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By Chuck Bates

When I first started this series of articles on MLGW my intent was to raise awareness and expose some of the cronyism and waste taking place at our local utility. What I did not know at the time is just how big a mess I would find. I have had the opportunity to interview past and present employees of the utility in an effort to answer the questions plaguing many ratepayers such as, just where does all that money go that we send to MLGW every month? What is that Purchased Gas Adjustment on our bills? Who decides what we are charged? I did find answers to those questions and in the process it opened up a whole new can of worms as to how badly mismanaged MLGW really is.

I learned that more than one department where the ‘brain trust’ had left, slots were being filled by folks who really have no training for those positions. This is not only an issue of lack of proper staffing in the rates or budget department but the new General Auditor of MLGW, the position responsible for double checking the other departments for accuracy and accountability, does not have any credentials with regard to internal auditing and actually transferred to the job from the Information Systems department, (that means computers to you and me). As a matter of fact she was chosen despite there being four more qualified internal staff with auditing or accounting credentials.

If you are wondering who is placing these folks in positions they may or may not have the training for you can look no further than the Human Resources department run by a fellow who was once rejected for the position by the MLGW board and later forced in by Joseph Lee. So essentially it would at least appear that Mr. Lee himself is running the ship in to the ground personally.

All of us remember Hurricane Elvis a couple of years ago. That one storm damaged or destroyed 80% of MLGW infrastructure. Despite such devastation the former leadership of the utility had the system back up and running in a few short weeks. This was an incredible feat. An unfortunate reality is that a similar percentage of the previous management has now left the utility or been forced out by the regime of Joseph Lee.

As we have uncovered previously in this series, cronyism is rampant at MLGW. Mayor Willie Herenton essentially forced the president of the utility on the ratepayers. Despite the objections of much of the City Council and the people themselves, Joseph Lee was placed in his position as a political pawn of the Mayor. Subsequently it appears Mr. Lee has replaced much of the senior management positions with his personal picks circumventing the accepted hiring policies of MLGW. Many of the positions have been filled by staff that are not as qualified as other candidates applying for the same position. Some have been placed in positions for which they have no specific credentials or training. The word around the company seems to be that if you know Joe Lee socially or politically you may have the opportunity to get a job or move up in the ranks, but if you are a qualified candidate that is not predisposed to do Mr. Lee’s bidding then you might as well hang it up and start looking elsewhere.

Of course as noted Mr. Lee has his own boss in the form of Mayor Herenton who personally chose him for this position. Why the push to stack the deck? Simply MLGW is the honey pot. It is the cash cow that politicians can milk for themselves and political cronies. It is a place that if under improper management can make an unscrupulous fellow wealthy on the backs of the ratepayers.

Let me be the first to say that the lineman, the water workers, the folks maintaining the gas lines are on the front lines and for the most part working hard. I have a number of friends who work or have worked for the utility in various positions and put in a lot of hard work to keep our electricity, gas and water running smoothly. It is the management at the top that is in question. Folks across the region served by MLGW are at the mercy of Joseph Lee’s management skills or lack thereof and by proxy Willie Herenton.

We have to question how a man with absolutely no utility experience is now running the World’s largest three part utility company? We have to ask ourselves what we individually intend on doing to change the way our utility is being run. The ratepayers essentially own MLGW and I for one have had enough of the mismanagement and cronyism at our hometown energy company. I think we need to take a page out of the Sheriff’s playbook and clean house at MLGW getting rid of the dead wood and political appointees and put it back in the hands of grown-ups who care that it be run effectively and efficiently.