Faulkner discusses funding with board

In the interest of solving the issues holding up legislative funding to assist the Holly Springs Utility District recover from vulnerability to collapse of the electric grid, Ward 1 alderman Bernita Fountain invited State Rep. John Faulkner to provide an update on the funding status at the Aug. 1 meeting of the board.

At issue is the assistance Faulkner helped garner at the Legislature to perform an assessment of Holly Springs electric department first, before state funds can be used to pay for right-of-way clearing at the utility.

Two hearings were held in Holly Springs, the first at The Apothecary, where members of the local delegation held a field hearing with certain HSUD and TVA personnel, July 22, and a public comment hearing Monday, July 31, at Rust College.

Faulkner began speaking to the mayor and the board on the issue by saying, “We all are aware of the crisis we are in.”

So his colleagues in the Legislature recognized something needed to be done at the state level to help restore the health of the HSUD electric grid, he said, “to assist local government to find a solution to this problem.”

The first meeting was a factfinding affair at The Apothecary. The second was to give everyone adversely affected by repeated and prolonged outages of electricity to speak. Faulkner called it “a kind of town hall meeting.”

“It was not a campaign rally, Mayor Gipson,” Faulkner said directly to the mayor who has said the meetings were election-year politicking.

“I think, alderman Fountain, all know what the problem is,” Faulkner said. “It starts right here with this board.

“I think the time has come and passed for us to keep talking about it. We gotta start doing something about it. Now, the situation that plagues this community is known all over this state.”

Faulkner said Stephen McCraney, the director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, who attended the town hall meeting, took up the matter with the governor the next day.

“We need now for you guys to make the first step and we got your back,” the representative said.

Fountain asked Faulkner what the $75,000 in the plan would be used for.

Gipson answered.

“The $500,000 was not sent directly to the City of Holly Springs,” she said. “The $75,000 may be applied to help TVPPA (Tennessee Valley Public Power Association) with the assessment. The balance is for right-of-way improvements. How the $500,000 came to be is not a concern except that the city receives it. When will the City of Holly Springs have access to these $500,000?”

“This is no chunk change,” Faulkner said, “but many municipalities get a whole lot more than that every year.”

Faulkner reviewed the history of how the funding was approved by the Legislature.

MSSC560, sponsored by Sen. Neil Whaley and Sen. David Parker died in committee April 1 after being adopted by the senate March 7.

“It was to change the boundaries of the line of the Holly Springs Utility District and limit us to just the city level,” Gipson said.

“Everybody knows I was opposed to it,” Faulkner said. “We understood at the beginning of the session last year we had to do something, but there was no bill introduced during the regular session. So that is why Sen. Whaley asked the Legislature to suspend the rule so he could bring forward a new bill. The House was not willing to.”

Faulkner said the Republicans have a supermajority in the Mississippi House.

“I appreciate all the credit I have received for singlehandedly stopping 560,” he said. “The Legislature does not want to set a precedent that we come in and take utility customers from local power companies and then give them to Co-ops. That’s the reason 560 never came out of committee.”

“Thank God it did die,” Gipson said. “I will say the mayor and board did come together because they realized the importance of the City of Holly Springs maintaining the utility department, because it is the greatest asset we have as a community and our residents are depending on us.”

Ward 3 alderman Colter Teel said he voted against the appropriation of the $500,000 because the resolution to request it came to him just 30 seconds prior to the vote on the resolution.

“I am not voting on something I haven’t read or looked into,” he said.

Gipson said the resolution was a single page opposing anyone coming in and taking over the utility department. She also alleged that Faulkner, while serving as chief of staff under Mayor Kelvin Buck, was aware of efforts to take the utility department away from the city.

She said she learned of concurrent resolution MS SC 560 at the last minute, which explained the haste for a resolution from the board.

Faulkner said without bipartisan support to stop 560, it would have passed.

“We know we have to do something to help back home, so talking to TVA, they said to me, ‘Rep. Faulkner, can you find $50,000 to help with this assessment we talked about?’ I just changed the number in the letter and said, no, let’s ask for $500,000.”

Faulkner upped the requested $50,000 for the TVPPA assessment to $75,000, “to make sure we have coverage.”

The remainder of the allocation, $425,000, will go to paying for right-of-way clearing, the utility’s biggest challenge.

“That’s how we got the money,“ Faulkner said. “Now, my Republican colleagues said, we will help get something for back home, but basically, ‘We’re not sending one dime to the City of Holly Springs because we watched what they do up there. We are not going to give them money to mishandle’.”

Faulkner said the TVPPA assessments must be completed before TVA can accept the funding to give to TVPPA to manage row clearing.

“The assessments will have to be done before the money can be accepted by TVA,” he said. “It’s not going to happen until all these things you and I’ve been talking about tonight takes place. This was done, mayor and board, in March. I asked you to accept the plan from TVPPA. It took you guys almost 90 days to vote to let them come in and do the assessment. That’s just kicking the can down the road. It’s free help. It doesn’t cost the city or the taxpayers one dime.

“It was a little frustrating, I must admit that we struggled to get this money and I’m wondering why my folk back home are not accepting help. So it took three months and we are further behind and now we are in the fall of the year before any money will come down and any right-of-way will be cut. We’ll be facing another winter, and here we are.”

Gipson said the documents needed to complete the assessments were not completed by the prior administration.

“As far as TVPPA and how long it has taken, that was definitely because of confusion,” the mayor said. “We have submitted everything that our department has been able to complete. I’m very, very, very concerned about some of the information I’m hearing tonight from the email that alderman Fountain talks about.”

(Fountain advised the board she had received an email from TVA right before the meeting stipulating the conditions that must be met by the city before the assessment can be completed.)

“It is important that we communicate, especially when there’s some good that’s involved,” the mayor said, referring to the city receiving the National Guard Armory Building from the state.

Gipson said the utility has had an issue for the town since before she took office.

“Then we’ve had storms back-to-back-to-back-to-back,” she said, citing the City of Memphis, Tenn., Northcentral Electric, North East Mississippi Electric, and Tippah Electric as other areas also experiencing hardships and outages as a result of storms.

“It’s not been because this administration has not been working hard and taking care of issues at hand,” Gipson said.

Faulkner replied.

“This isn’t about politics, this is about the city,” Faulkner said. “We need to have an all-handson- deck approach to work our way out of this situation. The city, state, and county all have to get together to get some help.”

“For two years, this administration hasn’t asked me for one dime,” Faulkner said. “I am not going to ask you. I will leave by saying this, Mayor Gipson, I will commit to you, only if you commit to me that when you need something, that you call me instead of my colleagues in Jackson.”

“We can’t ask you for something that we are not aware of,” Gipson said.

“You and the board of aldermen decide what special projects you need funded and then come to me to ask for some money for special projects,” Faulkner said.