“Issues” at TBCD

By Gloria Way

  In a surprise move at last week’s Trinity Bay Conservation District board meeting, General Manager Jerry Shadden submitted his resignation. Apparently, board director Annette Rayburn has been at odds with Shadden over a matter of issues affecting TBCD customers, and how the issues are not being addressed.

  Rayburn brought up several examples of how customers have placed work orders for broken pipes, etc., for TBCD to fix and after months of waiting, some have not been repaired causing customers to deal with extremely low water pressure. She also brought up the water bills customers have received due to meter readers not reading the meters but “estimating”. And, when the meter is finally read in real time, it will show an enormous amount of water used that was not “estimated” resulting in extremely high water bills. “I know you have made adjustments on some of these bills,” said Rayburn, “but it is not fair to our customers. It just isn’t fair.”

  Rayburn also stated that she and Shadden had several conversations, and that he spoke to her in a very “unprofessional” manner. She then asked him if he “was a man of his word” and do what he told her he would do. Shadden replied that he had told her that he was doing what he could to solve the problems but that he “would resign”. Shadden then presented the board with his letter of resignation. He also said that it would be a board decision whether the board wanted to keep him or not and asked them to make the decision in executive session. When the board went into executive session, I asked Shadden for a comment, and he replied “I am doing the best I can. We are short a secretary and our Water/Sewer Manager has retired without a replacement. We are doing the best we can.”

  The board went into executive session for about 15 minutes. Upon return, Board President Victor Caraway said that the Board would not accept Shadden’s resignation. Caraway said that a vote was not taken but just a discussion and that there is no desire among the board to remove Shadden as General Manager.

  In an interview with Caraway the next day, Caraway was very honest and said, “There are issues at TBCD. We are working hard to solve them. This is a very tough job market to find quality individuals who will do a good job. We need four meter readers and we only have two.

Hopefully when all the meters are switched out to electronic meters, the reading will be more accurate. And, when we are fully automated, we will need only two instead of four.”

  Caraway also discussed the issue of work orders. “All work orders need to be resolved in a timely manner. Management needs to develop procedures for how the work orders are processed. This needs to be addressed immediately. Our water/sewer operations director retired in December, so we are shorthanded with those who oversee work orders. We are actively searching for his replacement, but again, the job market is tough. We have received only one application so far.”

  Caraway also acknowledged that sometimes tempers need to flare to bring about positive change. “We will review the work order process immediately and investigate why some meter readings are estimates. Our customers need to let us know what is going on and be patient because we are shorthanded. We strive to do better.”