CARLTON FLETCHER: Backwards thinking one reason community stays divided

There is a yellow one that won’t accept the black one, that won’t accept the red one, that won’t accept the white one.

— Sly & the Family Stone (RIP Sly)

Back several years ago, when I was covering the goings-on of the local city and county governments for this newspaper, I had an occasion to cover one of the most unforgettable Albany City Commission meetings I ever attended.

I remember it vividly to this day.

During the meeting, several citizens who’d signed up to speak to commissioners offered up complaints about the high cost of utilities for homes that received services through the then-Water, Gas & Light Commission (now Utilities Authority). Many of those who spoke proclaimed that WG&L utilities were much more expensive than other providers’, even as utilities officials showed them comparisons that proved WG&L prices were indeed lower.

That got my attention, but what happened next is what singed the events of that meeting into my brain.

Members of two households got up and told tales of woe, about how one was trying to survive on a fixed income and the other had to spend a large part of her family’s income to try and keep up with utility bills. The speakers cried as they told their tales of woe, and I’ll admit, I had tears — of sympathy and rage — in my eyes as they talked of these outrageous bills.

But after the meeting, when I spoke with utilities officials, a different story emerged. It seems both of the groups that spoke — and others who came to the meeting to complain about high utilities costs — were getting high bills each month because their totals were accumulating over months of nonpayment.

“That person who was crying there at the end?” one city official said. “She’s four months behind in her utilities bill. And all of those others who complained are at least two months behind.”

(Side note here: I thought about that meeting a few weeks back when Tara, who spent the better part of a week in bed sick, unable to get up except for trips to the bathroom, forgot to pay our electric bill on the day it was due. She definitely had other things on her mind. But on that day, while she lay there sick, the Utilities Authority cut off power to our house. No calls. No warnings. Just, zap, you’re in the dark. And I wondered: How in the hell did some of these people who don’t pay their bills get four or five months in arears and keep complaining about high costs when someone who pays their bill ALWAYS on time gets theirs cut off with no notice on the day it comes due? Something seems amiss about that situation …)

But, moving on now to a town hall meeting Thursday hosted by Ward III Commissioner Vilnis Gaines to talk about — what else? — high utilities costs. I haven’t seen comparisons in a few years, so I don’t know where the local utilities authority stacks up against other suppliers, but my understanding is that local utilities remain below that of area suppliers like Georgia Power and Mitchell EMC.

A comment that was brought up for actual consideration during the meeting was an asinine statement — presented as fact — that the city has separate utility meters for blacks and whites in the community, that somehow whites are getting lower utilities costs than black citizens.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the primary reasons this community may forever stay divided. That some people, relying on rumors that have persisted since the civil rights era — that white residents of this community get preferential treatment from the government that blacks do not receive — and are willing to aver that such statements are true, that just shows that there are people willing to use any excuse to try and make themselves victims.

I could remind people who think this way that the overwhelming majority of elected and appointed officials in this community are black, as are the majority of city and county employees, and only a handful of these groups would use their positions to try and gain advantages for specific special-interest groups. (A little hint, the overwhelming majority of officials who would take such actions are not white.) I could remind these people that using nonsense from decades ago really has no substance today.

But I won’t waste the space. These are the kinds of professional victims who will always do everything in their power to divide rather than unite their community … so long as they benefit.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected].