More answers needed for Water Board
Published 11:46 pm Saturday, March 21, 2009
The lifting of a temporary injunction last week over Council President Dr. Geraldine Allen’s ability to sit on the Selma Water and Sewer Board should place this body in good stead to get on with its business without any further ado.
Now that one shade has been lifted, we’re looking for answers about the other cloud that hangs over this body.
Last July, the Alabama Examiner of Public Accounts released findings that showed some water board members prior to the changes in administration were overpaid. The study indicated that some of the directors, including former superintendent James Perkins Jr. and directors Lee E. Goodwin, Bennie Ruth Crenshaw and former directors Johnnie M. Leashore and Samuel Randolph were overpaid thousands of dollars in salary.
The investigation was prompted through a request from the state attorney general’s office, which has to date done nothing to recover the overpayments. It’s time now for the attorney general to either demand the payment of the money owed back to the water board and the citizens of Selma or to say that the study was wrong and apologize to the directors and the citizens of Selma.
The water board cannot truly operate in an open and efficient manner with more questions of impropriety hanging over it.