Mississippi city won’t lose lights after threat over debt
JACKSON, Miss. — An
entire city in Mississippi that
was under threat of losing
electricity before the end of
the year because of unpaid
bills will have more time to
find a new power provider
after the state stepped in, citing
concerns about safety and
public health.
“That is the fair, right and
honest thing for us to do,”
Brandon Presley, a Mississippi
public service commissioner,
said at a meeting
Thursday night in Itta Bena,
a city of 1,800 in the Mississippi
Delta. “We are in the
middle of a worldwide pandemic.
It is not an option for
electricity to be shut off in the
town of Itta Bena — it’s that
simple.”
Municipal Energy Agency
of Mississipi, a wholesale
electricity provider, notified
officials in Itta Bena in late
August that it was pulling the
plug on Dec. 1. MEAM said
the city racked up $800,000
in debt over the course of 10
years.
MEAM officials have said
they have tried at length over
the course of years to collect
payments and that the debt is
hurting their business.
Itta Bena has faced a
slew of economic challenges
throughout its history rooted
in racial inequality, white
flight and a declining tax
base. The city was founded
around 1850 as a cotton-producing
capital of the South
that relied on slave labor.
After the Civil War, slaves
were freed into a sharecropping
system that resulted in
generational poverty. Today,
the city is 90% Black and
40% of people live below the
poverty line.
Public officials paint differing
pictures to the cause of
the debt — Mayor J.D. Brasel
said citizens owe at least
$300,000 in unpaid bills to
the city. As a middleman of
sorts between residents and
MEAM, the city purchases
electricity from the wholesaler
to sell residents and is
responsible for the bill.
But former Mayor Thelma
Collins, who left office in
2017, said officials have long
known about the debt but prioritized
other projects. She
said lack of vision and planning
exacerbate problems.
During Thursday’s meeting,
Brasel said he doesn’t
want the city to lose power,
but there’s no way the city
will be able to find $800,000
in the next month.
“We know we owe
MEAM, we know we gotta
pay them. …We intend to
pay them, but I know we’re
not going to have the money
before Dec. 1 to pay them,”
he said.
Presley said MEAM
doesn’t want citizens to lose
service, either, but that it
doesn’t want to continue providing
service without proper
payment. A solution, Presley
says, is finding a new provider
for Itta Bena.