WAYNE CARTER: Albany Utilities flubs foster mistrust

Let’s cut to the chase. I am one of the social media critics some of the city commissioners are so displeased with. As a citizen of Albany and a businessman, I am disappointed in the leadership of Albany for the slow and poor response to the storms that hit in January. Especially disturbing to me is the lack of accurate and timely public information and the mass confusion created over utility billing by the conflicting information given out by the city manager’s office. In the real business world, you are only as good as your weakest link. Albany has had more than its share of weak links, and this city manager has failed her employers, the citizen of Albany.

The fiasco over utility billing was created by poor communications that failed to inform the public correctly and promptly about what was happening with the billing and why. Then claiming a letter was included along with the monthly statement when most people did not receive that letter — if any did — only served to create more distrust of what the city manager was saying and doing. Then they pile on with the razzle-dazzle $50 credit that is more pie in the sky than reality, a gift that is made so difficult to attain that most won’t bother.

Such a flawed execution of what sounded like a helping hand only fosters more mistrust. The city manager’s recent newspaper article said there are only three questions to answer: No. 1 is the billing name and address; No. 2 is the account number, and the big question, Were you without power for three or more days? Forgive me, but aren’t the first two answered on the monthly bill and the third is a simple yes or no question to be answered on the honor system?

So why make people stop their already traumatized lives and travel to downtown to sign up only during the hours set up for city employees’ convenience and no one else’s? By making people go downtown to sign up, does that somehow discourage the people who are willing to do anything for what they see is an easy $50? I doubt it, but what it does do is frustrate people who have lost so much already not to waste their time and energy to jump through hoops for a mere $50.

If the city manager was truly concerned about helping the ratepayers, the questionnaire would have been included in the monthly bills for the convenience of the Storm Victims, not a bureaucrat sitting comfortably behind a desk. We have to ask: Is the Utility department now so incompetently managed under the city manager they don’t know the grids that were without power for days, yet they replaced hundreds of transformers and hundreds more poles and repaired miles and miles of downed lines? Next big question is who is going to pay for the hundreds of thousands of dollars used to fund this $50 charity gesture? Oh, yes, the ratepayers will be paying that and more back in higher utility rates. As the city manager claims, “No good deed goes unpunished.” Well, no free handouts go unfunded.

Many of you know I was adamantly opposed to the city takeover of WG&L. As I warned back then, the results of the takeover have now proven me correct. The results of the city raid of the MEAG money is coming home to roost.

The ambush job of one commissioner on TV on the Building Permit and Inspectors Department claiming they needed to work more hours and Saturday and Sundays to help more contractors is very disturbing to me as a businessman and builder in Albany, too. The unnamed contractor quoted in the news story is the problem and not the department personnel. For 20 years I have worked with this department, from building new buildings to remodeling others. This department has gone above and beyond to provide services to all contractors willing to conduct themselves by the rules and guidelines everyone is expected to adhere to.

For them to be slighted for not doing all they can to make it easy for someone not willing to follow the rules is an insult to me for following the regulations and laws this department is sworn to uphold. Each time one of the commissioners calls to “push” one of the inspectors to bend the rules is a threat to the standard of professionalism they are required by law to uphold. If we are going to ambush city officials, let’s ask why an employee of the City Attorney’s office is seen more often in the company of a city commissioner than in the City Attorney’s office?

And while we are at it, commissioners, get off of Mr. Strickland with the EDC. While he may not be making some of the commissioners happy for not bringing big companies with 300-400 jobs to Albany, he and his staff worked hard aiding me to help keep Hamilton Relay from leaving after the storm with their 225-plus employees. I say working to keep a proven job provider with 11 years of positive history in Albany is much more important than dreaming of what-ifs.

For those of you that may not know, I had a building destroyed Jan. 2 that was home to over 200 jobs. To rebuild the building, I pushed for and am using local contractors because I believe in keeping my money local to support my community. For me it was important to “Think Local” so that Albany, and not some out-of-town contractor’s community, reaps the benefits of over a million dollars pumped into their economy in the next 90 days.

Wayne Carter is a businessman whose father, Fred Carter, pioneered the westward expansion of business in Albany. Wayne Carter retired from his profession 20 years ago to join his father’s business, and together they operate Carter Properties.