Local residents have taken issue with high Clarksdale Public Utilities bills and Brandon Presley from the Mississippi Public Service Commission northern district heard the concerns and provided local citizens with options in a public hearing held at the Clarksdale Civic Auditorium on Tuesday night.
Presley came at the request of mayor Chuck Espy and outlined where the Public Service Commission’s role is. He said since investors own other utilities such as Entergy and ATMOS, the commission can raise rates.
That is not the case for CPU.
“Because Clarksdale Public Utilities is owned by the public, again, owned by you, that jurisdiction comes through the CPU commission, which is appointed by the city commissioners,” Presley said.
CPU’s rates were last raised in 2014.
Presley did say, according to the law, if a citizen has a complaint about CPU bills that add up to $2,500 or more, a complaint can be filed with the Public Service Commission calling for an investigation. There is a two-year statute of limitations to file the complaint.
“If you have let’s say five bills that add up to over $2,500, then we consider that,” Presley said. “As part of our law, our code section says that if anybody files a petition with us requesting investigation and arbitration, when it’s above $2,500, you then can apply to us to investigate the charges.”
Forms were passed out for the several citizens on hand to be able to fill out. They can either return them to Espy or Presley’s office.
Presley left his office’s number 800-637-7722 on the form for citizens to call with questions.
Public officials at the Clarksdale Civic Auditorium included new CPU general manager Curtis Boschert, who did address some of the concerns, Rep. Orlando Paden, circuit clerk Demetria Jackson and Johnny Newson and Derrell Washington from the Coahoma County Board of Supervisors.
Washington provided his input.
“I’m not a customer of CPU,” said Washington, who resides in Jonestown. “I’m actually a customer of Entergy. In two years, my bill is probably not $2,500. My question is, if CPU cannot fix the problem that the citizen is having with their utility bill, what would it take for the citizens to go outside of CPU and seek other energy?”
By law, Presley said two utilities cannot compete within a municipality. However, he did mention the possibility of another utility taking over for CPU.
“That’s one of the things that Mayor Espy and I have talked about as a possible resolution to these issues would be Clarksdale Public Utilities to Entergy,” Presley said. “You can look at what that would mean.”
Complaints from citizens included high bills, disparity in bills based on where customers reside and CPU charging reconnect fees when one’s power has not been turned off.
After the meeting, Espy said issues such as those would be put to a stop as the citizens were heard.
“All of the documentation and notes that we made will be forwarded to his office,” Espy said. “I hope that every constituent of mine this evening will take time out to fill out that form and send it to either my office or Brandon Presley’s office, so we can start working on corrective action for CPU.”
The referendum vote will be in June to determine whether or not the CPU board will be removed and the Board of Mayor and Commissioners will take over.
Espy said he only hopes the referendum is put into play if other action does not work.
“One, there’s possibility that Brandon Presley can help us with competition,” Espy said. “That’s maybe what CPU needs is competition. Then, maybe, at that point, if that’s not the answer, we’ll move to the next phase. The next phase could be simply to work with CPU and have the lawyers from the Public Service Commission step forward with this legal staff and help CPU do the right things.”
Espy acknowledged there cannot be competing utilities within a municipality, but he said there should be legislation to change the law.
The Concerned Citizens of Clarksdale have held several meetings regarding their issues with CPU.
While the group’s vice president George Fields did attend the public hearing with Presley, the Concerned Citizens of Clarksdale did not organize the meeting and there was no mandate for members to attend.
Concerned Citizens of Clarksdale president Ray Sykes confirmed he would not be attending prior to the meeting. Sykes, just as Presley noted during the meeting, said the Public Service Commission does not have as much power over a municipal utility as it does for other companies.
“My understanding my research and our research and our conversation is that the Public Service Commission is not necessarily the place to go to because of the regulation that because of CPU being its own municipality, they wouldn’t have the say so per say that they would have on Entergy, GE or Coahoma Electric or Mississippi Power & Light,” he said.
Sykes did welcome Presley making citizens aware of their options.
“That would be good. That’s good for us. I think, from what we’ve been trying to do the very first day, I think that if he tells the options, that helps us out.”
It had previously been reported that Espy was a member of the Concerned Citizens of Clarksdale.
Sykes took the time to clarify that was not the case and what the group’s policies were.
“I made it clear that night that Chuck was not a part of the group,” Sykes said. “As a matter of fact, Chuck understood that night he’s not a part of the group. The reason being, our bylaws state that because it’s a concerned citizens group, that no elected official should be a part of this group.”
