What happens in the boardroom

The last time we saw Jeff Arnold he was finishing out his term in the legislature while hatching this harebrained scheme to create his own parish by Brexiting Algiers and the West Bank of Jefferson Parish.  Thankfully for a lot of people, Jeff's Wanklandia Parish failed in committee. It wasn't the best news for Arnold, though, since his other gig as a VP of "Governmental Affairs" at FNBC bank was quickly coming to an unhappy end as well.

But don't worry too much about Jeff. There's always someone who can use a good lobbyist with state level experience. One such someone is the Association of Louisiana Electric Cooperatives who scooped up Arnold in 2018.  What are electric cooperatives?  Well here is an Advocate article we noticed today that explains it in a few paragraphs. 

Rural co-ops were begun during the New Deal after shareholder-owned utilities refused to extend service into rural areas. The federal government in the 1930s established a way that the users of the electricity would own the utility.

Eleven rural cooperatives provide power to about a million customers in Louisiana at rates that reimburse expenses without including a profit. Investor-owned utilities, like Entergy Corp., make and sell electricity, charging their customers their expenses plus a profit.

That doesn't sound so bad. Co-ops aren't technically public utilities but they are meant to operate in the spirit of the collective interest. Plus they are overseen by the Public Service Commission in case they ever get out of line.  So, really, they shouldn't need a corporate lobbyist like Jeff Arnold around to defend them unless... oh... wait... 

After discovering that some of the mostly part-time co-op board members were making high salaries and taking lavish trips, the PSC with unusual unanimity for such a fractious board clamped down with an April 2019 order that dictated term limits for board members, determined what constituted a quorum for making decisions, and other restrictions.

So the PSC did have to step in and correct the co-op boards for abusing the trust placed in them by the public.  And that is why the co-ops pay Jeff Arnold the big bucks.  It is so he can advise them when they to court to get off the hook.

The co-ops never argued that the PSC has no right to regulate. But that regulation, under state law, involves only rates charged and services rendered, such as the cost of buying and transmitting electricity, as well as dictating where that power can be sold, Arnold said.

“What the regulators did with their order was reach into the board room and basically tell a private corporation how to govern itself,” Arnold said. “The boardroom is the property of the owners and they choose how many board members, and say what the terms of their jobs are.”

The co-ops are intended to provide an essential public service for its communal owners. They aren't intended to enrich any private entity or individual. But, what happens in the boardroom stays in the boardroom, I guess.  Anyway, the judge ruled in favor of the privateers.

That's great news for them and for Arnold because bigger things are on the horizon. Earlier this week, we learned that the state is considering ways the co-ops can get into the broadband business through the use of federal grant funds. Now that the court has ruled in favor of the grifting board members, it looks like some folks might want to start browsing Tripadvisor again.  Just make sure they stay in the boardroom when they do.