CULLMAN — There was hardly room to breathe at Wednesday’s meeting of the Cullman County Commission, as more than 50 county residents interested in the commission’s role in creating a new water cooperative and oversight board packed the room beyond its seating capacity.

Many of the animated faces in the crowd belonged to those who had already attended the cooperative board’s tumultuous first meeting earlier in the week, and two of the seven residents who publicly addressed the commission restated concerns they had voiced before the new board at that time.

Of all the statements, most notable was that given by attorney Steve Griffith, whose firm is representing the plaintiffs in a suit filed last Friday against the water entities, the commission, and associate commissioners Wayne Willingham and Doug Williams. That suit seeks the dissolution of the South Cumberland Cooperative District (SCCD) and its oversight board, the Governmental Utility Services Corporation of Cullman County (GUSC).

While Griffith’s decision to publicly draw comment from the people whom he is suing may have obvious tactical implications, he revealed a more tangible concern—he’s one of the holders of revenue bonds the county authorized in April to help finance field work that will bolster the county’s water infrastructure. The stability of the potentially-altered relationship between bondholders and Cullman County has been questioned since the commission transferred the assets of the revenue-generating water department to the new SCCD on April 27.

“It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to talk about the lawsuit, but I found out yesterday afternoon that, in my retirement package, I have a good number of Cullman County water bonds that were issued April first of this year. From reading the (bond) prospectus....as I understand it, the water department—from which the county commission was going to get the revenue to pay my bonds—is no longer owned by the Cullman County Commission. I wonder how these bonds are going to be paid.

“When I bought those County Commission bonds, they had an AAA-AA+ rating (as given by Standard & Poor’s), which sets the interest rate. And if the bonds are now the obligation of the owner of the water department, they have no bond rating and I should have earned a much higher rate of interest...I don’t want to create an acrimonious setting, but I do want the commission to understand that those people who invested money in those bonds are extremely concerned about the cavalier fashion treated [to] the obligation to pay those bonds.”

In a followup interview, Griffith clarified a separate concern over having ex-politicians making financial decisions on an appointed board with no county oversight or direct connection with a constituency.

“I don’t mind putting my retirement money in the hands of the elected officials in Cullman County, but I’ll be damned if I want my wife’s future after I’m dead to be controlled by Wiley Kitchens,” he said. “It’s nothing personal against Wiley Kitchens; I just don’t think he needs to manage my money.”

Kitchens, whom Graves defeated in a 2008 bid to retain his seat as chairman of the Cullman County Commission, is one of three charter appointees to the GUSC board, and also sits on the five-member SCCD board.

Another party in the suit, Jackie Satterfield, made his first face-to-face acquaintance with one of his co-plaintiffs—commission chairman James Graves—when he took his turn at the microphone.

“I know Doug, and I know Wayne—and this will be the first time I’ve met you,” Satterfield told Graves from the floor. “I’ll introduce myself so people will know this is the first time we’ve met. I would like to say that, even though I have differences of opinion with Doug and Wayne on this issue, that I do appreciate all three of you gentlemen being willing to take time out of your private lives, being willing to serve the public.”

Satterfield maintained that amity throughout his address, but his message was more strident.

“Are those members (of the SCCD cooperative) ‘members,’ or just customers?” asked Satterfield. “They call it a co-op; do co-ops have members? As an owner—me being a citizen—do I have any recourse, other than voting for county commissioners, in the operation of that system?”

“Not at this time,” responded Williams.

“Out of the hundred thousand people that you estimate who live in Cullman County, how many did ya’ll poll to see if they wanted to serve on this water board?” Satterfield pressed.

All three commissioners replied that they had not polled anyone before forming the board.

In responding to many such subsequent questions, Williams eventually reminded speakers that none of the commissioners is instructed to engage in question-and-answer conversation during the public comment portion of the commission meetings. He and Willingham did nonetheless interact with Griffith and several other speakers, briefly answering and clarifying some of their statements.

“I feel like you could have found a lot more people who would be willing to serve if you had made it public what was going to happen,” Satterfield continued. “And I feel like that’s where a lot of the animosity in this situation comes in—the public was not given any say in what was going to happen.”

Trimble-area poultry and cattle farmer Billy Meeks, who also spoke at the SCCD’s Monday board meeting, was blunt in his opposition to the commissioners’ actions, and restated his request that the county take the most direct path toward reaching a regional water supply agreement with the City of Cullman.

“I farm for living,” said Meeks. “This is corrupt, guys...I need water. We’ve got a 60-day water supply; we’ve got a permit for going to the Duck River thing. Ya’ll give us ‘ideas’ about going to Smith Lake; running a pipe down to Lake Catoma from the Tennessee River; drilling wells. Great ideas, but no plan—there’s no permits out there. And when ya’ll see that ya’ll are failing, then you try to create these boards, which is illegal...

“Ya’ll are driving a wedge between the city and county—always putting up some kind of excuse that ‘the city’s doing this,’ and ‘the city’s doing that’—I can tell you, guys, if I was on that city (utilities) board, I wouldn’t trust you.”

That comment, and several more from Meeks, drew heavy applause.

None of the business on the commission’s Wednesday agenda related to water business, or to administrative housekeeping concerning the recent shift in the department’s oversight.

For coverage of the commission’s agenda business, read Friday’s edition of The Cullman Times.



*  Benjamin Bullard can be reached by e-mail at bbullard@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131 ext. 270.