First, I want to thank Mr. White for asking questions about the Great Tate TrashGate. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.” The first step toward becoming well informed is to ask questions.
Second, I want to thank Mr. White for his efforts to expose this massive conspiracy to defraud Tate County tax payers. According to Mr. White’s calculations in his follow-up letter “Tate County garbage rates- part 2” (https://www.taterecord.com/tate-county-garbage-rates-part-2) there are more than 2000 households in Tate County that aren’t billed for garbage pickup!
Seriously, a conspiracy of 2000 or more in Tate County? That’s amazing! What’s even more amazing to me is that not one conspirator in this massive fraud scheme has leaked the plan.
Not even the Illuminati is that tight lipped.
Before we get into those numbers, let’s look at a couple of Mr. White’s other points.
He said I didn’t ask the supervisors individually about illegal dumping. Nope, I didn’t. I already knew that District Four Supervisor Xander Billingsley and District One Supervisor Leigh Ann Darby have both reported a couple of dumps to the Solid Waste Enforcement officer. Mr. White, or anyone else can do the same, by calling in the location to (662)562-4647.
Now, let’s look at some numbers. Mr. White cited a few.
Number of Households: 10,720
Number of billable cans 8,544
Variance 2,176
Those are impressive numbers. Four and five digits each!
I’m going to bring in a simpler number, with only a single digit.
Let’s look at the number 3.
There are three governmental agencies in Tate County that provide residential garbage pickup. Tate County, City of Senatobia, and the Town of Coldwater all service residential customers in Tate County. Let’s see how those numbers add up.
For the month of January 2025, Tate County Solid Waste mailed 5938 fee notices to residential customers. Another 880 customers use some sort of automated bank draft system. Those two numbers add up to 6,818 residential customers billed by Tate County.
I contacted Mayor Greg Graves about Senatobia’s totals. He didn’t know offhand how many garbage customers the city has and said he would check with the utility billing office to find out. I strongly suspect that’s the same answer I would have gotten had I contacted any of the Tate County Supervisors, as Mr. White suggested.
When I asked a follow up question, Mayor Graves gave me the direct number for the billing office. The nice lady I spoke with told me that Senatobia billed 2,683 residential customers this month. She also told me that several apartment owners, including Senatobia Housing Authority (SHA), receive one bill that covers all of their tenants. SHA has 115 apartments. Providence Place receives one bill for 80 units. That’s another 195, but she said there are a few others who do the same thing.
So far, that’s 6818 Tate County customers plus 2683 Senatobia customers for a total of 9,501 Tate County residences that are billed for garbage pickup each month. Add in the 195 for SHA and Providence and we’re up to 9,696.
But as the late Billy Mays said, “Wait! There’s more!”
Coldwater has “about 620 residential customers” according to Mayor Billingsley.
620+9696=10,316. Add in 45 county households that met the legal qualifications and were granted exemptions by the Board of Supervisors and the total is 10,361.
10,720 households minus 10,361 billed customers = 359.
The variance, based on numbers drawn from four different data sets compiled by four different agencies is now 359.
That’s quite a change from Mr. White’s claim of 2,176. I’m beginning to think the Great Tate TrashGate might not be a thing.
I hate that. I was really looking forward to the Pulitzer ceremony.
