A hangman’s noose in the boss’ office

10 Comments

1. 

   chocolate ink on October 13, 2007 at 3:47 pm

   I followed the photo link..pretty unbelievable that nothing has been done so far.  Also followed a link concerning good old boy George Allen.  I didn’t know that he had kept a noose in his office and also at his home with a confederate flag..he said the nooses were just part of his cowboy image, yeah right. And I see Fred Thompson has hired Allen to help with his campaign-which no doubt tells us where Thompson’s values are at.

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     supersoling on October 13, 2007 at 7:26 pm

     hi Chocolate Ink,

     you would think that no one would want to touch George Allen with a ten foot pole after what got revealed about him last year and how badly he flamed out in the election, but I guess it just goes to show how absolutely regressive and obnoxiously arrogant republicans can be. The worst part is that they’ve been so sucessful with it and that doesn’t happen by itself.

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       chocolate ink on October 14, 2007 at 7:04 pm

       Hi super, I have to admit even as cynical as I’ve become the hiring of Allen took me a bit by surprise.  You’d think I’d know by now to never underestimate all those sick puppies who call themselves republicans.  I read Lynn Cheney is on aboard with Thompson also.  Thompson seems dumb as a post so I’m thinking the Cheney’s would like him to win and then they could keep control of the WH…working behind the scenes as usual.

2. 

   skippybkroo on October 13, 2007 at 10:49 pm

   skippy reports on a number of noose sightings around the country.

3. 

   PDiddie on October 15, 2007 at 5:33 am

   An International Union Representative of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), representing employees of CPS Energy, will make a public statement and take questions from the press concerning the recent discovery that a manager at CPS Energy keeps a hangman’s noose with Ku Klux Klan symbolism in his office. The press conference will take place on Monday, October 15, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. in front of the CPS Energy office at 145 Navarro Street (San Antonio, TX).

   An employee discovered the hangman’s noose, photographed it, and informed representatives of the IBEW.  A number of minority employees at CPS Energy have suffered adverse personnel actions in recent months and have complained of discrimination. In addition, Union members throughout the CPS Energy workforce have been complaining for months about management’s disregard of established working conditions and acts of retaliation against employees who assert their rights. On October 10, the IBEW’s International Representative was refused entry to CPS Energy offices to meet with management to discuss the deteriorating working conditions at CPS Energy on behalf of employees.

   Ralph Merriweather, IBEW International Representative, stated, “The hangman’s noose is the tip of the iceberg. There is a management culture of repression and vindictiveness toward employees throughout CPS Energy. No community can tolerate this kind of hatefulness in a public agency.” Merriweather will address the issue more fully in the Monday morning press conference.

   CONTACT: David Van Os, Attorney for IBEW, (210) 821-1700 or (210) 332-7070.

4. 

   dksbook on October 15, 2007 at 8:13 am

   Do we have a list of the CPS Board?

5. 

   PDiddie on October 15, 2007 at 9:55 am

   http://www.cpsenergy.com/content_listInternet.asp?cont_id=5184&elmt_id=12

   Members of the Board of Trustees, bios, relevant data as to their selection:

   “All vacancies on the Board, excluding the Mayor of San Antonio, are filled by a majority vote of the remaining trustees, including the mayor. Trustees must be ratified by the City Council of San Antonio.”

   It is municipal owned but they don’t trust the Citizens of San Antonio to directly elect the trustees.

   Current Chair of the CPS Energy Board of Trustees is CPA Stephen S. Hennigan, senior vice president and chief financial officer for San Antonio Federal Credit Union. Hennigan has represented the northeast quadrant of the CPS Energy service area since June 1, 2001, and serves on the Board’s Audit Committee.

   Trustee Aurora Geis, director of the Fannie Mae San Antonio Partnership Office, represents the northwest quadrant of San Antonio and is vice chair of the the CPS Energy Board of Trustees. Geis holds a bachelor of science degree in business management from LeTourneau University and has almost 20 years’ experience in mortgage lending and housing, plus neighborhood and economic development.

   She is president of the San Antonio Mortgage Bankers Association.

   Alvaro Sanchez Jr. represents San Antonio’s southwestern quadrant and serves on the Board’s Personnel Committee. A member of the Board since March 1999, Sanchez has previously served as vice chairman and chairman. Sanchez served as chief of Base Realignment and Closure at Kelly AFB.

   Clayton T. Gay, Jr. has represented the southeastern quadrant of the CPS Energy service area since February 1998 and serves on the Board’s Audit Committee. On Jan. 23, 2003, the San Antonio City Council unanimously ratified Gay’s election to his second five-year term on the Board. Under the Board’s rotating chairmanship, Gay has served as vice chairman and chairman of the CPS Energy Board of Trustees twice.  Retired from Civil Service at Kelly Air Force Base, Gay is currently self-employed as a Certified Public Accountant. He worked at the Internal Revenue Service prior to his career at Kelly AFB. For a short time in the late 1970s, he worked for CPS Energy as a financial management executive. (He is the only African American on the Board of Trustees).

   As current mayor of San Antonio, Phil Hardberger is an ex-officio member of the Board. He will remain on the Board through the end of his mayoral term.

   One seat is vacant. The five-member CPS Energy Board of Trustees includes a representative from each quadrant of the CPS Energy service territory (northeast, northwest, southeast and southwest), as well as the Mayor of the City of San Antonio.
   Candidates are being sought to fill a position representing the southeast quadrant of the CPS Energy service territory.

   Note: They are also building a new coal fired power plant. Good ole Zachry Construction is the contractor:

   “J. K. Spruce Power Plant
   Unit 2

   CPS Energy has begun construction of a state-of-the-art, coal-fired power plant on Calaveras Lake.  Unit 2 of the J. K. Spruce Power Plant will be built adjacent to three existing coal units. At 750 megawatts, Spruce 2 will be the largest of the coal units at Calaveras Lake, and it will be equipped with the best-available emissions-control technology, said Jim Nesrsta, CPS Energy’s director of the Spruce 2 Project.

   Calaveras Power Partners (CPP), a team led by Zachry Construction Corp., of San Antonio, has already begun site preparation for the project that is expected to employ a skilled workforce of about 900 people during the four-year construction process and to cost several hundred million dollars.”

6. 

   PDiddie on October 15, 2007 at 3:21 pm

   Spokesperson Paula Gold-Williams called the display “benign”, that it had been displayed for ten years, and that one of the “bibles” was actually a dictionary.

   She would not comment on the employment status of the supervisor.

   Report with video:

   http://www.ksat.com/news/14343309/detail.html

   Includes some comments from this morning’s presser from labor attorney David Van Os, who was the 2006 Democratic candidate for Texas Attorney General.

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     chocolate ink on October 15, 2007 at 3:48 pm

     Benign?  Maybe she should look up benign in the dictionary-one of those bible dictionaries.  So that’s the best excuse they could come up with-that’s almost insulting.

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       eodell on October 15, 2007 at 9:58 pm

       No kidding. On what planet is displaying a noose in one’s office benign? Forget for a moment the racial significance. It’s on a par with displaying firearms and knives. It’s something you just don’t do unless you are — to borrow BostonJoe’s term — batshit loopy.

       The thing that’s really insulting is that in all the offices I’ve worked in, people have frequently been asked to remove some genuinely benign piece of personal decor at one time or another for the flimsiest or most absurd of reasons. The reluctance of management to remove something obviously inappropriate, even if you choose to ignore the historical symbolism, can only indicate their enthusiastic support for the message that it sends.