KIUC Rapid Response PR Team

SUBHEAD: Contrary to the belief of KIUC, board members are free individuals with the full rights of U.S. citizens.

  By Brad Parsons on 6 October 2009 in Aloha Analytics - 
  http://alohaanalytics.blogspot.com/2009/10/kiucs-rapid-response-pr-team.html 

  
Image above: Kenneth Lay, former CEO of former Enron as corporate PR flack in 2002. From Business Week's "Ten Worst PR Disasters"  

From the article quoted below, Re: "Director Stewart “Stu” Burley disagreed, saying that after the rate case filing was approved, board members should not voice their personal opinions...
 
It is common practice for a person in some capacity with a larger group, company, or organization to state in public that they are speaking for themselves and not in their capacity with the larger organization before they speak. This should be allowed for all individuals, as it is a First Amendment Right, regardless of whether they are on a Board such as the KIUC Board of Directors. Stu Burley's quoted position above is PATENTLY WRONG. 
 
Individual KIUC Board members SHOULD be able to voice their personal opinions even if it is counter to Board decisions. It is especially concerning that the KIUC Board apparently voted to put Stu Burley in charge of the Committee to determine policy on this point. 
 
Regardless of whatever misguided policy that committee comes up with, KIUC Board Members are Constitutionally free to speak in public of their own positions on KIUC matters as long as they qualify that they are "speaking for themselves and 'not in their capacity with KIUC.'" By the way, KIUC already has two full-time paid public relations employees in-house. 
 
This new KIUC Committee with more employees than Board members looks more like an effort to beef up quicker counter-response to public comments rather than an effort to endorse wider latitude in Board of Directors verbal interactions with the public/members. 
 
 A rapid response PR team won't help if the underlying policies, plans, and lack of actions are intellectually 'bankrupt.'

KIUC reviews communication policy  

By Michael Levine on 6 September 2009 in The Garden Island News - http://www.kauaiworld.com/articles/2009/10/06/news/kauai_news/doc4acaf5f779063590603876.txt  

Public frustration with the “invariable and inflexible” voice coming out of the Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative office and the perceived lack of debate by the Board of Directors on important issues could change the way KIUC communicates with its members. “From the outside, we see very little critical discourse, healthy disagreement on positions within the board, and diversity of opinion,” said Malama Kaua‘i’s Andrea Brower in prepared testimony at KIUC’s monthly board meeting last week. “Communicated and integrated diversity of opinion amongst the board, staff, and members at large will allow for more open-minded and flexible decision-making,” Brower said. “This is difficult to achieve if you always have to speak in a single unified voice.” 

Brower specifically pointed to dissatisfaction with KIUC’s rate case, which featured a public hearing with the Public Utilities Commission in late August at which some members complained about the direction of their utility company and the reluctance to move toward renewable energies.  

Director Carol Bain said dialogue occurs between directors at workshops that do not have minutes or transcripts available to the public, and she eventually suggested that the board consider hiring a communications consultant to help directors talk directly to KIUC members. Director Ben Sullivan, who seconded Bain’s motion for discussion purposes, said some level of disagreement is healthy, and that failing to share the debate with the public could hurt the board’s credibility. “We can benefit from loosening it up,” he said, saying that the fear the open communication would undermine the process is unfounded. 

 Director Stewart “Stu” Burley disagreed, saying that after the rate case filing was approved, board members should not voice their personal opinions, and KIUC President and CEO Randy Hee said that his communications staff report on the board’s final decision and not individual views. Attorney David Proudfoot said there is a difference between engagement and information, and said there are limits to member participation. 

Essentially, he said, members participate by voting directors into office, and the board’s decision-making process is “not a town meeting, unfortunately.” Directors and staff agreed at the meeting that there is no gag order that precludes directors from voicing their opinions to the public. Board Chair Teofilo “Phil” Tacbian said the majority rules but the minority’s rights are respected, then appointed Burley to a Communications Committee also featuring KIUC staff. Sullivan said he hoped Bain — who has been “vigorous” about communication issues — would get the appointment instead. 

After the board took a recess for Proudfoot to arrange for ballots for a vote on the appointment, Hee said the original plan was to have a staff-only committee to respond to rapidly respond to member concerns, and Tacbian withdrew his appointment. Bain also withdrew her motion for an outside consultant. The board did not announce at the meeting which members of the staff will serve on the Communications Committee.

See also: 
Ea O Ka Aina: Calls for KIUC cost cutting 9/5/09  
Ea O Ka Aina: KIUC's PUC hearing 8/10/09  
Ea O Ka Aina: KIUC $75 million Gen X plant 8/1/09 

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