From top: David Copeland, Robert J. Kelley Jr., Michael Clark, James Todd Edwards, Wes Rosenbalm, and Paul Hurley. Photo credits: Roanoke Times
Once upon a time, Bristol Virginia Utilities in far Southwest Virginia was lauded as a spunky, small-town electricity and water utility that provided high-speed Internet services to an under-served population. Now, as the Roanoke Times describes it, the company’s “culture of corruption, entitlement and greed,” has been laid bare. So far, nine former utility executives, board members and contractors have pleaded guilty or been convicted of corruption charges. The Roanoke Times summarizes the stink:
The utility was rife with self-dealing, extortion, tax evasion and fraud. There were kickback and bid-rigging schemes, demands BVU’s major vendors underwrite fancy holiday parties (one cost more than $12,000) and provide executives with choice tickets to pro football and college basketball games, NASCAR races, horse races and other sporting events.
Court records depict one case in which some top BVU executives and board members took a weekend trip to Texas, where they relaxed in hotels, dined in restaurants, rode in limousines and watched the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys from luxury skybox seats at AT&T Stadium, all courtesy of a company awarded a $4.5 million contract from the agency.
Rank-and-file employees picked up at least $48,000 total in untaxed bonuses paid as gift cards and cash. Top executives received country club memberships valued at $70,000 , fully loaded GMC Yukons for personal use, and car allowances. Those extras weren’t taxed either.
Meanwhile, the utility’s customers got hit with water, sewer, electric and cable-TV rate increases in a region where the median household income is $33,600 and the poverty rate is 22 percent.
Stace Pomrenke, Bruce James Chilton, and G. Walter Bressler.
Caught in the net are Paul Hurley, former BVU board chair and mayor of Bristol; Bruce James Clifton, former board chair; Wes Rosenbaum, former CEO; and G. Walter Bressler, former general counsel.
There’s no point in lamenting greed and corruption — they are encoded in the human genome. The trick is building mechanisms into the system that hold accountable the people in power. I suppose we can say that the system worked at one level — the justice system is holding the BVU executives accountable. Ideally, BVU would have had systems to prevent such abuses from occurring in the first place.
Is it just me, or is corruption and abuse of power in Virginia getting more frequent and more audacious these days?
— JAB
