March 2, 2007

I congratulate MLGW Commissioner Nick Clark on his memo (see attached) and proposal to the MLGW board. After the 11 AM meeting which I attended and after hearing his proposal, I decided not to attend the 1:30PM meeting and speak to the board. I got a copy of his memo to the board from Gale Jones Carson and read it that afternoon.

I got a call from the local media and gave an interview for the evening news. I told them that I agreed with Mr. Clark’s proposals and hoped that he had the other two votes to put it through in full. They asked me specifically about what was passed by the board at the afternoon meeting and I said that it was a start but that much more needed to be done to restore confidence.

I recommend that Mr. Clark change his priorities in his memo in order to restore confidence in the board and the MLGW. I list below some of the items that have destroyed confidence in the MLGW.

• The firing of Herman Morris was perceived as putting someone in at MLGW who would do what the Mayor wanted rather than what was good for the ratepayers. In other words, the Mayor wanted to control patronage.
• The hiring of Anderson Williams, Janas Jackson and the firing of Larry Thompson and Mike Whitten.
• Worst of all was the recent hiring of Gale Jones Carson and the huge salary increase and letting her also receive her January 2001 pension in addition to her MLGW salary. This said to the rate payers that the MLGW does not care about your struggles to pay your utility bill.
• Doing away with the traditional anti-nepotism policy at the MLGW was perceived as opening up jobs for cousins, relatives and friends of the Mayor regardless of their qualifications.
• The continued piling up of unrestricted cash from profits at a public utility that is by law non profit and which, by law, excess cash is supposed to be used for the reduction of rates.

I read in the morning paper that the Commercial Appeal had to threaten a lawsuit to get the redacted information about who was on the third party notification list. This is a transparency issue. Mr. Clark needs to change his time line to move up the long term issues to immediate issues and to put forward immediately the issues he lists on pages 7 and 8 of his memo to the board.

I again commend Mr. Clark for his stance and vision on these issues. I hope that he has the votes to implement these critical proposals.

Click here to read Mr. Clark's proposal to the MLGW board in order to restore the public's confidence