Bach Should Resign! Electric Bill's "Fuel Factor" Goes Up Without Mandatory Calculation
I received a response today from my Sunshine Request: “I would like the documents which show the past four calculations made by the City for the Fuel Factor…”
The City Clerk, Pam Kearbey, emailed me today:
Brian,
There has not been four (4) calculations made by the City on the purchase power adjustment, only two (2). They are attached. Pam
I opened the attachment and my jaw dropped. According to the City Clerk, there has not been an official calculation of the Fuel Factor since 2007. One of the calculations is from 2006 and the other from approximately January 2007.
I verified with Kearbey by asking: “Just to be clear…there have been no calculations since 2006 or early 2007?”
Her reply:
I provided you everything that we have.
Why am I not surprised?
I did some searches of the minutes of City Council over the past five years and found some quotes from our City Manager in December 2011 when they raised the Fuel Factor for the fourth time in as many years:
BAGBY:
Mr. Bach looks at it every six months and when Plum Point comes online next year it may be that we will be able to take that down to zero or a negative.
Really? Of course not, the Fuel Factor went up AGAIN “the next year.”
BAGBY:
We don’t always have a handle on what those costs are going to be on purchase power and Mr. Bach looks at them every six months.
Mr Bagby, maybe the reason you don’t have a handle on it is because your Utilities Manager is arbitrarily increasing the Fuel Factor because he hasn’t properly calculated a proper Fuel Factor since 2007. Who knows how Bach comes up with this exorbitant Fuel Factor which has gone up every year since 2007 and now represents a 30% increase in our residential electric rates?
The City Council should bring Bach before them and ask for his resignation due to gross misconduct, disregard of public policy, increasing of the Fuel Factor without the proper documentation, impersonating a civil servant, mismanagement of electric utility funds, misrepresenting to council that he performed the calculations every six months, and — since the Fuel Factor is not based on actual expenses it is a tax — raising our utility taxes without a vote of the people. BACH SHOULD RESIGN OR BE FIRED!!!!! Where’s Donald Trump when you need him?!?
And to cap the entire day off, the City Council announced today that they are having a special meeting tomorrow (Wednesday @ 4:30) to discuss the possible resignation of Johnny Brannum. Are you kidding? I cannot believe for one minute that Johnny Brannum is resigning.
Let me get this straight…it is uncovered two weeks ago that MU illegally awarded a bid to the wrong bidder and last week that Bill Bach has been, once again, grossly negligent in his official duties and all of a sudden the biggest whistle-blower on City Council is about to resign? No, I don’t believe it.
It was Brannum who led the three votes against giving an extra $250,000 to Bach and Bagby’s buddies in Wisconsin. And don’t forget that Brannum’s entire campaign was about cleaning up the waste of Municipal Utilities and bringing down the electric rates.
If you ask me, Bagby and his cronies are losing control of this little fiefdom and are trying to strong-arm Brannum out the door. That’s the only way this makes any sense.
DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN POPLAR BLUFF – Get out and go to the Special Meeting on Wednesday (May 1) at 4:30 in the Council Chamber. If you care about this city, if you care about your electric bills, if you care about pushing the corruption out then go and speak up at the Citizen Input portion of the meeting and demand the council fire Bach and tell the council how much you support Johnny Brannum.
It is time for us to have some courage and make a difference!!!!!
I was always blaming myself for falling deeply in love with the wrong
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even when he gave me sexual infections that almost ended up my life
because of his womanizing ways, I still love and care for him, he was a
demanding type, all he care about was getting high friends and flirting
around with girls like a celeb. I thought I could change him and be with
him forever because I love him, but all my effort crashed and he
instead wanted to change me his useless lifestyle. I keep praying for
him to change until I was directed my Cousin to contact DR ALEX
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be a normal human being.
Thanks to DR ALEX that broke the evil spell that was cast on him by
his ex because they had a dramatic breakup. I am glad that he has
changed and became a responsible man, the spell brought back his lost
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that I have achieved my goal by changing him to a better man with the
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To Jim. . Were you there when this alleged harassment took place? Sounds to me like they found a city employee to make up a story once again. Why won’t she press charges if this is true??? Why? Because she is lying and can’t go before a judge and raise her right hand.
why do you support alledged sexual harassers brian? i will at least add stipulations to my statements and not parade them around as fact like you do.
“BACH MAKING CITIZENS OVERPAY AT LEAST $2.4 MILLION A YEAR IN EXTRA FUEL FACTOR”
Umm, no. You state in the article you dont know what numbers are used or how its calculated, yet you then make a claim and state it as fact.
Because the sexual harasser “victim” the DAR spoke of is our City Clerk Pam Kearbey. The DAR reported that one week before Kearbey filed her police report, Brannum stated “that he would make a motion on May 6 to fire longtime City Clerk Pam Kearbey.”
So let’s be clear: Johnny was about to bring up a motion to fire Pam Kearbey and within a week, and before he can make the motion, she files a sexual harassment claim against him. And the other letter reported was deemed not sexual harassment 13 years ago or there would have been charges filed.
That is the reason I support Brannum,..because in my opinion they are bogus charges.
I do nor live in Poplar bluff, so I don’t have a say in this. I usually don’t care much for opinion pieces or editorials, but this is your best research and write up Brian and I thank you for your diligence and work exposing this crap.
They had to come up with that extra $250,000 somewhere.