagree with, is bound to have some level of legitimacy. Your hyperbole indicates to me that you are speaking from emotion and gut reaction, not logical and reasonability. Therefore, I immediately devalue any words that come next.”
More blank stares from Pete. “Ok, maybe it was not the most ridiculous thing I have ever read.” We then proceeded to have a good conversation. And, as usual, I learned a lot.”
This all has to do with Jackson Water Czar Ted Henifin’s idea to abandon metered water billing and just go to a charge based on the assessed value of the property.
Henifin believes the current billing system is so screwed up, it will be almost impossible to fix. There’s no way to cut customers off, because the billing department lacks credibility to prevail legally. Just write off all the debt and start over with fixed monthly bills based on the assessed value of the home. Water waste is really not an issue because 100 times more water is being wasted from leaky pipes than ever could be wasted by long showers, too many flushes or lawn watering.
There would be a max of $150 or so and a minimum of $50. Simplified billing would eliminate water disputes and give teeth to payment enforcement, fixing the huge cash shortfall caused by massive non-payment of water bills.
I wrote last week that the idea has merit. I like its simplicity.
Pete’s first refutations of the Henifin plan: If every other city in the United States can bill using water meters, why can’t Jackson? How can it be that Jackson is the only city in America that can’t figure this out? There is no need to reinvent the wheel, just fix the wheel.
Pete’s second point: There’s no way to enforce an assessed value tax because without water meters, how are you going to cut people off. Plus, since garbage is paid through the water bill, without water meters how are you going to get people to pay their garbage bill? Not collect their garbage? That would be impossible to manage.
In my column, I wrote that the logical conclusion of Henifin’s proposal would be to include water, sewer and waste in the property tax. The property tax billing system is up and running, works and has an effective payment mechanism (liens and foreclosure.)
Don Roberts said Rankin County bills for waste collection through the county property tax system (but I could not confirm that.)
Pete says there is no way the state legislature would let Jackson bill water and waste through property taxes. Indeed, Northside state representative Shanda Yates was already proposing legislation to ban such action.
Third, Pete argued that it would be unfair to single people living in big houses to pay a rate based on property value.
Pete’s points were all good but I disagreed with his point about not being able to cut people’s water off with an assessment based billing system.
Even though the water meters would not be used to determine bill amounts, they would still be left in the ground and the mechanisms to cut off water would still be available. But the fact still remains either way, the cut off mechanism is easy to disable through a simple tool or straight piping. That’s the beauty of making payment part of the property tax.
Second, just because a property tax is not politically feasible doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea.
Third, I do believe there should be a mechanism for lowering bills for one or two household families. Or even better, just have a flat water payment for everybody just like we do for waste removal. Then there is no “equity” issue on the table. Everybody could pay the same rate.
We don’t make people pay per pound of garbage. Most people produce the same amount of garbage. Same with water (other than sprinkler systems, in which case big homes with sprinkler systems would see lower bills.) Most people consume water within a narrow, predictable range. Human waste of water is negligible compared to the wasted water from Jackson’s leaky pipes.
I like the fact that our water czar is thinking outside the box. Can we have this debate without getting all worked up?
