Jasper City Councilman Speaks Out

Submitted by Lequin Hilderbrand, City of Jasper District 5 (At-Large) Councilman.

(This statement may be copied, shared or reproduced but only in its entirety, without any edits, revisions or alterations)

As the At-Large City Council representative for the City of Jasper and due, only in part, to the most recent appearance of misinformation, erroneous implications and misstatements around this community that I love and proudly call home, I wish to provide actual facts and information based on a years-worth of study, fact gathering and analysis.

It is my nature to be positive and to build up, not tear down. I purposely choose not to attack because that very word implies an enemy exists, which is never how I want to be perceived. I believe in supporting one another and even when something is wrong, there is a right way to manage it and or correct the wrong. However, there is a moment when one must speak and, for me, that time is now. As in the words of my favorite quote, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing”. Those words belong to Edmond Burke, who also said “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little”.

Admittedly, my writing also occurs on the heel of video published or posted by an out of town source that I have never heard but that video also includes some misinformation and misguidance of facts as well as erroneous implications. Regardless, not wanting the perception of evil to triumph, I share the following.

Proposition A:

To clarify, Proposition A, in principle, has been in effect. When the voters overwhelmingly passed this Proposition in 2022 and when the then City Council ratified the vote the next week, Proposition A was officially in effect. That’s law.

The question seems to be was it implemented. I’m not sure what that means but I have worked on the real substance of this Proposition, which is what has the City charged its customers as it relates to the 10% threshold as defined in Proposition A.

As a disclaimer, Proposition A, which at the early stages of its development, was to be exclusive to electricity charges but was later revised to include all utilities. My statement is exclusive to the electric piece of the Proposition since the electric component is what everyone seems to be focused on. Additionally, we, the City Council, need to be able to receive and review the ongoing or current water cost analysis before I am comfortable speaking to the water and sewer items.

The answer to the above question, as documented by city financials and even budgets, is the City has been in compliance with Proposition A.

To support the compliance, the City had operating costs or expenses of $8.8 million. The total charge to the customers for the same time period as was used to determine the costs and expenses, was $7.5 million. Meaning, the city charged us, the customers, $1.3 million less than what it cost them to provide us electric power. To remind everyone who follows City business, the sole reason we, the City Council, held the workshops and open meetings as did last summer was because of a deficit budget regarding our L&P department. I have stated it multiple times in open meetings that the “you can pay me now or you can pay me later” adage could never ring more true than while we were trying to establish an energy charge. Because we, the City Council, approved a “no change”, we will be revisiting this item every year until a final resolution is had.

As a closing statement to this item, I have also long said that we need to be careful what we ask for. My reasoning for that statement is this simple. The end result of Proposition A is that the City cannot charge over 10%, meaning it is possible that we, as customers, could be charged up to 10% of the cost of the city, which would be astronomical to all of us. I can assure everyone that I am not advocating for that but just think about it. It is hard to argue against that logic.

Cambridge Funds:

The Cambridge Project was not and is not a part of the SRMPA and City of Jasper relationship. The only connection between the SRMPA and the City of Jasper is that the SRMPA’s only role for Jasper is to be our, the City of Jasper’s, primary provider of wholesale power. Nothing more.

The Cambridge Project was a venture shared exclusively by SRMPA and Vinton Public Power Authority (VPPA). No other players were a part of this project. Any revenue earned by the Cambridge Project were shared exclusively by SRMPA and VPPA. Those funds were not connected to any costs or investments by the City of Jasper.

SRMPA’s share of the earning grew to such large amounts that they eventually decided to “gift” some of this revenue to the three member cities. SRMPA was not obligated to do so but, rather, they chose to simply share the funds with their own customers, being the three member cities. I believe a simple way to define the Cambridge Funds would be as a shareholder distribution even though Jasper had no investment in the Cambridge Project.

The Cambridge funds were not a rebate or a refund, as has been characterized by some. That would have required a cost, an expense or investment in the project. They have been a literal “no strings attached” gift to the three member cities. The SRMPA did not require the cities allocate these funds to any specific purpose. They did not care how they were used. They, SRMPA, still to this day will acknowledge the funds were a gift.

The only funds received from SRMPA that were truly a refund were those instances when the City paid an excessive amount for the purchase of our power. The cost of power changes with such regularity that there will be times when the matter of an excess payment might occur.

The Cambridge funds is one of the items named to be targeted in our proposed forensic audit. I personally do not believe that any criminal wrongdoing will be discovered. We all might have our opinion that the funds could have been better used or spent but my comfort is in believing no criminal activity occurred and we did have a bit less than half of all Cambridge funds set aside and reserved exclusively for our L&P Department.

JEDCO:

JEDCO is probably the most attacked, slandered and abused entity in all of Jasper and has been since I was twenty-three years old. Since that time, I have been one of the most giving and serving volunteers for this entire community. There have only been two times that JEDCO was not being attacked and slandered and that was two periods of time when nothing was being done. Nothing. Seems that would have been the more appropriate time to raise questions.

The JEDCO issue of the current moment is, in my opinion, a simple unintentional oversight of one JEDCO By-Law. It is, or should be, a very simple fix but people seem to have a great dislike for success and progress for Jasper. A few people seem to want to choose to burn down or tear down whatever they can or who they can, which is very unfortunate and disheartening.

Any investigations into JEDCO, same as with the Cambridge Funds, will uncover nothing at best and very little at worst. My stance on the current By-Law oversight is a wrong but it is not criminal and it is not an impeachable offense. I have openly stated to those who have asked is that I really believe that if any wrong doing is discovered in the history of JEDCO, it would a conflict of issue. Conflicts of interest are very difficult to prove simply because no one ever knows the full ins and outs of the case and it is very difficult to prove what real and true intent is. Even when a conflict of interest is proven, the matter carries very minor consequences. I am willing to bet no fraud, no embezzlement, no crime will be found.

I will say that Jasper needs JEDCO and will stand by and support that position for all my days. JEDCO has experienced one or two horrible blackeyes over the years but what business creator/owner has not stumbled and fallen? The upshot is that JEDCO has created far more jobs than Jasper than any one of us have or will. Jobs is Jasper’s lifeline and anyone who disagrees obviously does not understand nor do they appreciate our plight. The nasty public sentiments of late regarding JEDCO is already hurting us, meaning the citizens. Businesses trying to get off the ground or trying to locate to Jasper have already let it be known they will likely leave and relocate their efforts elsewhere. In the last few weeks, I know of at least three small businesses that have closed or will soon be closing their doors. Jasper, like the entire nation, thrive, or survive, only because of small businesses and to lose even one is too many.

People seem to question the qualifications of the folks who make up the JEDCO board. My response to those who have visited with me has consistently been “Those men and women all bring to the table great successes and accomplishments that benefit all of Jasper along with the wherewithal and ability to overcome the times that they too stumble and fall”.

If after thirty years of people digging and investigating JEDCO, all we can find is a slight and unintentional oversight of a By-Law, we should be celebrating instead of prosecuting.

I like to use my big fish-little fish philosophy when I speak about Jasper and jobs. Some people like to be a big fish in a little pond and some choose to be a little fish in a big pond. In Jasper, too many seem to want to be the big fish, not realizing that all fish eat other fish. If everyone is in the same pond all the food supply will eventually be gone and at the end of the day, even the lone surviving fish will perish. Where is the good in that? Imagine too that all current JEDCO board members closed their businesses tomorrow. Who will replace those hundreds of jobs? Who will replace all those businesses?

I even find it curious that so few people truly understand how JEDCO is funded, or more importantly, who funds JEDCO. Not many years ago, I was part of an exercise to determine these very questions. The exercise included, in part, point of sales information from most of our local retail businesses. The end result was that less than 16% of retail sales tax dollars came from citizens of Jasper. The overwhelming majority of those half pennies were from out of town buyers, even out of state and out of country.

As to the above mentioned video, I want to share my thoughts and opinions as to what I perceive to be misinformation along with my thoughts about printed statements in other sources.

The narrator, at one point, seems to state that the City was in fact overcharging the customers, almost implying that our City Manager admitted as much. The slide that pops up at the time of his statement includes no facts or data to that point. His statement or implication was a misstatement.

Again, Proposition A has been in effect and the City has been in compliance.

The $60 million referenced in the Bill Grant segment as a refund is an incorrect statement. As explained above, that $60 million plus was neither a refund nor a rebate. It was a gift to the City by SRMPA to be used at the City’s discretion.

The implication in the video that $1 millions was spent out of the $29 million that City Council had set aside exclusively for Light & Power purposes for a basketball pavilion is just that, in implication. The $1 million spent on the pavilion was never a part of the $29 million and was spent long before the reservation of the $29 million was put in place.

There have also been statements made regarding Eddie Hopkins, our past JEDCO Executive Director, that were malicious in nature, up to and including statements of slander and libel. There were all without merit, substance and lacking proof. The alleged statement of most concern to me is that Mr. Hopkins had abruptly resigned from JEDCO. The truth of the matter is he did not resign at all. He had to choose between his personal health or continue absorbing the malicious attacks and slanderous statements of a very small circle of folks. Mr. Hopkins did the right thing. The first selfish act he undertook while serving Jasper and JEDCO in any capacity so let’s not make more of this than we should. He chose to simply retire, something that we all would have done under the same circumstances. I say this unbiasedly and unapologetically. His retirement is our loss and his connections and relationships across the state and parts of the nation is something we will never see again.

The attacks on JEDCO have, in my opinion been nothing short of a witch hunt, all at the expense of others, being the citizens of Jasper and of all our citizens, who gets hurt the most? Our poverty stricken neighbors and friends. Their greatest hope comes from the creation or addition of new businesses and jobs, which is what JEDCO brings to the table. The ability to attract new opportunities and there are a lot of open files on the table.

I close with these two simple statements. One, why not serve the community instead of trying to attack everyone and tear everything down. Secondly, as I have said many, many times over the years, using the words of Rodney King, why can’t we all just get along?

I am Lequin Hilderbrand and I approve my statement. May God bless us and help us all.