Viewpoint-Letter to the Editor

Recently, I put together a document to share with my fellow council members that outlines some of the mismanagement of our utility, highlighting key safety concerns of the staff, and rather than get into the details here I will just say, that I believe our utility is set up to fail and continue failing with our current leadership structure.  As a Bears fan for all of my 43 years on earth, I understand what organizational dysfunction looks like.  And in the writing of my report to fellow members of council, I realized one thing: We are the Chicago Bears of the public power world.

Instead of focusing on our problems and solving these problems, we blame the players on the field. We hide behind a veil of unearned pride from victories past, as those who did the hard work to build our utility have long since retired.  We cling to the idea that we can hire people who have little experience in their leadership positions, expecting them to learn on the job with little to no institutional knowledge to draw upon to guide them.  Our McCaskeys  (owners) are the elected officials like Jim Brooks, who claim to not meddle in the affairs of our utility, but are deeply involved in the decision-making process, and the hiring of staff.  The ones doing the hiring are usually those who escape accountability, and our Municipal Services Chair has been able to escape accountability for quite some time.  His decisions to combine the utility superintendent position with the public works director might have seemed like a good idea for the city, but it has had a devastating effect on our utility.  The position of Municipal Services Director is an unenviable one, and it’s akin to saying that we should let our head coach handle the offense, defense and special teams just to save money on other coaches.   That’s penny smart and pound foolish.

Municipally owned utilities like Evansville Water & Light are a privilege to have and they serve as the economic engines of their community. This privilege requires respect for the ratepayers and the rules and regulations of the Public Service Commission.  Utilities are meant to serve the customers, not to serve the city.  Sadly in the past three decades, our city has used our utility as a means to cover budget deficits, and rather than strengthening the infrastructure in our community, they have eroded our finances and infrastructure.  To return to my analogy, our stadium is falling apart, and rather than focusing on a rebuild, the folks in power want to continue stealing money from the coffers, making a rebuild very hard to do.

The good news is that there are other organizations that we can look to as a model to rebuild our utility.  There are two municipally owned utilities within a 20-minute drive that are examples of well-run utilities, operated separately from their city operations.  We must have the courage to stop failing and the strength to make the changes necessary to get out of the bottom of our league.

Cory Neeley

Alderman District 1, Evansville, WI

Council President