TVA board to Trump: Bug off
Although most of the directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority were appointed to oversee TVA by President Donald Trump, the board is taking exception to Trump’s claim that TVA’s top salaries are “ridiculous” and should be cut.
“We are fully supportive of Jeff [Lyash] and of the entire TVA team,” TVA Chairman Skip Thompson said in a memo Thursday to TVA employees. “It’s unfortunate that ill-informed opinions are now distracting us from our focus on providing reliable power and other vital services during this challenging time.”
He was referring to the current effort in Congress and by the Trump administration to reduce what TVA pays Lyash, its president and CEO – the nation’s highest paid government worker, whose 2019 compensation of $8.16 million included $5.97 million in future pension pay and a $380,000 signing bonus.
What’s more, there’s not much the president can do about it – at least not in the short term. TVA as a federal corporation no longer gets any taxpayer support from the government and relies entirely upon the sale of its electricity in its 7-state region to pay Lyash and its other bills. TVA also is an independent agency governed by its own board that is nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Congress can conduct oversight hearings and could change the TVA Act, but the president cannot directly dictate TVA policies or pay.
Thompson, who was appointed by Trump to the 9-member, part-time board in 2017, said the board “takes its oversight of TVA operations very seriously, including our role in determining appropriate compensation.”
Tyson’s chicken plant shame
In Camilla, Georgia, a Tyson poultry plant worker’s death from the new coronavirus highlights concern about the rising spread of the disease in meat plants.
At the plant, southwest of Macon, the company offered its 2,100 workers a $500 bonus if they worked in April, May and June without missing a day.
Forget the CDC advice about staying home if you feel sick. And Annie Grant, 55, had felt sick. In fact she had been feverish for two nights, and her adult children had begged her to stay home rather than return to the frigid poultry plant where she had worked on the packing line for nearly 15 years. Her children told The New York Times that on the third day she was ill, they got a text from her: “They told me I had to come back to work,” the text said.
The Times wrote: “‘My mom said the guy at the plant said they had to work to feed America. But my mom was sick,’ said one of Ms. Grant’s sons, Willie Martin, 34, a teacher in South Carolina. He said he watched on his phone as his mother took her last breath.”
She returned home anyway, and died in a hospital Thursday after fighting for her life on a ventilator for more than a week. Two other workers at the same plant have died in recent days, according to The Times. Workers have come down with Covid-19 in several other poultry plants in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee.
Public health experts say there is no evidence the coronavirus can be transmitted through food, but have advised consumers to wipe down packaging because the virus could survive on those surfaces for days.
The day the music died
The southern Cumberland Plateau heart of Appalachian music – Mountain Opry in Walden – has officially closed its doors. The last show was March 28.
Its loss is partly due to the new coronavirus and social distancing, but also due simply to time.
“The building is 100 years old and shows it, and I’m 86 and tired,” Ken Holloway said last week. Holloway has been a part of the iconic Friday night tradition of pickin’ and grinnin’ at Mountain Orpy since its beginning 40 years ago. He has been a performer, the emcee and the guy who sets up before it starts and cleans up when it’s over.
Every week, except for special occasions, whoever showed up and wanted to play could take the stage. Some of those were cool groups like the Dismembered Tennesseans, The Lovell Sisters, and Larkin Poe, back when they were cool before they were cool. The venue would hold 250, and got that many in better times.
But now the building needs a lot of work, and Holloway worries about safety when large crowds gather inside.
“I’m about to replace part of the roof, or have it done, when this virus thing is over,” he told Courter.
Here’s an idea. Given the building’s age and history, let’s nominate it for inclusion on the state or even national historic registers.
Local historian James Douthat confirms that it was the Walden’s Ridge Civic Center before it became the Mountain Opry. And before that it was built by the community as an auditorium for Fairmount Elementary School, which was opened around 1911 and ceased operating when Bachman School opened in 1938. In the meantime the building long served as a polling place, and many a Walden’s Ridge vote has been cast there.
Long live the Mountain Opry.