Letter to the Editor
Dear Editor,
My name is Wayne C. Jones and I have been a resident of Holly Springs, MS since 2005. I am writing as a concerned citizen about the current issues about the HSUD, its service area, and its ability to meet the needs of all customers. I have attended the public meetings concerning HSUD and city board meetings. HSUD customers have stated their complaints and elect officials have listened and expressed concerns. I have over 30 years of technical and managerial engineering experience in the telecommunications, wireless, and transportation industries. What I have not heard are solutions nor the willingness to come together and generate meaningful solutions. If this crisis is defined as a Them vs Us there will be no meaningful solutions brought to the table. We are all in this together and the sooner we realize this the sooner we can get started planning solutions.
Currently the Mayor and Board of Alderpersons of Holly Springs are responsible for overseeing HSUD. We did not get here overnight and there are no quick fixes or ready-made solutions. Anyone suggesting otherwise is not serious about addressing the issue, but only interested in their own agendas as a priority and not the concerns of the community. As a concerned citizen of Holly Springs and Marshall County I propose we see this crisis as an opportunity to meet the needs of all customers within the HSUD service area.
It is my professional assessment that the HSUD needs to be audited and evaluated at every level for performance, productivity, and customer service for all electric, water, gas, and sewer services it provides. This includes the operations and maintenance of all managers, supervisors, department heads, and human resources for all areas of service. The audits and evaluations must be undertaken by outside qualified industry professionals. However, it is essential that HSUD be included as a team effort. This effort will require a significant amount of funding and resources that need to be determined and categorized before any quantities or quality measurement metrics are set. Local, State, Federal, and private entities need to work together to provide the necessary resources to pay for solutions. HSUD cannot do this alone.
We need a written plan with goals and objectives that can be measured with metrics that can be communicated to all stakeholders, I.e., customers, citizens, local, state, and federal elected officials. We need seasoned utility service professionals who have demonstrated the capability to solve the issues found in the professional assessment. There are successful municipal utilities departments across the county and there are failures.
Our ability to succeed or fail depends on our willingness to work together at the local level first. We cannot expect county, state, and federal elected officials to provide resources nor funds unless our Mayor and Board of Alderpersons demonstrate the capability to willingly work together. They must set an example for county, state, and federal officials to follow. Effective leadership recognizes its strengths and weaknesses and communicates openly and honestly about the necessary hard choices that are going to need to be made soon. This is an opportunity for the HSUD to lead this collective effort and it allows the customers of the service area to support decisions made in the best interest of all stakeholders. Working together as citizens we can influence the outcome of decisions. If we don’t work together, we will have no influence. I for one realize that the rates of our utilities will increase to help pay for solutions to our problems. I want to be able to influence when, where, and how much. I want us to begin to create solutions now rather than later as the cost increases.
Sincerely, Wayne C. Jones