Board calls for general manager

At the top of the list of 14 recommendations by the Tennessee Valley Authority to correct deficiencies in the Holly Springs Electric Department is a strong suggestion that the utility hire a professional general manager.

Interim manager Donald Warren, who replaced general manager Bill Stone, stepped down in December 2022 and the utility has since been under the management of Mayor Sharon Gipson.

The board of aldermen pushed for completion of a search for a professional to fill that spot at the July 3 meeting of the board of aldermen.

The discussion of the need of a general manager at the utility department was followed by a loud protest during the public comment portion of the meeting.

“The entire system needs an upgrade and the board is more than willing to do our job,” said Ward 2 alderman Andre Jones.

Unrest in the board room prior to public comment resulted in a call for a five-minute recess by the mayor.

One person was escorted out and later arrested by police when the mayor ordered officers to clear the room.

Coming back from a five minute recess, Ward 3 alderman Colter Teel spoke to the audience. “I do want everybody to know we have executed a proposal with TVPPA (Tennessee Valley Public Power Association) that assists distributors stabilize its performance and reliability to distribute power,” Teel said. “They will come in and help with a general manager search,” he said. “From everything I am told, help is on the way.” Gipson said TVPPA has provided no documents to HSUD to help assess the performance of the utility.

With loud outbursts continuing sporadically from the audience, Gipson called down the audience once again with the gavel.

“I will not continue to have these distractions,” she said.

Aldermen dug in to find out what companies the mayor is considering to recommend for a right-of-way maintenance contract.

Gipson said the companies she is reaching out to will be discussed in executive session.

Jones alleged that department heads have not until recently been allowed to report to the board of aldermen, thus keeping the board in the dark about department needs and how workflows are going.

He said prior to this, department information was channeled into the mayor directly, bypassing any open reporting to the board of aldermen.

“Now we know what you need, this is the way it is supposed to be,” he said.

He said the board has not been successful in getting applications for jobs channeled into the Human Resources Department.

“That’s not a me problem,” he said, suggesting that the board has been shut off from critical information it needs to make decisions.

“When you have a board that tries to bully employees...” Gipson began and was interrupted by protests. “I’m gonna clear the room,” Gipson repeated using the gavel.

“I will not let anyone turn this into political grandstanding,” Gipson said.

She alleged some aldermen were contacting employees and threatening to fire them.

“Talk about political grandstanding!” said Teel.

“That has not happened,” said Ward 1 alderman Bernita Fountain.

She said HSUD needs to hire a bigger company to clear rights-of-way.

“We want people with experience,” she said. “We could get more bidders. We want people with experience.”

Gipson assured the people that applicants for jobs would be processed through the process set out by a prior board order.

“We cannot afford not to hire people to move this city forward,” she said.

Alderman-at-large Dexter Shipp, who was attending the meeting by telephone, offered empathy for those without power.

“To all citizens without power, we do sympathize with you,” he said. “To help with this solution we need to bring outside help on a full-time basis to help with these actions until we get everything caught up. People pay for services. They deserve services.”

He said new employees are needed to help individuals set up new service.

Jones said the board has not been let in on the hiring process or been allowed to speak with department heads.

“We got services these citizens pay tax dollars for,” he said. “It’s hard to do so when the mayor will not cooperate with the board.”

He asked HSUD accounts manager Annie Mason if documents from TVPPA have been completed.

Gipson hammered away with the gavel to quieten the protest and take over the narrative.

The mayor said HSUD has poles 50 years old.

“They (HSUD employees) will look at the (TVPPA) forms,” Gipson said.

Ward 4 alderman Patricia Merriweather, also attending the meeting via phone, asked if the assessment forms have arrived and a timeline for completing the documents established.

“It seems like we are doing a lot of patching, transformers, poles need to be replaced,” she said. “What’s the problem? Are we looking in an orderly manner to see how many poles need to be replaced? Can we get a copy of that (the assessment documents)? I would like to know what work has been done. What replacements have been done?”

Supervisor Michael Howell said all poles on the system need to be replaced. When other power companies come to restore power, they do not not repair the grid.

“That’s not resolving the problem,” said Merriweather. “What is our system for replacing poles? What poles, what transformers have been replaced?”

“We’ve got to have contractors come help replace poles like Northcentral (does),” Howell said. “It has to be done.”

“Do we have an outage map?” Merriweather asked.

“We don’t have that,” Howell said.

Public Comment

Jim Smith, a regular at public comment, restated many of his points made in previous meetings over the last several months. “Mr. Teel, you asked what can change at HSUD. Number one – be humble,” he said. “Communicate. Your communication stinks. Ask for help and be proactive. I listen. Unlike a lot of these people here, I come at every meeting. The first question you asked in discussing the TVPPA program was, `do we have to listen to all recommendations? That is a negative viewpoint.” He alleged the city is blaming the condition of the infrastructure on prior administrations all negative. “Take responsibility. You ran for the office, not me.”

Smith said with three votes the board could

reduce the mayor’s salary in half. “It’s not our responsibility. Let’s get our billing fixed. Lets work on a long-term plan. Have a workshop meeting where we can come in with ideas, instead of taking all the responsibility upon yourself.” Fountain countered Smith’s remarks, saying he comes before the board and “starts off real nice, then ends on a negative.” “We all take responsibility,” she said, alleging Smith always comes up and insults the board. “We live here, too. Don’t come to this board and say we are not accountable. We are accountable. This is our home. We are approachable. Any one of you out there can come and speak to us. We’re not running from responsibility. We are here as a board and we are trying to do what we are supposed to do as far as doing right by this city, because this is not a one-person city. It belongs to all of us, in which we live, grounded and rooted. We pay taxes and are very humble.” She said some people come up to make comments and “on the end, they want to get real nasty.” “Don’t dehumanize me. We try and do a lot and try to be professional. I’ve been 25 years in law enforcement. I don’t run from anything. I run to trouble,” Fountain said.

Tarvarious Haywood, with Action News 5, said the newsroom has been swamped with calls from people in Marshall and Benton counties about power outages. He said the cause is a grid problem and asked the mayor and board what is the long-term plan to correct the problem. He said HSUD has smart meters but is not using them to the full capability.

“It’s frustrating for me as a reporter to come here and seek answers. So, I just want to ask what is the long-term solution to this problem?” he asked.

Gipson said the city is getting a call center in place, is looking for additional employees, and contracting with a company, something to be discussed in executive session. She said new equipment is listed in the budget. She is looking at forms from TVPPA that will be used to make assessments of HSUD.

“So, with everything you just said, is that fixing the issue or is it putting a bandaid over it?” Haywood asked.

Next up was Debbie Omedeo of Clear Creek Road.

“I can’t say what I need to say in three minutes,” she said. “I live on Clear Creek Road and walked out of my house at 4:54 today.”

She enumerated the numerous times her power has blinked before finally going out on several different days.

“I don’t understand. I feel sorry for y’all. Because she (the mayor) talks in circles. And she never addresses the question. I still don’t know the plan. I heard you (Gipson) talk for eight minutes when that man (newsman) was sitting here. I still didn’t hear the plan, yet.

“My son is a lineman. He restored, Memphis, Millington, Collierville and Germantown. I went and saw the devastation. We had nothing compared to what they had. They had to wait on tree companies to remove trees that were rooted up from the power line so they could do their job. He has worked 10 days, 16 hours a day. He got off yesterday at 4 o’clock because everybody is restored. And it hasn’t gone back out. For the last two and a half weeks, my power has been off every single day. My husband gets up in the middle of the night to refill the generator. (with gasoline).”

She said her husband has to go to Slayden or Collierville to chase gas down because Exxon is sometimes out of power.

“We have no water,” she added.

She paid a $40 deposit for a light to be put on her pole and it has not been installed so they canceled the order. Her husband asked for his deposit back and was told by customer service, “Oh, that’s a whole different department to get your money back.”

“We only are asking y’all for what we pay for and what we deserve. I mean, that’s it. We don’t want anything else from you. And I agree with Mr. Smith about reducing her salary because I don’t feel like she earns it. She basically lied about the TVPPA, whatever. You haven’t done anything about it. And until you’re pushed, you are not going to do anything about it. And I’ll tell you another thing. I don’t want that man (Thelbert Lesure) back there with that laptop threatening me on Facebook. I’m putting you on record again. He better not threaten me again.”

“Your three minutes is up,” said Gipson.

Teel said he has lived his entire life here.

“I know it’s bad. If I can’t make it better, I promise you. I will get out of the way,” he said.

Phillip Byrd, who lives in Cox Subdivision, said the city used to be a good place to live. But recently people in the subdivision kept him awake for an hour shooting fireworks. Then they came into his yard and continued shooting fireworks for an hour. He could not get any response from the Police Department. His sister lives in Red Banks and her utility bill has jumped from $160 a month to $400 a month.

He said he knows the city needs money, but they shouldn’t try to get it all off one person (like his sister). He added that the cost of garbage collection during a prior administration did not go up, but the city went up on the collection fee anyway. The garbage bill in the city was $6 higher than in the county, he said.

“Why is it that?” he asked.

(Marshall County now provides free household garbage collection for residents on the county system.)

He said the city has changed.

“It’s changed and it’s changed for the worse,” he said. “People are lawless. They don’t care about other people. They just do what they want to do.”