Business partners

So long, Lil' Entergy. 

Charles Rice, the embattled president and CEO of Entergy New Orleans, will step down Monday and take a lesser role, part of a broader damage-control effort by a company that's been mired in controversy for months.

Entergy Corp., the local utility's parent company, said Friday that it will launch a national search to replace Rice, who will join the company’s legal department.

In the meantime, Rod West, who serves as Entergy Corp.'s group president for utility operations, will take on Rice’s duties on an interim basis. He was president of Entergy New Orleans before Rice took the job.

I'm thinking about applying for this job.  All they can say is no. That's the worst that can happen, right?  Actually they could hire me, promise me a raise, and then immediately fire me. That might be worse. But that's a story for later. For the time being, it is a job for Big Entergy.

West attended a City Council committee meeting Thursday and pledged to improve relations with the council, acknowledging that the company had not moved quickly enough to acquire renewable energy sources or to address frequent power outages. He also said the company had done a poor job communicating with the public about the proposed rate increase, and acknowledged its power grid reliability is substandard.

"Entergy New Orleans wants to be a good and constructive business partner in this city," West said. "And we intend to win your trust back."

City Councilman Jay Banks said he saw West's appearance on Thursday as a harbinger of things to come, comparing his council visit to a father having to go to his son's school to deal with an issue.

"If 'big Entergy' had to step in, that did not look good for Charles," Banks said.

City Councilwoman Helena Moreno also found West's appearance curious, asking him why he had asked to appear before the council instead of Rice. West told her he represented the entire corporation, saying, "I felt that given the seriousness of our relationship, our presence here as a corporate partner, you need to hear from the corporation today."

Big Entergy Rod wants to be a "constructive business partner." That seems nice.  But really we'd just like him to keep the power on.  Imagine a world where the governmental function of providing people with basic necessities like power and water didn't have anything to do with "business partnerships."  Sounds impossible, right?  It's not a world that would have a lot of use for Charles Rice, anyway.

There are a lot of interesting Charles Rice stories but I think my favorite one comes from the time he served as Nagin's CAO.  Remember Ray Nagin? That was the guy we elected specifically because it was fashionable for the mayor to be a really good business guy. Anyway, the Nagin Administration bought these fancy "bombproof" garbage cans. Nobody knows if they ever prevented a terrorist attack or anything. But they did make for a productive business partnership.. with Charles Rice's brother.

The trash cans were controversial when they were installed, though the controversy had nothing to do with their size. The problem was that the company that supplied them, Niche Marketing USA, acknowledged a business relationship with Terrence Rice, Charles Rice's brother -- though the Rices have denied the link.

The deal was also a demonstrably bad one.

Typically, companies that deal in trash can advertising supply the cans for free to cities -- and give cities as much as 25 percent of the ad revenue as well.

Niche Marketing not only charged New Orleans full price for the cans, it promised the city only 15 percent of the ad revenue. Because of poor ad sales and the cans' short life span on New Orleans' streets, the city's return worked out to only about $6,000.

Anyway, Rice isn't actually leaving Entergy. He's just being reshuffled back to the legal department so the new CEO can continue to benefit from his experience.