McLendon-Chisholm Mayor Says, “I would demand for her to be terminated.”

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In my last article, “Are RCH Water Supply Board Directors Acting In Good Faith?” I wrote three things to be on the look out for this week that included a presentation from RCH WS at the McLendon-Chisholm City Council meeting.

When I arrived last night I was not sure if there was going to be any representation from RCH WS, but I was determined to address the City Council and hopefully encourage them to address our public concerns.

Balkum Acknowledges City’s Key To Success

“I want to acknowledge and say that it was really good to see many City Council members and of course our Mayor present at past public meetings. It means a lot and I believe it makes a difference. Thank you for being a good steward by inviting RCH Board Directors to come present updates.

In our adopted 2021 comprehensive plan it acknowledges that our utility services are key to our city’s success. Staying on top of our utilities is crucial. I believe those services could keep us on the offense for the city and/or city council when developers approach us. I would rather not have to see us experience a time to mitigate a crisis, especially when it comes to water. The time is now to express from your dais to RCH WS that being a key partner to our community is to improve their service that they have provided thus far. In addition to that, I would hope that you would express the importance of basic board governance, transparency with their customers and with the city and to give our community peace of mind that the board is making a concerted effort, such as addressing the complaints that they stated would be rectified at their August 3, 2022 Board Meeting.

#1 Election. We would like an itemized agenda. In fact, on my blog I drafted a sample of a fill-in-the-blank agenda that is itemized and a script on how to conduct that meeting to call for an election and appoint new board members. That would be the fastest remedy to alleviate some administrative problems that seem to get progressively worse.

#2 Transparency. Maintain their website with their bylaws, agendas, minutes, current projects, financial reports, etc. Also to remedy the issue with opening the doors during business hours for customers to not only speak with customer service but also to be able to inspect RCH related documents.

#3 Communication. The text/email system is a good tool, however it is not consistent with information or that is only for critical emergencies to send out only when it reaches a critical stage. Utilizing this service RCH will be able to improve or help with conservation efforts. As well as to help customers/members be informed.

If these actions are taken it sure would give peace of mind to our local partners and water service customers that things are changing genuinely. I encourage you to ask questions and to take the time to address our community concerns. Water is needed not only for our livelihood, but some also need it for their business operations and certainly our fire department needs it.

We must work together to resolve these issues. No one has to get ugly. We just need to be better in our acts of service and do better in being accountable to one another. Thank you.”

15 Questions & Answers by RCH Water Supply

RCH WS Board President Jackie Pullen walked up to the podium, “I want to thank Mayor Short, City Council and City Manager asking me to be here tonight. I appreciate your concern. The City Manager sent me several questions to be answered and at this time I’m going to answer those questions. If the public has any other questions I would like them to email the City Manager and he can email them to me. And we will answer them.

1. How long will the outdoor watering ban be in place?

I wish I could answer that. I thought we were going to get some rain today. The ban will be in effect until there is a change in weather that brings the usage of the system down.

2. Why we ran out of water on the 13th of July?

3. Is there an issue of running out of water in the future?

4. What are we planning on building?

Building a new storage facility on the corner of Edwards and League Road. And we are going to hook into a 42 inch line down in Terrell, Kaufman County to bring us a larger supply of water through RCH WS.

5. What can the City of McLendon-Chisholm do to help us alleviate the situation that we are in now?

6. Should the City continue issuing swimming pool permits?

7. Should the City issue new home permits?

8. What is the usage in the City and in the ETJ?

9. What is the storage capacity that we have right now?

1.5 million gallons

10. Does the city have currently a water supply and storage capacity presently to prepare for the build out in McLendon-Chisholm?

11. Is McLendon-Chisholm invited to RCH Board Meetings?

12. The issue about board members.

13. Any plans for better communication in the future?

14. Can RCH and the City of Rockwall contract provide water to the City of McLendon-Chisholm to build out?

15. Are there any ways that the City of McLendon-Chisholm can assist RCH about the situation we are in?

City Council, City Manager and Mayor, ya’ll have done a real good job in promoting conservation. We just need to pray for a rain. If you have any questions please email them to the City Manager and we will get them answered back to him. We appreciate all the work that the fire department does here. We are blessed to have ya’ll.”

Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem Speaking At The Dais

PLEASE NOTE: Department heads, contractors and speakers stand directly at the podium normally. However, Mr. Pullen has trouble hearing so he came closer and our Fire Chief brought over the microphones to accommodate the public meeting needs.

Mayor Short asked, “I have got a couple questions while you are here. I wasn’t able to attend the board meeting, but I was able to watch the board meeting. There are some questions that I have after watching that. You’re the president and head of the board correct?” Mr. Pullen confirms that he is.

Will you commit to at least two bi-annual standing meetings to give us an update on projects, anticipation of construction, upgrades, maintenance issues?

Mr. Pullen replied, “Yes.”

Will you take the time to submit a copy of your annual certified audit to our City Administrator so that this will be available to meet our comprehensive planning goals?

Mr. Pullen replied, “Yes, it is being worked on.”

Mayor Short continued, “And you said you were thinking about adding 3 more board members?”

Mr. Pullen replied, “Yes.”

“I gotta tell you looking at the website.” Mayor Short stated, “It has an application on there if you want to apply to be a board member, but it says you have to abide by the bylaws. Nobody can find the bylaws on the website. How can you abide by something when you are not provided that information? Here is where I am getting frustrated. I know you personally and I don’t have an issue with you, but what I am seeing with RCH WS. And one of the gentleman that spoke about the common denominator here is an individual that works for you guys that runs everything that is being very deceitful with the public. She will not provide information. She locks the doors. I looked at the website. That website is not the same website 4 years ago. It is completely scrubbed clean. Because I know you, I know who Mr. Hodges is and I know Mr. Hatfield that they are on the board too. That’s because I know who you are. Most of the public don’t know you guys. Your names used to be on the website, but she has scrubbed that website clean to where nobody can function. And that is not acceptable. I don’t believe that’s what you did when you started your business. I don’t believe that’s how you operate business and she is being allowed to do this. That’s unsatisfactory.”

Mayor Short, “I owe it to 4,200 residents in the city to come up with answers for stuff like that. And every time I look for answers for them I get more questions than I get answers. She is not forthcoming. I know people who have asked for information including the city staff and she won’t provide to us. I don’t want to have to get to the point to get legal counsel involved or state agencies involved to force you guys–I’m going to be stuck doing that. That’s not how I want to do things. I think we need to be good neighbors. I will be honest with you Jackie, if it were up to me personally (and I have to think of 4,200 people), I would demand for her to be terminated. I know that RCH is not the only water company that she is over and that concerns me. She has multiple companies using the same address. Where’s the loyalty? You served on Council. We answer to the people and unfortunately the city is not in the water business. RCH is in the water business and many of them are citizens. I feel like we are doing a poor job in representing in how the water company is being managed. I don’t expect you to be in there day in and day out. You got someone in there that is not being fair to them. Before I became mayor, I had to deal with her. I didn’t have that many nice things to say about her. She was totally rude to me. And all I was trying to do is pay my bill. That’s not acceptable and I don’t think anyone that lives here wants to deal with her.”

Mayor Pro Tem Trudy Woessner added, “She’s the one that is giving you a bad name. The reason why you are having such a rough time with people is because she is the face of RCH and the first person that they talk to. It is a sour taste in your mouth.”

Mr. Pullen, “It is going to be addressed.”

Mayor Pro Tem Woessner directly, “You know what needs to be done. I guarantee you if you fix that problem it would be 10x better.”

Mr. Warren Hodges also came up to the dais, “We are going to address the situation.”

Mayor Short addresses, “The reason why I say this Mr. Hodges, we have complained to her multiple times. I have two different RCH customers. One lives in Sonoma Verde and one doesn’t. One had a $35.00 water bill in March and April. Then in May an $800 water bill. In June over $5,000 water bill. The man went out to read the meter 5 days after the meter was read and it is still an error of 76,000. I don’t think you have adequate people doing their job.

Mr. Pullen interrupted, “That is another issue we are going to address. A satellite reading–an electronic reading device. That’s what we are doing to do.”

Mayor Short shared, “To the other customer I told them to go out there and read your meter and see what it correlates to what you are paying for. Their meter was so full of mud that they couldn’t see the meter. So somebody didn’t read the meter and came up with a number. That’s not acceptable. I have got a slew of stuff that you are going to get inundated with questions. I had a meeting with the City of Rockwall about their water to RCH. For the 26 days in July, you are missing 1.6 million gallons of water and I can’t equate where it went to. From what Rockwall gave you to what you say you gave to the customers. You are missing 1.6 million gallons of water.”

Mayor Pro Tem Woessner stated, “Jackie, your numbers are messed up. You have got to find a solution.”

Mayor Short said, “The numbers are wrong. When you say you got 1.5 millions gallons of storage, I believe you. But the numbers produced between the City of Rockwall and RCH in 26 days you lost 1.6 million gallons of water. There are a lot of days that you took in a lot of water than you pushed out to the customer. There are things that are just not adding up. Like I said with that particular individual that is not providing information do we have the correct number of licensed technicians working for the company? The state does have certain rules if you got 2,500 customers you should have 5 water technicians on staff. I can’t find out who is on staff, because there is no information who the employees are on the website–Let alone the board of directors. But if I go to a sister website that is managed by that individual who manages another water supply company. I could see who the board of directors are, board minutes, etc. You can’t always see who the employees are, but you know when you start seeing that there is information that should be there and it’s not there. You know how the rumorville starts flying. Now we got conspiracy theories what are you are hiding? What is going on? Why is this information not being provided to the public? That should be public information. There are certain rules and regulations that have to be followed. If you are nonprofit company or an investor owned company there are certain guidelines you have to follow. Just like Trudy said, the person who is the face of your company is making you look bad. You guys have been out here a long time and you built a good name for yourselves. But this person is making you look bad and making you look like a bunch of crooks.”

Mayor Pro Tem added, “People who know you guys and we love you guys. There are so many people that will go to the front lines for ya’ll. But when you have had that sour apple–people want to just back up. I really am sorry that I have to say that, but I’m really trying very hard for you to understand. It’s your names.”

Mr. Hodges acknowledged there are issues, “We are going to do our best to rectify this.”

Mayor Short said, “I have a lot of respect for you. You are only good as your word. I still believe that to this day. I was taught that by my grandfather. You have someone tarnishing your word. It’s gotta stop today. The public wants answers. They may not like the answers when they get it, but they want the answers. It’s time to explain that to them. We have signed agreements where you have agreed as RCH to provide the water for the additional phases of Sonoma Verde. I can’t tell that builder to stop building. You already told him that you will provide them water. Now you want me to be the bad guy…that’s not my role. Why should I be the bad guy?

Mr. Hodges interjected, “We are ready to go on with the construction. We just need the permit. (Referring to the elevated tower construction.)”

Mayor Short pointed out, “Your engineer was not very forthcoming at your meeting about information. He laid it off like it was us holding things up. There are processes at play. Where engineers have to look at it. Plans have to be approved. As soon as we got it we looked at it, but your engineer made it seem like we are dragging our feet. It infuriated me, because ya’ll laid a line down on Hwy 205 for your expansion and no one told the city about it. Your own engineer stated there are permit processes that they have to follow with the city. No one once came to the city to get a permit for that new waterline. That waterline is sitting right on top of our brand new sewer line where RCH‘s water line probably should not be.”

Mayor Pro Tem Woessner added, “That waterline may not be in the right spot.”

Mr. Pullen recalled, “We addressed it with that lady (referring to Lisa Palomba, former City Administrator).

Mayor Short concluded, “Your engineer was laying out there that we are holding up processes. And we are not. If your engineer submitted things to our engineer and he’s dragging his feet I will address that. I don’t appreciate him throwing us under the bus. We’re doing our part as quickly as we can. It was not fair to do that to us. It’s not acceptable the way that I’m having to put you on the spot here today. If that person was forthcoming on information who has been the common denominator of your problems you may not have to be facing the issues today.“

Key Takeaways

Hopefully, all of this content that you are reading and watching you get a sense that things are in motion. I’m thankful that Mr. Pullen has integrity to show up and he is being a man of his word. Half the battle is showing up. The Pullens are one of McLendon-Chisholm’s finest families and it is such a shame that this happened. Normally, in small rural communities things get put to the wayside and you turn your head. I just don’t see this critical issue going away.

Our Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem set the tone to RCH WS that these issues have got to stop and to take responsibility. The gentlemen probably are overwhelmed with a list of things that need to be fixed. Will Mr. Pullen and/or the RCH WS Board terminate the administration services and remove Robin Baley as the administrative officer?

What do you think will happen next? Write it out in the comments below. I’m interested to hear what you have to say as a customer.