Who’s asking: Public official or a PR exec?
We can’t help but wonder how Trish Deberry, the public relations whiz, would advise a client — say, a prominent and outspoken new county commissioner — about the merits of holding a contract with another government entity.
We can’t imagine someone as talented at PR and marketing as Deberry would tell this client it is a good idea for a public official to hold a marketing contract with, say, the San Antonio Water System. We would like to think Deberry would remind her client that just the appearance of a conflict of interest is enough to dog a public official and undermine faith in local government.
We would like to think Deberry would advise her client to steer clear of public comments about SAWS because it would only lead to questions and scrutiny about that contract and thus raise concerns about a perceived bias. The public might wonder if the contract somehow colored those comments, or if the elected official pulled any punches for a client. It would be an understandable concern even if everything was on the up and up and no punches were pulled. Maybe Deberry would also point out that while the county doesn’t oversee SAWS — that falls to the city of San Antonio — the utility serves the county commissioner’s constituents and so, indirectly, this contract could get very complicated. Let’s say there was a widespread water outage following an unprecedented winter storm, and this new county commissioner called SAWS on behalf of constituents. Would that contract influence those conversations? If the answer is no, would people necessarily believe it? How does one prove a negative? What if the county judge, in a surprising lapse of judgment, appointed this new county commissioner as a liaison to oversee how SAWS responded to the outage? Would Deberry advise her client to do this? After all, that would only invite more scrutiny about that contract and raise even more questions about the possibility of a conflict of interest, even if that role is simply to be an observer. The public might wonder, rightfully, how an elected official with a contract with SAWS could credibly observe a panel reviewing SAWS.
We can only imagine what Deberry might tell an outside client under such a scenario. Unfortunately, though, Trish Deberry the PR executive does not appear to be offering great advice to Trish Deberry the newly elected county official whose firm has maintained a $175,000 marketing contract with SAWS.
We warned Deberry during last year’s elections about the problems of maintaining public contracts if elected to public office. At best, it’s awful optics. Following the recent winter storm that left hundreds of thousands of San Antonians without power and water, Deberry was sharply critical of CPS Energy at a County Commissioners meeting. She was also firm but less critical of SAWS. Deberry argued for county representation on the CPS Energy board — it’s not going to happen. But she did not extend that argument to SAWS.
And as SAWS President and CEO Robert Puente told us during a recent Editorial Board meeting, “There was more grilling of CPS Energy than there was of SAWS.”
Maybe this is because CPS Energy’s response to the winter storm deserves greater attention, but the point here is Deberry’s contract hangs over the discussion.
It’s not good enough for Deberry to say: “I’m able to successfully extract myself from a contractual relationship with SAWS versus what is in the best interest of my constituents.”
If you have to say that, you have a problem. Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff has appointed Deberry as a county liaison to a city panel reviewing the local response to the storm. This was a mistake. Wolff should withdraw the appointment. More importantly, Deberry should sever her SAWS contract and all other public contracts. It is the only way to align her interests with the public’s interest.