Fayette County Commission sued, passes defined benefit program and county attorney gets nasty with reporter...

Interesting "doings" at the Fayette County Commission chambers Thursday. The Commission voted to hire GEBCorp to manage the new defined benefit (DB) program for county employees at the evening Commission meeting (3 yes, 1 abstention, 1 no). In late 2007 Eric Maxwell, Herb Frady, Jack Smith and Robert Horgan voted to implement a DB program (former Commissioner Peter Pfeifer opposed).

GEBCorp is the company that initially helped the Commission study committee determine the feasibility of moving from the current award-winning retirement plan to a defined benefit plan.

After the meeting the County Attorney Scott Bennett asked reporters to step into his office. When yours truly walked back the attorney got nasty. He noted I'd written some bad things about him back when the Commission hired him and so he didn't want to talk with me. He said more -- and I'll be sharing more about it later.

Christine (Chris) Venice, former County Administrator filed a sexual discrimination lawsuit against the county earlier this week. Venice was let go without cause in April 2007. Attorney Harlan Stuart Miller III, an Atlanta attorney, is representing Venice.

The suit asks for damages resulting from breach of contract, lost retirement / pension benefits, back wages and other issues.

Since the County's spokesperson in legal matters, Scott Bennett, refused to talk with me I talked to Jack Krakeel, the current County Administrator who stated he had no knowledge of the suit beyond knowing it was filed.

Krakeel referred me to County Chairman Jack Smith who initially referred me to their attorney, but spoke to me when I indicated the attorney had refused to talk with me.

Smith said he was informed of the lawsuit this evening via email, just finding out around 6:15. He had not had time to delve into the details.

- jmd

Governor Releases Friday Fuel Update

Governor Sonny Perdue today released the latest information on fuel production from the Gulf of Mexico:

Power outages – There are still more than 410,000 people without power in Texas, including some fuel production facilities. Crews are making rapid progress restoring power – yesterday about 485,000 people were reported without power.

Percent “shut-in” – The U.S. Department of Energy reports 59.3 percent of crude oil production capacity in the Gulf of Mexico is out. This is a slight improvement from yesterday, when 62.5 percent of capacity was out. On Monday, September 22, 89.2 percent of capacity was out.

Refineries – About half of Gulf refineries are considered “back to normal” while the other half are at varying stages of returning to normal production.

On September 25, the U.S. Department of Energy stated that it is delivering 500,000 barrels of emergency exchange oil to Citgo’s refinery at Lake Charles, LA and 150,000 barrels to Alon’s Krotz Springs, LA refinery. From September 8 through September 25, DOE released 3.949 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) due to disruptions from hurricanes Gustav and Ike.

“Today’s figures show improvement in both the efforts to get power restored in Texas and increasing the crude oil production capacity in the Gulf,” Governor Perdue said. “While these numbers are encouraging, they also show we are still not close to full production resuming. I want to encourage Georgians to continue to do what they can to conserve fuel.”

Governor Perdue also today extended a previous Executive Order which allows larger shipments of fuel into the state. A copy of the Executive Order is attached.

The Georgia Environmental Authorities Authority has added a page to its website in order to provide Georgians with information about gas prices and gas availability. Consumers can access this information by going www.gefa.org and looking under the News and Notices section.

Some practical fuel efficiency tips for drivers include:

· Drive sensibly: Speeding, rapid acceleration (jackrabbit starts), and rapid braking lowers gas mileage.
· Choose the right vehicle: If you own more than one vehicle, drive the one that gets better gas mileage whenever possible.
· Decrease speed: Gas mileage decreases rapidly when driving more than 60 miles-per-hour.
· Avoid idling: Idling gets zero miles per gallon. Cars with larger engines typically waste more gas while idling than cars with smaller engines.
· Commute alternatives are also a useful way to conserve fuel, including telework, carpool and transit options, and flexible work schedules. More information is available about commute alternatives at www.CleanAirCampaign.com.

These figures above come from the Department of Energy’s daily situation report. The complete report is available at: http://www.oe.netl.doe.gov/docs/2008_SitRep_19_Ike_092608_12PM.pdf .
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