Councilman reacts to Jackson mayor saying water takeover was effort to 'make city no longer Black'

While other council members shied away, Ward 1 Councilman Ashby Foote called Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba's comments made in a secret recording an "overreach" and "adversarial."

In June, a secret recording of Lumumba came to light during the wrongful termination trial of Mary Carter, the city's former deputy director of water operations who was fired in 2022. Carter was secretly recording the mayor while they were both discussing "alarming drops in pressure" the city's water system was experiencing at the time.

Lumumba can be heard telling Carter he believes "there’s a coordinated effort to take this water treatment facility and that effort ... it’s bigger than the little politics that we get into. If that happens, that is going to be the first step of trying to make the city no longer Black."

On July 8, during a press conference , Lumumba told reporters he stood by those comments .

Since the mayor made the comments in 2022, the state temporarily took over the city's water system during the Jackson Water Crisis. In November 2022, a stipulated order was signed by the city and the federal government, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Deptartment of Justice, appointing an interim-third party manager to stabilize the system.

The last two years have also seen attempts by the Mississippi state Legislature to takeover the city's water system once Henifin leaves. Two bills have been filed — both ultimately died during the legislation session — that would create a nonprofit called “Capitol Region Utility Authority," consisting of a nine-member board and a president with appointees by the mayor, the Jackson City Council, the governor and lieutenant governor.

Last week, the Clarion Ledger reached out to each member of the Jackson City Council to see if they had any reaction to the mayor's comments in the recording. Only Foote responded.

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'It's really about clean drinking water'

In a July 19 phone interview, Foote said he disagrees with the mayor's statements in the secret recording, saying the various takeovers weren't "trying to do anything about the ethnic ratios in the city, they're just trying to deliver reliable, clean drinking water to the citizens."

"To say that this is all about making the city less Black or more Black or whatever, I think is an overreach," Foote said. "Political leaders need to focus on the delivery of services that citizens need: public safety, water, sewers, good roads, bridges, infrastructure and schools. The focus on ethnic ratios and whether they're going in one direction or another, those are features of the city, they're not something that should be addressed through policy changes."

As far as the federal government's takeover of the system, Foote, who was president of the Jackson City Council at the time, said it's simply that Jackson failed to provide clean drinking water to its residents, so the EPA had to step in. He admitted he was frustrated by the state legislatures' takeover attempts, calling them "ham-handed."

"When they (The EPA) came in and took over the water system, it's because their No. 1 focus, since they got started 40, 50 years ago, was to provide clean drinking water for citizens, Foote said. "That was the whole rationale for the EPA getting fed up to begin with. So to get into discussions and say, 'Well there's some nefarious rationale behind their actions here,' I think is really disingenuous. This is all about citizens getting the basic services that are expected to be delivered in the United States."

Foote said the EPA stepping in was "honest and forthright," praising them for taking action "to make sure that Jacksonians had reliable drinking water."

"To turn it into a race thing I think is a mistake," Foote said. "I don't think that serves anybody's interest to try and twist this as if it's all about race. It's really about clean drinking water ... He (Lumumba) wants to turn it into an adversarial situation and I don't think that serves the interest of the citizens or the city."

Ward 2 Councilwoman Angelique Lee, Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes, Ward 4 Councilman Brian Grizzell, Ward 5 Councilman Vernon Hartley, Ward 6 Councilman Aaron Banks and Ward 7 Councilwoman Virgi Lindsay did not respond to a request for comment.

Lumumba was not available for comment.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Councilman reacts to Jackson mayor saying water takeover was effort to 'make city no longer Black'