Thursday, September 01, 2005

Cheap Shots and Cheatin' Hearts

Since my posts this week have focused on the public relations' aspects of stories currently receiving media attention, I thought I would continue in that vein to close out the week.

CWLP proposed a 33 percent electric rate hike yesterday, news that warranted front page coverage in the SJ-R. I’m not sure; maybe the timing of the announcement was dictated by the city council agenda. Perhaps they had planned to come out with the proposal weeks ago, but decided to keep it under wraps until they could weather the mild storm stirred up by the story of Todd Renfrow’s spectacular new desk. Whatever the case, I hope that it did occur to someone involved that announcing a major energy rate increase amidst exploding gas prices is not a good way to win public support for your proposal. If they could have waited, even another week, it may have taken some of the sting off of the news.

Based on the article and comments made by Renfrow and CWLP’s Chief Utilities Engineer Jay Bartlett on AM Springfield this morning, it seems that the rate hike is in everyone's best interest. And we can’t really feel too put upon, not when we see the devastation that the residents of New Orleans and other cities ravaged by the hurricane are enduring. But still, bearers of bad news must be sensitive to the current news climate. Unfortunately, for many of us, CWLP’s news was delivered like a chop to the back of the neck after the corner gas station had us doubled over with a blow to the solar plexus.

Lincoln Land Community College is also plagued by some PR problems, although they can hardly be criticized for not anticipating their latest hit, the unexpected resignation of recently hired interim president, John Anderson.

The bigger PR problem LLCC must correct is that their relationships with presidents are starting to sound like a story in a bad country and western song. The school keeps falling for these crooked, unfaithful, and restless men, only to find itself heartbroken and alone yet again. Lord, they’ve been done wrong one too many times. You know it’s bad when even Jack Daniels lets you down. For the kids’ sake, they need to change their ways and hookup with a decent and faithful president before autumn comes and their comeliness fades.

1 comment:

JeromeProphet said...

Not sure exactly where I heard this - maybe CNN, but someone said that the average family in the U.S. will be paying an additional $1000 this year on purchases of anything related to energy (gasoline, natural gas, plastics, anything that had to be transported - essentially everything) because of the disruption in energy supplies.

I sure hope that isn't so, because I like most working americans are living paycheck to paycheck - and don't see where the extra money will come from.

Now to have CWLP demand a 33% increase so we can build a huge powerplant so they can once again delve into the lucrative power selling business is the final straw.

There really needs to be a referendum on this powerplant idea before anything gets started.

JeromeProphet

www.jeromeprophet.blogspot.com