My introduction to Tim Echols was via an email he sent explaining his thoughts about legislative intent.
He then asked the spokesman of the Georgia Public Service Commission to dig into the state legislature’s archives and dig up a two-hour debate over legislative intent, circa 1990-something.
It was clear that Echols was serious about his job overseeing the state’s regulated electric, gas and telephone companies — which happened to include the nation’s major players of Southern Co., and AT&T.
Echols talked up ethics: he wasn’t going take even a bottle of water from a lobbyist who did business before the PSC. He was, however, going to do what he could to raise the stature of the Georgia Public Service Commission. After requesting his expense reports and correspondence, I quickly realized that “raising the stature” meant traveling the state, arranging radio, TV and newspaper interviews and writing the Augusta National Golf Club to request practice-round passes to the Masters.
Echols didn’t break any laws. He did raise some eyebrows, however.
State utility commissioner’s pursuit of Masters tickets improper, critics say
Georgia Public Service Commissioner Tim Echols began criticizing his fellow commissioners for being too cozy with lobbyists even before he took office.
“I am uncomfortable taking admission, taking tickets to sporting events from those that I regulate,” he said.
Yet, using official Public Service Commission letterhead, Echols went straight to the Augusta National Golf Club to request two complimentary practice round tickets to this year’s Masters, long after tickets had been distributed to one of the world’s most prestigious golf tournaments through a lottery system.
After more than a week passed without a response, Echols informed the club that he planned to do some regulating.
Echols has since said that he should not have asked for the tickets because of the “appearance of impropriety.” Experts say Echols’ letters broke no laws but agree there’s a concern about appearances.
“It’s clear that he’s trying to use the office as if there’s some royal entitlement to complimentary tickets,” said Emmet Bondurant, an Atlanta lawyer whose specialties include ethics cases.
It’s common for state officials, including other public service commissioners, to attend the Masters. PSC Chairman Stan Wise has received practice-round tickets through the tournament’s lottery system. He and Commissioner Lauren McDonald also have attended as guests of AT&T lobbyists, according to reports on the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission’s website. Commissioners Chuck Eaton and Doug Everett also received tickets from AT&T lobbyists a couple of years ago, and each went after paying his own way.
Echols chose to take a different route.
“As a statewide elected official,” Echols wrote in a March 7 letter on PSC stationery, “I would welcome the opportunity to visit with constituents and guests in our state.” He also pointed out in the letter, which he provided to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, that the PSC “regulates energy, telecom and transportation.”
Echols’ request for tickets, which cost $36 apiece this year, came more than 11 months after the May 1 cutoff for entry into the ticket lottery.
After getting no response to the March 7 letter, Echols sent a follow-up letter March 16 to Augusta National’s executive director, Jim Armstrong, announcing: “My intention is to spot check limousines that are serving patrons and professionals to make sure that these limousines are properly registered with the state of Georgia.”
In that letter, Echols wanted access to the grounds of Augusta National during the early rounds of the tournament so he could, with an armed Department of Public Safety official, check limo drivers to see whether they were properly licensed with the state. Augusta National denied Echols access, and he later called off the operation after pressure from other commissioners.
“I don’t know that there has been another public service commissioner to be so aggressive in the transportation sector with enforcement as I was trying to be, and my fellow commissioners were uncomfortable with me pursuing rogue companies so aggressively,” Echols said. “… I take my position as transportation chair of the Public Service Commission very seriously and want to serve these groups of people in the best way that I possibly can.”
Echols has conducted similar checks in the past at high school proms. He also ran a “sting” on buses during the 93rd PGA Championship earlier this month at the Atlanta Athletic Club.
For the Masters, Echols said he was concerned about limo companies from South Carolina trying to take business away from Georgia-based companies. He was not acting on any complaints from Augusta National about unauthorized limos.
“It was just a large, public event where I knew there would be a lot of executives and a lot of limos,” he said.
Echols said he went directly to the venue because “I don’t want to be beholden to any lobbyist, especially any lobbyist that I regulate.”
While Echols may not have any regulatory powers over Augusta National, it’s possible several of the prestigious club’s members are subject to such oversight. Augusta National is tight-lipped about its membership, but a list of members published in 2002 by USA Today included five current or retired employees of AT&T. The telecom giant does business before the PSC, although the agency does not regulate AT&T’s rates.
A day after being contacted by an AJC reporter, Echols revised his comments about his pursuit of tickets.
“In retrospect, I should not have sent the letter regarding the Masters tickets because it gives the appearance of impropriety,” he said.
Lawyers and state ethics advocates agree that because the PSC does not regulate Augusta National or golf tournaments, Echols’ request for tickets doesn’t violate an ethics policy.
But they do say it falls into a gray area.
“How many constituents from Georgia can really make it to a Masters event?” asked Melanie Sloan, executive director of the Washington-based Citizens for Responsibility for Ethics. She said asking for the tickets was “inappropriate.”
Echols said he wanted to attend the practice rounds because he thought it could benefit the PSC.
“It could be helpful in raising the stature of the Public Service Commission, especially in the Augusta area, which is so close to Plant Vogtle,” Echols said, referring to the nuclear plant near Augusta that Georgia Power is currently expanding.
Echols has used similar arguments in the past to justify trips at taxpayers’ expense to events such as the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Savannah.
William Perry, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, questions Echols’ need to attend such gatherings.
“You don’t have to go to a high-profile public event in order to meet with and interact with constituents,” he said. “You can go to the grocery store across the street and meet citizens in the parking lot and talk to them.”
PSC member draws questions over expenses
Commissioner defends trips, more than $12,300 in reimbursements
In his short term in office, Public Service Commissioner Tim Echols has billed for expenses in excess of $12,300, nearly doubling the spending of the commissioner with the next highest amount and leaving his colleagues to question the legitimacy of his nonstop travel.
He says his “strenuous speaking schedule” and travel are intended to raise the stature of the Public Service Commission, which he believes is part of his job as a commissioner.
Since he took office in January, Echols’ billings for mileage, hotels and meals have included $1,231.42 for a trip to Savannah to showcase his personal compressed natural gas-fueled car in a St. Patrick’s Day parade; $337.62 to Albany for nuclear waste meetings, which coincided with his daughter’s track meet there; and $79.05 in mileage from his Winterville home to the Woodruff Arts Center because he wore a gold PSC name badge and represented the agency.
There have been additional trips to Brunswick, St. Simons and Ossabaw islands, some of them including members of his family.
Echols’ latest venture involves an all-day excursion July 29 on the SAM Shortline Railway; Dubbed “the Solar Express,” he has arranged for seven solar manufacturers to explain sun-fueled energy while riding the train through southwest Georgia. To help set up the event, Echols took his children on a train ride and billed the state for $173.40 in mileage in April.
The publicity he seeks and receives on the trips and his expense reports have drawn criticism from watchdogs, lobbyists and other commissioners. When other members of the PSC were asked for comments on Echols’ travel, they deferred to Chairman Stan Wise, who said it might be time to set a limit on expenses for members of the commission.
“With expense records being public and open to scrutiny, I hesitate to dictate how each elected commissioner performs his duties, but it seems some new controls are now in order,” Wise said of Echols’ expenses.
Echols contends his spending and travel are necessary for him to do his job, which is to serve as a consumer watchdog over the pricing and reliability of telecommunications, transportation, and electric and natural gas services, among others, for Georgians.
“If I don’t go to Albany and to Brunswick and Savannah and Chattanooga and Augusta and Macon, and all the media markets, it is impossible to me to fulfill my goal of increasing the stature of the commission,” said Echols, who was formerly an adviser to former Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine and founder of the nonprofit TeenPact and owner of the for-profit Gold Dome Consulting.
“This is my theory: By increasing the public awareness of the commission, the end result will be a better relationship with the Legislature, greater funding for the commission and voters, and citizens would be able to see that the Public Service Commission can help them out with more things.”
Echols has dwarfed the next-highest PSC expense amounts filed this year, with commissioners Lauren McDonald and Doug Everett submitting $7,747 and $6,169, respectively. McDonald lives in Habersham County and Everett in Albany, and each official bills for mileage to and from the office.
Wise has filed for just $440, covering his stay at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville while attending a Georgia Telephone Association meeting; the chairman has chosen to drive a state vehicle, which is available to all commissioners. Chuck Eaton, a commissioner who lives in Atlanta, has not turned in any expenses with the PSC this year.
The commission is left to police itself and its spending, and, as Wise mentioned, stronger restraints could be imposed because of the board newcomer’s expenses.
William Perry, Common Cause Georgia executive director, doesn’t see a glaring violation of the state’s Ethics in Government Act in Echols’ actions, but he recognizes why the regulator’s business trips have drawn scrutiny.
“Such examples of elected officials traveling at state expense while with their family might give the appearance of impropriety,” Perry said. “I recognize that the PSC performs an essential function, and the public’s awareness of their work is something that definitely needs to be raised.
“However, I think it’s incumbent to make sure that reasonable and relevant expenses are incurred.”
“It’s cases like these why we are pushing for tough ethics reform, so we can close these loopholes like this,” said Debbie Dooley, co-founder of the Georgia Tea Party Patriots.
Echols’ enthusiastic use of media events has rankled co-workers, who see his actions as showboating. However, Echols views this as a necessary means to make things happen, such as boost the economy of southwest Georgia and save its rail line, while boosting the PSC’s profile.
He leans heavily on that argument to justify his travel, speaking engagements and radio, TV and newspaper interviews.
“When I talk about rail, I kind of put on my state leader’s hat,” Echols said. “I kind of take my PSC hat off, and I put my state leader hat on, and I say, ‘How can I use my bully pulpit? How can I use my influence as a state leader to better the life of citizens in towns where their economy is hurting?’ ”
With his energy and visibility, Echols has his supporters.
“He’s fantastic to work with,” John Garrett of the Georgia Motorcoach Operators Association said.
“I hope one day he becomes governor,” Jeff Greene of the Georgia Limousine Association said.
Echols’ trip to Albany has brought him the most criticism because it included a family event. He spoke at the GOP state convention, dined with former President Jimmy Carter and participated in media interviews regarding nuclear waste. Yet the interviews were conducted at Hugh Mills Stadium, where his daughter was participating in a high school track meet.
Echols said his daughter didn’t travel or stay with him, and that he was lodged in Americus and paid for the hotel out of campaign funds. Yet he maintained he had the right to bill the PSC for the trip if he wanted, saying, “I felt like I did enough business to justify it.”
On that trip, Echols met Patrick Parker, owner of Parker’s gas outlet and convenience store on St. Simons Island. The store’s roof is covered in solar panels, which drew Echols’ interest. That led to the commissioner taking weekend trips to St. Simons in late May and early June, one to plan a news conference about solar energy and the other to hold the media event at the gas station.
Echols’ sons traveled with him on the first trip, and the family stayed in a hotel paid for by campaign funds — $431.48, according to the latest disclosures filed with the state. On the second trip, Echols had his wife and daughter join him. He expensed the mileage, hotel and his meals — $338.06.
Echols said the trips were business-worthy because they drew the attention of two Savannah TV stations, three newspapers and city and business leaders.
Echols’ son drove the CNG car in Savannah’s St. Patrick’s Day parade while the commissioner worked the crowd, pointing to the car and the compressed natural gas label that included his name. Echols later billed the state for $243.78 in mileage and $374.43 in hotels. Other PSC members have taken part in previous parades, but they paid for the excursions out of their own pockets.
The embattled commissioner concedes he has created conflict and doesn’t criticize the questions sent his way. Yet he admits to no wrongdoing, suggesting only that people need to adjust to him and his well-intentioned actions.
“I’m not going to compromise my principles with anyone,” Echols said. “But I do want to give people time to learn how to work with me, appreciate my style and to see the fruit of my tireless labor out on the road, and I hope that in time people see that.”
That said, Echols has lined up a 10-day trip to France next year to tour some of the country’s 52 nuclear plants and learn how that industry handles spent fuel. He will pay for the trip out of campaign funds rather than expense it.
BizWriterKristi 