Small town escapes power cut for unpaid bills

The story could have ended badly. Just days ago, the town of Itta Bena, Mississippi, was on the verge of going without power for all of its 1,800 residents. The reason ? Electricity bill payment default that totals hundreds of thousands of dollars …

For nearly a decade, the city has dragged behind a debt to its electricity supplier which was only swelling. With an electricity system managed and controlled by Itta Bena, the city buys electricity to resell it to its inhabitants. In August, the municipality owed the supplier more than $ 800,000. In September, the town hall even received a letter from its supplier informing it that the power would be cut from December 1.

Devastating news for the small community of Itta Bena, where the inhabitants had nevertheless sounded the alarm bells in the face of their ever increasing electricity bills. “We got to the point where electricity bills were more important than a mortgage,” explains the New York Times a resident of Itta Bena, Patricia Young, who was no longer surprised to see her bills reach up to $ 600.

Whose fault is it ?

Itta Bena’s mayor, JD Brasel, said part of the debt, over $ 300,000, comes from unpaid residents’ bills that the city now has to cover. Ex-mayor Thelma Collins, who stepped down in 2017, said executives had long known about the debt but slipped it under the rug, prioritizing other projects. Very critical, she assures us that the lack of perspective and organization worsened the situation.

On the side of the inhabitants, the battle that Itta Bena is going through to keep power available is the direct consequence of poor management of the electricity system by the leaders. “Why should we be blacked out if we pay our bills? Patricia Young said.

Let there be light

For her, like the rest of the inhabitants, paying staggering bills in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic has made her financial situation even more difficult. “We had to choose between doing our shopping, paying the doctors’ bills and paying the electricity bill. »On the initiative of a petition for an investigation to be carried out at the regional level, Patricia Young managed to collect more than 300 signatures.

For now, Itta Bena is out of the woods. After a public hearing that took place Thursday, September 29, the Mississippi State Commission pledged to keep the power going and work with its leaders to transfer control of Itta Bena’s electrical service to a power company of Mississippi. This transfer, which the municipality approved on Friday, will allow the commission, rather than the city, to regulate the rates paid by customers. As for the city’s remaining debt to its electricity supplier… a solution has yet to be found.