PSC holds public meeting to discuss HSUD
Last Wednesday, the Mississippi Public Service Commission held a public meeting on Jan. 31 at 10:30 a.m. At the Woolfolk State Office Building in Jackson. The meeting conducted a work session to discuss the Holly Springs Utility District.
Those present at the meeting were Melanie Farrell, Tennessee Valley Authority vice president of External Strategy and Regulatory Oversight; Doug Peters, President and CEO of Tennessee Valley Public Power Association; Tom Suggs, lead over the TVPPA assessment of HSUD; State Representative John Faulkner; State Senator Kathy Chism; and others. Read today’s story of the meeting on page 1.
It seems like the issues have been going on for over a year. I moved to Holly Springs and started working at The South Reporter in April 2022, right after a storm had come through Marshall County, causing power outages and destruction. Many people were without power for days. The first press conference I attended was held in Ashland, where former Brandon Presley of the Public Service Commission and others wanted to resolve the problem of prolonged power outages for HSUD customers.
As time passed, ratepayers did not always have reliable power, and many complained at the city board meetings.
Then, the Holly Springs Utility District suffered a blow in January 2023 when an ice storm hit the area, and many residents and businesses were without power for a week or more. Thank goodness the Marshall County Board of Supervisors signed a proclamation requesting Governor Tate Reeves to proclaim the district a state of emergency. This got the ball rolling for help from other local utility companies to come help get the electricity back on for those in the cold. But the issues did not end after the ice storm.
Farrell came to the March 7 City of Holly Springs Board meeting to discuss the performance and health of HSUD because of the prolonged customer outages during the April 2022 storm and January 2023.
Doug Peters with TVPPA offered an assessment for HSUD at a called meeting held on March 9.
The board of aldermen approved TVPPA to assess HSUD.
The Mississippi Legislature authorized an expenditure of $500,000 for work to improve the performance, reliability, and safety of HSUD, and $75,000 of that appropriation was designated to pay for the assessment of the utility and the rest to be spent on vegetation removal of the Rights-of-ways.
TVPPA released the 74page assessment report, and a sequence of stories covering the report was printed in several issues of The South Reporter, beginning on Nov. 16.
I’m hopeful that the issues at HSUD can be turned around after listening to Tom Suggs at last week’s meeting. Suggs lead the TVPPA assessment. He spent seven days gathering data. Suggs said that the assessment is used to learn where to go from now and forward to address the concerns found in the study.
Suggs said, “It comes back to leadership. That is the number one thing that has to be addressed. You are going to need three, four, five years to really turn things around. It can be fixed. It’s going to take some effort.”