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Public Works Director Williams: City’s Infrastructure Problems Won’t End Soon
If you can put a number on it, how much in dollars do you need to solve the problems? I’m a little hesitant to do that because all of our infrastructure systems are very different. We’re very diverse, and you would have to perform a very detailed assessment of all our infrastructure systems in order to come up with a particular dollar amount. I know in the past, people have come up with actually a billion dollars, $2 billion in order for the infrastructure to … be efficient and operable, where it needs to be. And I think sometimes those numbers are just based on very limited conditional assessments of the infrastructure. I think what we’ll have to look at is
to identify monies in order to address that while you have other infrastructure systems that are competing for funding in order for us to address those issues as well. courtesy Charles Williams
What is the state of infrastructure in Jackson? Jackson has very old infrastructure that needs quite a bit of attention. We are trying to balance capital (projects) and maintenance repairs to the infrastructure due to the age of the infrastructure. Some parts of the city have older infrastructure than other parts, and they have just met their life expectancy. We have to consistently or constantly make repairs, which is very burdensome on our very limited staff. And we don’t have the number of capital projects that can balance it out, make those critical improvements in infrastructure that will decrease the maintenance calls (for) service.
each infrastructure system independently and determine the age of that infrastructure, what it would take to get it up to current standards. And then, the usage of that
City of Jackson Public Works Director Charles Williams shares his ideas on improving its infrastructure profile. He urges patience from Jacksonians.
infrastructure, and what it would take as far as money in order to get it addressed. So that will have to be a combination of money from the city bond, federal funds and any other funds that may be available in order to pool together in order to address our aging infrastructure systems. What about flooding? Flooding is an issue in some parts of the city. I think that goes back to the drainage infrastructure system. We have not really addressed, (or) really put funding in place for some of those drainage systems. And there’s also another difficult task of trying
Is there any role for the state government when it comes to the infrastructure because Jackson is the capital city, or is it all on the City to deal with it? The state funds the capitol complex (district), and so they are funding projects within that capitol complex. And then the City has its own … sale-tax funds that are allocated toward areas throughout the entire city. And then, you always are looking for federal funds, which have not been available due to there not being a large transportation bill that has been sent out from
Congress. So, we’re hoping that in the near future that a new transportation bill will be implemented, (and) from there dispersed to a number of states and hopefully Jackson. (We hope) the capital city would be able to receive some of those funds to dedicate for our infrastructure systems. What are the plans you’re working on now? We’re doing a self-assessment with public works, and we’re trying to look at how we can be more responsive to the public. We acknowledge that we have limited personnel in order to address the multitude of infrastructure issues that we have. And it also affects our response time. So we’re looking at what can our work force, what are they capable of doing. Do we need outside assistance from contracting? And then we’re always looking for funding in order to address both maintenance and capital projects within the city. What about your staff strength? We have some employees who have been here for a while, and so they’re very seasoned. We also have some young employees, and so we have some deficiencies that need to be addressed. We know that we need to improve all pay. We know that we need to do a better job of having equipment available. There are all of those particular items we were looking at trying to address. We’re looking at recruitment and retention of employees. We’re trying to determine what are those measures that we need to put in place to retain the employees that we have, but also recruit the employees that we need in order to build the department of public works that can meet the daily tasks of dealing with our aging infrastructure. How will you describe success for you in this office? We are going to have to be honest with ourselves, in that we know that we’re not where we need to be right now. Then we have to look at what it’s going to take to get to where this department is responsive to our citizens, where we are being accountable for improving our infrastructure and making sure that we are being good stewards of (the) money that more PUBLIC WORKS, p 12
November 25 - December 8, 2020 • boomjackson.com
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harles Williams became City of Jackson’s public works director last month after three years as the city engineer and 19 years working in the department. He inherited a huge infrastructure deficit, low staff numbers with non-competitive remuneration, an equipment deficit and high response times to the citizens’ numerous demands for attention. The failing infrastructure manifests in the intractable flooding issues in some parts of the city, sewer leakages and swaths of dilapidated roads. This reality, coupled with revenue loss from the City’s enterprise fund because of a faulty billing system, created a perfect-storm situation he has to deal with. In a recent interview with the Jackson Free Press, Williams explained the department’s problems and his plans to move the needle on Jackson’s infrastructural challenges.
by Kayode Crown
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