Dozens protest power outages

The boardroom at City Hall in Holly Springs filled up with citizens protesting prolonged and frequent loss of electric power in their homes.

Some of the areas represented by the protesters included Roberts Chapel Road, Mt. Pleasant, Slayden, Mill Pond Road, Old Highway 4 West, Red Banks, McAlexander Road, Holly Springs, Wildcat Bottom Road, Early Grove Road, Sand Road, Briscoe Road, Briggs Cove in Lamar, and Mary Lane Road.

Ward 3 alderman Colter Teel asked at the beginning of the July 5 board meeting to put a discussion of Holly Springs Utility Department on the agenda immediately prior to the public comment section, saying he wanted to discuss a few things first.

“I want to preface this before I get into it,” he said as Michael Howell and Ernest Campbell stood before the board to answer questions posed by the mayor and board.

The board room got noisy immediately as he spoke.

“If you think I am going to try to deflect blame, I’m not. My power goes out just like everybody else. If you think we’ve got this magic wand, it’s not happening,” Teel said.

Interrupted by voices from the audience, Teel continued.

“I’m going to talk and you are going to hush up or you are going to leave. I’m not going to be berated. My power goes out just like everybody else. You’ve got one more and you are going to be outside. I’m trying to do the right thing and say it’s not right. I am.”

Teel asked Howell and Campbell, “what can we do to help?”

He asked how the line workers are notified when an outage takes place, since many customers complain that they cannot get through to the call center to report an outage.

Campbell said the utility has CRC Services as the call center.

CRC Services is a 24/7 contact center and alarm monitoring center providing customer support services to electric utilities and alarm dealers.

“How do the calls come out to people that need to relay at that point?” Teel asked.

(Customers have complained since April 22, 2022 about not being able to report outages to HSUD).

Howell said when calls come in, an HSUD employee calls the supervisor who tells where and in what areas linemen are working.

Teel asked how that could be improved in getting outage reports to workers in the field.

“More men,” said Campbell.

“More men, right-of-ways (clearing),” Howell said.

Campbell said linemen can’t leave the outage they are working on to go to the next outage reported.

“So it doesn’t make sense to bring a crew from Laws Hill to Canaan, that’s an hours ride,” Campbell said.

Teel asked how many more right-of-way crews are needed. Campbell said maybe five.

Lack of maintenance and removal of vegetation growth on right-of-ways is one of 14 suggestions cited by TVA as required to improve reliability of the electric power grid.

Campbell said right-of-way crews are usually sent to the areas where there are the most outages.

“Right now, we have to do the hotspots just to get the lights back on,” Campbell said.

Mayor Sharon Gipson interrupted Teel to say the company HSUD had an agreement with to clear ROWs (Gray’s Power Supply out of Grenada) was not satisfactory when the administration took office.

So the board brought on another ROW team, she said. She alleged the current crew has been limited to $200,000 claiming Grays had been paid millions of dollars and was not doing an adequate job

(Grays was under contract with HSUD to maintain ROW during the previous administration and helped rebuild the HSUD infrastructure after the December 23, 2015 tornado.)

Gipson said HSUD is recruiting new line workers who are certified through Northwest Community College. She said HSUD has an inhouse ROW crew as well.

Teel tailored the discussion to customers who can’t get their calls answered at HSUD.

Ward 2 alderman Andre Jones picked up the discussion on the floor.

“The tracking of outages, the entire system needs upgrading,” he said, as the tenor in the audience pitched louder.

“Number one, we need a general manager, somebody who is qualified to run a utility department,” he said.

He said the form of government, mayor and board of aldermen, is only efficient when the two branches work together.

“As everyone knows, it’s no secret, it has been many, many challenges,” Jones said. “In my opinion, the remedy to this utility department won’t take place until this mayor and board is working together.”

He said he understands how employees can be upset because the board is limited in terms of information, making it hard for the board to do its job.

“I’d be upset, too, with the constant outages when it’s not storms,” Jones said

Ward 1 alderman Bernita Fountain asked, when other companies come help repair outages, is HSUD repairing the infrastructure as it goes along or is it just patching the system.

She said she knows when its raining and it’s an emergency HSUD employees want to get outages fixed first.

“But when the sun is shining, do you go back and fix those items?” she asked.

Howell said employees have to also take care of new customers waiting for electricity for new hookups.

“So, we are limited in what we can do,” he said.

Fountain asked if the ROW maintenance was bid out state-wide. — did Howell and Campbell think a bigger company could come in to do maintenance.

“Definitely, yes,” Howell said. “We definitely have to have maintenance. We got poles breaking down every day. We got all this rightof- way (to maintain).”

He said the poles that are breaking are old.

Gipson took over the lead.

“Yes, alderman Jones, it is imperative that we work together. It is most important. When we bring qualified individuals up before this board to be voted for, you need to vote for them. We have had several storms back, to back, to back.”

As protests from the audience got louder, Gipson threatened again to remove people from the room.

“Again, you will remain in order or you will be removed from the room. There are a lot people here. I understand people being frustrated. But no one has the right to attack anyone. I knew the utility department had issues. That is what I signed up for. It has improved in certain areas.”

The audience burst out in laughter and scoffing at Gipson’s asserting that improvements in the electric system have been made during her tenure.

“Again, I will clear this room if it does not get quiet,” the mayor warned again and again. “I’m the one who believes that the public get involved. That’s why I put public comment in place. But, what I will not do today is wrestle to speak over people or be disrespected in this process. You will not do it. So now, if you cannot speak as a professional and respectfully, your time will be up and I’ll ask these officers to remove you.

“Now, alderman Jones talked about the phone system. That, I’m so grateful to have approved. Hopefully, those new phones will be up within 50 days.”

Gipson said she has looked into concerns about the automated meter reading system and has budget for dealing with that. Employees have looked and determined which system will be best for automated reading, she said.

Gipson said she communicates with the public over the Facebook page and radio. Teel asked if the new phone system will have multiple phone numbers a person can call to get through to HSUD, or will the system roll calls over as they come in.

Teel asked if the call center phone number could be put on the customer’s bill.

Derrick Jefferson, head of IT, said the new call system will give each person a number in the order in which they come in to HSUD, no matter how many calls come in.

He said with high volume calls, only five calls can get through at one moment now.

“So that’s one of the issues that is causing y’all not to be able to report y’all’s outages,” he said.

Under the new system, when available, the caller will be able to choose which department they wish to speak with, he said. Employees will receive phone calls on their cell phones when out of the office.

He said everything at IT was on a Dell desktop computer. Now, with the new digital system to be put in place, callers will be able to reach their party even when employees are out of the office.

Fountain asked if the new system will allow mass text messaging.

Jefferson said it will come in with the new system of automated meter reading.

Gipson closed the discussion to take public comment, covered in a separate article.