A fast track to becoming CEO

I warned you!

I previously recounted the cozy relationship putting insider Jean Block on the fast track to become CEO of Little Rock’s sewer authority. Block was on the board hiring the previous CEO. In turn, that previous CEO hired Block as the utility’s counsel. Then, that previous CEO chose Block as a finalist to be CEO.

And, sure enough, Block is the new CEO. Her meteoric rise notwithstanding, Block has only managed a handful of people her entire career.

I described two concerns as Block’s clinching the job was all but assured.

First was the notion that a law degree is a universal qualification. It’s not. The sewer authority should be led by a professional civil engineer.

Second is the tendency of lawyers to politicize mundane governmental agencies. We saw this with attorney and former-Democratic operative Nate Coulter’s stewardship of the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) and attorney Tad Bohannon’s control of Central Arkansas Water (CAW).

Curious why Little Rock has a water utility and separate sewer authority, particularly when the sewer authority’s tag line is “one water, one future”? Me too.

Here’s what should really concern you: Each CEO gets paid about a quarter of a million dollars, and each receives a car allowance—for the attorney-CEOs apparently to use their nonexistent engineering skills to inspect water and sewage treatment plants respectively, I guess. (And some government bureaucrats vociferously argue that the Freedom of Information Act is the “inefficiency” in need of immediate attention? Sigh.)

Following the attorney-politicization pattern of Coulter and Bohannon, when Block applied to be CEO, she brazenly bragged that she birthed the sewer utility’s “Women of Water” sex-restricted awards program. (That profligate spending of taxpayers’ liquid assets gives new meaning to the portmanteau “wastewater.”)

On Block’s absurd “Women of Water” website, you can also find profiles of various women having nothing to do with Arkansas “who have taken great strides and made major contributions in water reclamation, water processing, water conservation and water overall.” Huzzah! No doubt grade schools across the state look to this scholarly resource for their civics classes.

Women of Water has nothing to do with our sewers. But Block runs a public entity paid for by taxpayers who have no choice but to use the government monopoly. So she can flush hardworking Arkansans’ livelihoods down the latrine as she pursues her progressive pet projects.

All this occurs notwithstanding that the Supreme Court recently declared that evaluating individuals based on pigment is illegal—in a decision citing one of my academic articles (co-authored with Richard Sander)—putting an end to the charade that affirmative action is constitutional (or moral).

I thought it merely ironic when Block highlighted in her employment application that she created a program espousing rewarding employees based on plumbing. But I was wrong. After the sewage commission predictably anointed Block as CEO, she doubled down on her leftist claptrap—telling the Little Rock Board of Directors that she’s pursuing a policy of “water equity.”

And she’s just getting started. Block said she intends to “embed” her hocus-pocus focus across departments and decision-making.

Sound familiar? Recall my virtually identical reporting regarding the diversity, equity, and inclusion indoctrination infrastructure at CAW, called the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Team.

CAW’s infusion of partisan political doctrine was explicit: “The JEDI Team will work closely with the Special Advisor to [the] CEO on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Engagement, and the team’s facilitator to ensure that JEDI principles are embedded throughout” the utility.

Once so “embedded” (ding-ding), this leftist cabal—under the leadership of attorney-CEO Tad Bohannon—used public resources to propagate their progressive predilections by sending the following to all employees: “If you feel this bill [to end affirmative action] does not meet with your values and the standards we ascribe to, please join JEDI as we flood Representatives with calls and emails, telling them to VOTE NO.”

Beyond her identical embedment of political causes at the sewer authority, Block further proclaimed that regulators, engineering firms, and other utilities are taking steps to prioritize “water equity,” as well. Sadly, she might be right.

Conservatives follow liberal Supreme Court opinions even while we’ve worked to reverse those decisions. Leftists, on the other hand, take the tack of ignoring court proclamations they don’t like, while simultaneously seeking to pack the court to undo precedents they disfavor.

Had the Legislature passed SB71—the bill to end government-sanctioned set-asides, preferences, and quotas based on race, sex, and other immutable characteristics—Block’s progressive programs would’ve been prohibited. The bill failed because of several House Republicans. (I’ll remind you which ones later.)

CAW has already put into place its plan to double your water bill. The sewage authority is likely not far behind given its similar wasteful direction and rudderless leadership.

Strap in. This leftist takeover of our basic utilities is going to be expensive.

This is your right to know.