Frustrated customers call for action plan

Several citizens of the community had some strong words for elected officials at the August 1 meeting of the Mayor and board of aldermen.

They want to be heard, they want leaders to listen to the community, and they called for an action plan to correct the problem at the Holly Springs Utility District.

Stacey Humphreys was the most outspoken, calling for leadership from elected officials and goals to correct the problems at HSUD.

Humphreys, who lives on East College Avenue, qualified her remarks first, saying in her past, she was not a good Christian person.

“And I have worked very hard in my life to get here,” she said.

“There’s one thing Jesus says...love my enemies. I am having, Lord Sharon (Mayor Gipson)...I have prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed to be able to come up here and talk to you tonight, not to talk to you the way I would have years ago.”

Humphreys said at the July 31 public meeting at Rust College people were frustrated.

“We’re your customers,” she said. “Y’all are in the business of customer service. And what we are wanting is very simple. We want a clear and decisive plan for the electric department.

“Not only a clear and decisive plan, but y’all need to work on some short-term and long-term goals – on what we need to do and how long it will take for us to get there. But, not only to have those, you need to share those with the community so we are on board with you and we can follow along and see that we have progressed.

“I know you sit there, and you think you have progressed and we are doing better, and the calls are shorter, but we are not, Miss Sharon. We are not doing better at all. We are actually almost worse than we were. And when I apologized to someone last night who used to be in this office here, I called him out on stage last night, and it was not very Christian of me to do that. So I apologized to him because I had a plank in my eye. And I sit here today to talk about the splinter in your eye, Miss Sharon.

“You do not know how to be a good leader. We are begging you as a community and as taxpayers to take a class on leadership. There’s a million things a great leader is all about. They engage in communication and we don’t see that from you. They encourage professional and personal development. We don’t see that either.”

Humphreys said Gipson always says I, never we.

“Leaders listen for constructive feedback,” she said.

“I don’t see that. Ask for feedback from others. They’re begging you to listen to them. Instead of getting together as one, we hired all of you to work as one. That’s not there. A great leader always has a positive attitude, even when things go south.

“What we see from you, Miss Sharon, is the defensive feedback from you at every meeting. You get very defensive. Just listen. We are begging you to listen to what your peers have to say and understand that we are your customers. We are frustrated. We are hurting. We don’t have money to go out and buy generators when things (the electricity) go down. Listen to the people.

“And you didn’t need to be invited to that (July 31) meeting last night, Ma’am. Everybody knew about it. You could have walked in there proudly and took the beating, and walked out with a clear and decisive plan for your public.

“We’re waiting. That’s all I have to say. Thank you.”

Ward 3 alderman Colter Teel concurred with Humphreys that a plan of action and set of goals are needed to start working on the solution to the power outages plaguing HSUD.

As a salesman, Teel said, he has to set goals on the number of accounts he needs to sell.

“That’s a fantastic idea,” he said to Humphreys. “We need to implement goals because anybody who knows anything they realize this is not a quick fix. But, if we can set goals and we get past those, it always makes us feel a little better about what we’re at least trying to do.”

Teel recommended special meetings to discuss goals.

“We are in the same city as everybody else in the county,” he said. “We are dealing with the same things. We know the end game is for everything to be like it needs to be. But, if we look at it like that it is the largest elephant on the planet we’re trying to eat, we will become distraught. We will become so worn out, and we will stop. I am just reiterating what she’s saying. I think it is a good idea.”

Gipson replied, restating her opinions about the reason for the meetings.

“We have to have goals and they have been expressed and it has to work always and last night, again, it was not a meeting. It was a campaign run.”

She said there were some good things Humphreys said.

“But, I have to be clear about that. I did not know about it (the meeting).” Jim Smith, also of East College Avenue, reported that the results he has been getting from HSUD on his electric bills are still unresolved, and his water issue is almost resolved. But he has water issues which he thinks may be related to the AMI meters.

Unlike others, he said he has no interest in running for office or a job and speaks freely about his concerns on local issues.

“I have a privilege that I exercise, and that is to participate in local politics,” he said. “Unlike others in this room, I voice my dissent directly to you guys. When I had a complaint with HSUD, I didn’t create a YouTube page, and I didn’t create Facebook pages. I didn’t invite state senators and house members here who are running for office to bash anybody up here, especially the Mayor.

“I have a problem and I bring it to your face. I’m not going to sit here and talk behind your backs. I wasn’t born here. I chose to move here. And I think that’s a big difference. What happened last night was to me embarrassing and disgraceful. What started out as a preamble...devolved into personal attacks within minutes. That’s unproductive. It’s counter-productive, and it should be unacceptable to question the veracity of somebody’s religious belief. It is simply wrong.

“It comes down to chilling somebody’s constitutional rights. A lot of people have problems with HSUD. A lot of these problems are larger than my problems...when it comes to career politicians, it’s just grandstanding.

“My guess is that you guys on August 9 will still have the problem. On August 8 those guys are going to pack up and leave.”