“Imagine if you will…” is how Rod Serling introduced each surreal episode of the popular Twilight Zone TV series years ago. It seems a good way to frame the recent data dump on the Jackson City Council by JXN Water’s “CEO” Judge.
The data were detailed compilations of the problems, mismanagement, customer abuses, and costs the CEO Judge and his Water Czar Chief Operating Officer have observed during their three year tenures — but have not fixed. The dump was the Judge’s way of saying: “No Mas. I’ve had enough. I’m giving the ball to the City Council.”
If the City Council is smart, it won’t take the ball.
In this episode of the Twilight Zone, the head coach who picked the team, called the plays, and managed the clock now walks to the sideline, points to the scoreboard, and asks the owner to take responsibility for the loss. So his legacy is a detailed post mortem about the turnovers on plays he called.
For three years, the court‑designed JXN Water regime controlled the essentials: who got the big contracts, how billing and collections worked, what got classified as a “fixed cost,” when customers got shut off, when and how much to increase rates, when the city got paid, and when bondholders got their money. That’s not consulting. That’s governing. Those are decisions, not observations. When you make decisions, you own them. You don’t disown them by describing their consequences.
The Judge’s recent memo to the mayor and council reads like something an outside auditor might write about a broken system: “We note unremitted sanitation collections.” “We observe that the City has made water‑sewer bond payments.” “We recommend reviewing contracts, improving collections, and operating within revenues.” It is tidy, technical, and detached.
But it’s not candid about who had the authority to change those things while they were happening. And didn’t.
Take sanitation. Over two years, customers paid millions in garbage fees that did not reach the City on schedule. That is not a mystery the Judge uncovered in some forensic dig. It’s a practice under the management structure he created and supervised. Calling it a “reserve” for deposits after the fact does not change the basic fact that money billed and collected for sanitation did not go promptly where customers assumed it was going: to the City’s sanitation fund.
Or look at bond payments. Water and sewer bonds are supposed to be paid from water and sewer revenues. Yet the City’s general fund — the same pot that pays for police, fire, and basic services — had to step in to make those payments when they came due. That did not happen behind JXN Water’s back. It happened due to a contract and spending regime that treated bond reserves as negotiable while millions went out the door every month to “fixed cost” vendors.
Then there are the no-bid contracts themselves. The Judge’s own memo lists a stack of large, recurring deals for plant operations, distribution, meters, and sewer work that together consume essentially all of JXN Water’s monthly collections. That lineup did not appoint itself. Those players were scouted, signed, and kept in the game under court‑blessed management. When you declare those obligations “fixed,” everyone else’s — from bondholders to city taxpayers to rank‑and‑file employees — become variable.
This is where Charlie Munger’s wisdom fits: “Show me the incentives and I’ll show you the outcome.” The incentives in Jackson’s water world were straightforward. Contractors were put first in line for cash. The City’s general fund was treated as the a kitty for bond debt. Sanitation transfers were not locked into an automatic, reconciled pass‑through system. Shutoffs and strong arm collections were used when cash got tight. But there was no matching discipline on where the cash went.
Given those incentives, the outcomes now being “reported” were predictable. They were baked in.
None of this is to make the Judge the fall guy. What happened was a legendary jurist stepped onto a field he didn’t fully understand, trusted his chosen managers, and assumed that good intentions plus emergency powers would produce good results. When things went sideways, he did what many powerful people do when they are over their heads: he doubled down. More Cowbell. Higher rates. And finally he offered a careful narrative of what went wrong — as though he were an unaccountable observer or consultant.
Real accountability would say: under this regime, we chose these contracts; we set these priorities for cash; we allowed these payment patterns and non-payments to develop; and we did not correct them in time. It would say we tried. But on what matters to the City — remittances, bond discipline, sustainable operations, reasonable rates, responsive customer service — we failed.
In football terms what happened is this. The head coach kept a losing team on the field for three seasons. Then he told the team owner: “Good news. I’ve diagramed why the fumbles and interceptions and back-to-back-to back losses happened. Your ball now. Good luck.”
The City Council shouldn’t take ball on those terms.
It should insist on a different handoff. Where the books are reconciled. Where every sanitation dollar collected is either in the City’s account or explained by a hard, auditable rule. Where bond payments come first, not as a surprise bailout from the general fund. Or are restructured. Where “fixed cost” contracts are subject to real competition and don’t exceed revenues the customer base can support.
Jackson does not need another Twilight Zone episode where responsibility floats in the air and no one ever quite touches it. It needs something more radical for this city: a clear line between who makes decisions, who benefits from them, and who’s responsible when they go wrong.
And leaders who will say: “Those were my calls. My mistakes. My bad.”
Kelley Williams, a Northsider, is chairman of Bigger Pie, a Jackson-based think tank promoting free markets and government efficiency.
