Strickland says city through ‘first quarter’ of MLGW-TVA decision
Mayor Jim Strickland (left) introduces the new MLGW Board, (starting second from left) Carl J. Person, Michael Pohlman, Cheryl Pesce, Mitch Graves and Leon Dickson. (Marc Perrusquia/Institute for Public Service Reporting)
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland describes this as the “second quarter” of the process of deciding whether Memphis Light Gas and Water Division should remain the Tennessee Valley Authority’s largest customer for electric power.
The first quarter in the football metaphor was the city-owned utility’s request for proposal (RFP) process — taking bids and price quotes from those who would replace TVA and build out a different infrastructure for electric power at MLGW.
The bids are in for transmission systems, some generation of electric power and renewable energy options.
“I believe we are at the end of the first quarter,” Strickland told Memphis City Council members Tuesday, March 22. “The second quarter is review by the MLGW consultant. The third quarter is the review by MLGW’s board and the fourth quarter is a review by city council.”
So at the start of the second quarter, Strickland nominated and the council approved Tuesday the reappointment of three of the five utility board members and two new members.
All five of the current members, including the three re-appointees, were serving terms that expired as long ago as three years ago.
Strickland told the council he was aware all five members were past their terms.
“I did not want to change horses, so to speak, until the responses to the RFP were finished and now that time has come,” he said.
Strickland replaced board members Steven Wishnia and Carlee McCullough, saying Wishnia had been on the board for 14 years. “It was simply time to roll off,” he said of Wishnia.
Strickland said he wanted to reappoint McCullough but that she declined another term.
Asked later what reason she gave, Strickland said “I’m not going to tell.”
But McCullough’s partnership in the restaurant “Mahogany Memphis” with Veronica Yates, the wife of Mark Yates, who is leading TVA’s Memphis office in the run-up to the utility board’s decision on staying with or leaving TVA, raised questions and pointed to a lapse in the utility posting the required annual financial disclosures board members are required to file.
The expired terms, perceptions of a conflict of interest and lack of financial disclosure were chronicled in reporting by the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis in The Daily Memphian.
New board members Cheryl Pesce and Carl J. Person join returning MLGW board members Mitch Graves, Leon Dickson and Michael Pohlman on the board that is expected to get recommendations and possibly make a decision on an electric power supplier by the end of this year.
Graves, who is chairman of the board, acknowledged Pesce and Person will have some catching up to do on the complex process of weighing what a new electric power system and agreement would look like and whether it is worth leaving TVA for.
“This is not the easiest subject to understand all of the pieces of,” he told council members. “There’s a lot of catching up for our new colleagues. This will be coming to fruition in the next few months and there’s a lot of homework that needs to be done.”
Meanwhile, Strickland made the clearest statement yet on questions about the RFP process from critics of the process who are skeptical about MLGW’s objectivity when it comes to its 83-year relationship with TVA.
“I have faith in the process and together we will make the best decision for the ratepayers possible,” he told the council.
Council member Jeff Warren quizzed the new and returning utility board members on whether they would agree to a joint meeting with the council.
It’s something he called for earlier in the process after the council rejected a contract by the MLGW board to hire the consulting firm that is overseeing the RFP process.
The council’s refusal left the process in limbo for six months. Warren saw a joint meeting as a way to break the standoff.
But MLGW’s attorney advised the board against such a meeting because it involved the bidding process for the consulting contract and could be used to challenge in court the awarding of the contract to GDS Associates.
Graves and all of the other board members said they would be open to such a meeting if their attorney approved such a gathering.
Council member Cheyenne Johnson pushed for the council to hire its own consultant to review the proposals that GDS is reviewing ahead of its recommendation to the MLGW board. The proposals are not public at this point.
“That individual will actually read the proposals,” she said. “This person will not have any input in the selection process. They will just be our expert.”
But Johnson delayed any council vote on hiring a consultant after other council members questioned the need for a consultant at least for now.
“I don’t think we need an energy expert,” council member Patrice Robinson said. “I’m thinking we need somebody with fresh eyes … who knows how to go in and evaluate the work of someone else.”
Council attorney Allan Wade said hiring any kind of expert would be “premature.”
“The easy part is this,” he said of the discussion. “The hard part is finding somebody. You have to find somebody who is not in somebody’s camp.”
The current council, which took office in January 2020, was besieged by the different factions in the issue before they had even settled into office.
Council member Chase Carlisle at one point proposed requiring those lobbying to have to register with the council and identify themselves as lobbyists.
“It’s just like hiring an attorney,” council member Martavius Jones said Tuesday of a consultant to review RFP information and advise the council with each person considered having different views after reviewing the same information.
“I think we are going down that rabbit hole,” he said. “I think we have to have a level of trust in experts in that area.”
Warren argued the council needs advice independent of GDS Associates and the MLGW board.
“It’s to tell us this is what you got. This is what you didn’t get and then we can decide whether we need those other criteria added,” he said referring to MLGW owning its own transmission system and power generation in a break with TVA.
“That’s still going to be a varying of opinions,” Jones countered. “Where do we stop? Between who MLGW has hired and who the administration has hired — let them bring back something.”
“If we don’t trust that, then we go out there and get somebody,” he said. “This is muddying the waters even further.”
If the MLGW board votes to leave TVA, the council’s vote is essentially to ratify or reject that.
The council can’t amend the utility board’s action and come up with its own system for a new electric power supplier.
Topics
Memphis City Council MLGW TVA contract MLGW Jim Strickland Mitch Graves Jeff Warren Martavius Jones Cheyenne JohnsonBill Dries on demand
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Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
Marc Perrusquia
Marc Perrusquia is the director of the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis, where graduate students learn investigative and explanatory journalism skills working alongside professionals. He's won numerous state and national awards for government watchdog, social justice and political reporting. Follow the Institute on Facebook or Twitter @psr_memphis.
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