Clarksdale Public Utilities board secretary George Miller and then-general manager Mark Johnson had a disagreement during executive session that was recorded in the minutes of the June 26, 2018 meeting.
In minute book 28 on Page 326, it read, “As requested by the General Manager, let the record show that Commissioner Miller directed an inappropriate comment to the General Manager. Given the Board has no Sergeant-at-Arms to address such matters, the General Manager instructed Commissioner Miller not to make such statements to the General Manager in the future.”
The board unanimously passed a resolution to remove the statement from the minutes of the meeting close to 13 months ago in June 2018 during Tuesday’s meeting. Johnson, then-chief financial officer Steve Reed and then-director of communications and public relations Chris Campos were all placed on suspension pending investigation one month later and were terminated in September 2018.
Miller requested the resolution to remove the statement from the minutes.
Current CPU general manager Curtis Boschert and Miller said the statement was not in the original draft of the minutes sent to board attorney David Hunt.
“There were comments placed in the minutes that were not pertaining to actions taken by the commission,” Boschert said. “It’s always been the policy of the commission to have minutes related to actions taken, not extemporaneous comments. It appears those comments had been added after they were reviewed by the attorney.”
Hunt called for a motion to pass the resolution after Boschert’s explanation.
The resolution says Miller, as board secretary, is responsible for delegating the task of who types the minutes and the preliminary and final draft went to then-administrative assistant Teena Meredith and Johnson. Meredith was also terminated shortly after Boschert was named general manager in September.
The preliminary draft would then by submitted by the board attorney for review and for the addition of any action taken during executive session.
“I’m the secretary of the board,” said Miller after Tuesday’s meeting. “I’m responsible for the minutes. This was something I overlooked. This was stuck in the minutes after David does the executive session, sends it to Teena. They stuck this in afterwards and I didn’t see it back then, back in June (2018).
“It goes back to this point. He doesn’t have the responsibility. He’s not responsible for that. I, as secretary of the board am responsible for the minutes. I didn’t see that. They stuck that in there without me know that. I didn’t look for it and I missed it. Now, I’m getting it scratched out of the minutes. He can’t do that. He can’t request. The general manager can’t do that. He doesn’t have anything to do with the minutes. The minutes are the board.”
Miller stood by his statements.
“It might have been inappropriate to him (Johnson), but it wasn’t inappropriate to me what I said,” he said.
Since the discussion took place during executive session, Miller did not specify what was said.
“It wasn’t inappropriate,” he said. “It was a personnel matter. We were discussing a personnel matter.”
