POWERING S.A.

He wants utility run like a business; they want change

Cover: Businessman and CPS trustee Ed Kelley target of activists seeking to shake up utility.

A fight over the future of San Antonio’s energy is underway, and Ed Kelley is sitting at the dead center of the conflict.

Kelley, 79, is among the most prominent of San Antonio’s old guard of business leaders. He’s a veteran of as many city task forces and committees as one can count, often tapped by elected officials because of his executive experience and connections.

No one was surprised when Kelley was named to CPS Energy’s board of trustees in 2011.

And few are surprised that he’s still there — or that he’s become the primary target of environmental activists who are looking to upend the city-owned utility’s governing panel. The Recall CPS campaign is looking to disband CPS’ current board and replace it with one made up of City Council members.

Organizers behind the campaign see Kelley as part of San Antonio’s insular circle of power brokers and elite businesspeople who often lead city initiatives and hold unelected positions of power — such as CPS’ board of trustees.

Kelley “is a relic of the way things used to be governed in this city,” said Meredith McGuire, professor emerita at Trinity University and a member of the Sierra Club, which backs the Recall CPS campaign. “And he’s still trying to pull the same strings as before.”

Kelley, too, is a fighter. He’s sharp-tongued and takes a nononsense, often brusque approach in board meetings. He riles up activists as he focuses laserlike on the utility’s bottom line.

In monthly board meetings, Kelley is often the contrarian voice. Last January, Mayor Ron Nirenberg — who also sits on CPS’ board — called on the utility to establish a rate advisory committee so the public could weigh in on potential rate increases in open meetings.

In nearly every meeting since it was first proposed, Kelley has blasted the committee as an unnecessary “political piece of junk.”

“How much more can we engage with the public?” Kelley said. “We are absolutely overpowered with community input.”

Kelley is one of the bogey men — probably the main one — firing up Recall CPS organizers, who have long complained that the utility doesn’t listen to the public or brushes aside their concerns. But to Kelley, he’s just trying to protect one of San Antonio’s preeminent assets.

For nearly 17 years, Kelley was president of USAA Real Estate Co., heading up the development of the La Cantera shopping mall and resort and landing Six Flags Fiesta Texas. He led the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors in the 1990s and chaired the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation from 2004 to 2005.

Six years after Kelley retired from USAA in 2005, he was appointed to CPS’ five-member board. In January, he’ll enter his 10th and final year on the board.

Trustees are eligible to serve up to two five-year terms.

CPS’ board is self-perpetuating. Its members appoint replacements for outgoing trustees, and City Council votes to approve the new trustees. Trustees apply for a spot on the board, but often private conversations and lobbying — inside and outside the utility — determine who becomes a member.

Kelley insists that CPS Energy must be operated first and foremost as a business — one that

Courtesy photo Ed Kelley insists that CPS Energy must be operated first and foremost as a business — one that keeps its expenses in check.