New PWSA director’s job history comes into question
Hired this week to get Pittsburgh’s water system flowing smoothly, Kenneth Charles Griffin’s denied Thursday that he was terminated from a similar job in 2013, despite multiple accounts and documents of his dismissal.
The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority late Wednesday afternoon announced the hire, as its director, of Mr. Griffin, now the top administrator for King William County, Virginia.
“From a professional standpoint, yes, there are challenges” at Pittsburgh’s water system, Mr. Griffin said. “Those are challenges that I am fortunate to have solved in past years for other utilities.”
Asked about his tenure as general manager at the BeaufortJasper Water & Sewer Authority, a job he held from 2011 to January 2013, Mr. Griffin said he “resigned from Beaufort-Jasper. My wife had an incredible offer in Virginia that she wanted to accept.
“She took that offer, and I did resign from Beaufort-Jasper.”
Minutes from the BeaufortJasper board’s Jan. 24, 2013, meeting, though, indicate that following an executive session, there was a motion “to terminate General Manager Ken Griffin,” which passed unanimously. Several South Carolina newspapers reported that he was fired. Lawyers for the Beaufort-Jasper Water & Sewer Authority wrote in a letter to a reporter that “requested information pertaining to Mr. Griffin’s termination” would not be disclosed because doing so would “constitute an unreasonable invasion of personal privacy.”
“He was terminated,” said William R. “Skeet” Van Harten, a longtime member of the BeaufortJasper authority’s board, in an interview with the Pittsburgh PostGazette. “His performance was unsatisfactory to our needs,” he said, explaining that Mr. Griffin didn’t get along well with other staff.
Told of Mr. Van Harten’s statement, Mr. Griffin said, “I promise you, I resigned.”
After the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette asked about the reports, Mayor Bill Peduto called for “full accountability from the [Pittsburgh water] board in regards to the vetting and hiring process.” He called for “a complete and detailed explanation of the circumstances regarding any possible error or omission.”
The Pittsburgh authority then issued a six-line statement that Mr. Griffin “provided a full resume detailing all of his positions, educational and professional achievements dating back 25 years.” The authority, according to the
statement, checked references, “all of which were very positive,” and commissioned a background check, “which cleared.”
Mr. Griffin, according to the statement, “has advised us that he resigned” from one of the positions, presumably at Beaufort Jasper.
Just one Pittsburgh authority board member, Michael Weber, could be reached by phone Thursday, and he said he had not heard about Dr. Griffin’s position at the Beaufort-Jasper authority.
Mr. Griffin’s resume, released Thursday afternoon, indicated a string of waterrelated management jobs throughout the South.
“He was always a tasker. He gave people assignments and held them responsible for execution,” said John Sigman, general manager for the Pearl River Valley Water Supply District, where Mr. Griffin worked from 1993 to 2006. In an interview, Mr. Sigman said that Mr. Griffin dealt ably with the effects of Hurricane Katrina on the area’s water system in 2005. “He’s very energetic, and the people that worked with him and around him, he was always challenging them to do better and asking them for advice and holding them responsible for tasks.”
Mr. Griffin said he intends to start in Pittsburgh at the end of August. He will be paid $190,000 a year.
He takes over an agency that, over a decade, faced spiraling debt and bad investment bets, leaky pipes, an illegal line insurance arrangement, flooding sewers and an inability to regularly bill customers that pay it for sewer service.
Mr. Griffin takes over for interim Executive Director David L. Donahoe, who had filled the role after the previous executive director, Jim Good, resigned as the agency was dogged by customer complaints.
“I’ve successfully brought on three advanced metering infrastructure solutions,” Mr. Griffin said. “I very definitely have that experience.”
This month the state Department of Environmental Protection ordered the authority to start a program to replace its lead water lines following elevated test results.
Mr. Griffin said he has also been able to “avoid situations where water had sufficient corrosivity to cause any problems with lead and copper levels.”