{"id":17773,"date":"2016-03-28T01:50:16","date_gmt":"2016-03-28T05:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/?p=17773"},"modified":"2016-03-28T14:49:18","modified_gmt":"2016-03-28T18:49:18","slug":"rottenreporting-smearing-danville-utilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2016\/03\/28\/rottenreporting-smearing-danville-utilities\/","title":{"rendered":"RottenReporting: Smearing Danville Utilities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Technically, this is RottenEditorialWriting but that’s just too long and stupid looking.<\/p>\n

Danville Utilities has done a good job getting rid of the problems that they had with employee corruption, but that doesn’t stop the editorial board of the Danville Register & Bee from attacking them with reckless rhetoric.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Let’s get started with the link to the lousy editorial. (Register & Bee link, paywall may apply unless you break through it.)<\/p>\n

Have issues at Danville utility really been fixed?<\/a><\/h3>\n

I’m obliged to note that the company’s name is “Danville Utilities”. They sell more than one utility service. Anyway, let’s move along and look at some of the crap in the editorial.<\/p>\n

The 19-month probe eventually resulted in criminal charges against six DP&L employees. What we don\u2019t know, though, is exactly what went wrong at Danville Power & Light that caused the problems in the first place.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes. Yes, we do. There were crooked employees who realized that their management was not doing their supervisory jobs. Those employees quickly devised plans to inflate overtime hours and steal things from the job sites. They got bolder and bolder until they finally got busted.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s electric rate increase, which comes during a city council election, won\u2019t help the four incumbents on May\u2019s ballot.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a 1.5% increase and there’s no guarantee that it will be enacted. If the Register & Bee had written an in-depth article about how far that the electric fund is in the hole like SouthsideCentral did recently<\/a> (or maybe the editorial board would have read our article), they just might be able to explain to the readers that the fund is Ten Friggin Million dollars in debt and has been over Nineteen Friggin Million Dollars in the hole. That money has to come from somewhere at sometime. That’s an inconvenient truth that the R&B’s editorial board just passes right over (and has passed over often in the past).<\/p>\n

We\u2019d like to think these reforms will go a long way toward ensuring that this type of petty corruption will never happen again, but it shouldn\u2019t have happened in the first place.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, no duh on that one. The newly implemented controls will<\/em> go a long way in stopping these types of problems from happening again. There’s no “like to think” about it, and saying “like to think” only breeds stupid thoughts in stupid people who don’t want to think for themselves. As for “it shouldn’t have happened in the first place” again that’s a plateful of No Duh. Nobody should commit any kinds of crimes “in the first place”. Crap happens, editorial board. You’re never going to be perfect at hiring, no matter how hard you try. Quit kicking them for things they’ve made efforts to resolve. What are you, their ex-wife?<\/p>\n

Danvillians want to take Larking and others at their word that the problems at the power company have been fixed \u2014 mostly because they have no other choice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This closing line of the editorial sounds great but is a giant NothingBurger once you look at it.<\/p>\n

Danvillians also want to take the grocery store’s word that the hamburger they sell is actually hamburger. Danvillians want to take the gas station’s word that the unleaded plus fuel won’t blow up their cars when their leave the parking lot. Hell, that stupid sentence could be applied to almost every service or item that we buy.<\/p>\n

\n

The Register & Bee editorial board hasn’t sat in on a Danville Utility Commission meeting nor have they understood about the giant deficit in the electric fund balance. This editorial failed to mention that recent electric rate increases have come because the Utility Commission took bad advice from rate consultants and failed to make small incremental rate hikes when needed. Everything mentioned here is important factors in what makes Danville Utilities operate. Danville Utilities’ management has always been glad to help me explain things to my readers.<\/p>\n

Smearing Danville Utilities for the sins of a few bad employees in the past is just wrong. It’s more wrong once the investigation has been closed and six employees were convicted of criminal charges (plus one employee who killed himself before he could be charged). Saying “Well, we have to trust them this time again, huh?” is just irresponsible. That’s just not fair when writing an editorial.<\/p>\n

That’s RottenReporting.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Technically, this is RottenEditorialWriting but that’s just too long and stupid looking.<\/p>\n

Danville Utilities has done a good job getting rid of the problems that they had with employee corruption, but that doesn’t stop the editorial board of the Danville Register & Bee from attacking them with reckless rhetoric.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rottenreporting","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-4CF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13043,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/06\/16\/rottenreporting-the-10000000-mistake\/","url_meta":{"origin":17773,"position":0},"title":"UPDATED: RottenReporting: The $10,000,000 Mistake","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"June 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"UPDATE: The Register & Bee corrected the article within two hours of this article being published. Behold the power of SouthsideCentral. I did my best to avoid writing this edition of RottenReporting, but the Register & Bee wouldn't modify their story. Register & Bee reporter Vicky Cruz watched drones fly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "RottenReporting"","block_context":{"text":"RottenReporting","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/featurescentral\/rottenreporting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"sclogo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sclogo.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12407,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/04\/20\/rottenreporting-oops-we-missed-that-meeting\/","url_meta":{"origin":17773,"position":1},"title":"RottenReporting: Oops. We missed that meeting.","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 20, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The Danville Register & Bee says that Danville Public Schools new school requests are \"expected to come up for discussion\" at Tuesday night's Danville City Council meeting. That's wrong, and good reporting would have discovered that. Oh yeah, delinquent tax fees aren't going up either. School budget, fee and rate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "RottenReporting"","block_context":{"text":"RottenReporting","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/featurescentral\/rottenreporting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/Dmk8rat.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14799,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/12\/25\/rottenheadlinewriting-santa-gives-cancer-to-a-child-surprise\/","url_meta":{"origin":17773,"position":2},"title":"RottenHeadlineWriting: “Santa gives cancer to a child. Surprise!”","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"December 25, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"After a discussion on our last Danville Register & Bee headline writing disaster, we learned that all the headlines are written in the Lynchburg office and not on Monument Street. Well, the headline writers in Lynchburg really blew it this time... Get ready to cringe when you read this disaster.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "RottenReporting"","block_context":{"text":"RottenReporting","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/featurescentral\/rottenreporting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/JrqaqlJ.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/JrqaqlJ.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/JrqaqlJ.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12244,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/03\/19\/rottenreporting-at-least-they-got-halifax-right\/","url_meta":{"origin":17773,"position":3},"title":"RottenReporting: At Least They Got Halifax Right!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"March 19, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Hee hee. Just a quick one for this edition of RottenReporting. WSET's reporters may know Southside VA (well sorta once they stay in Southside for more than six months), but their morning news producer in Lynchburg who updates their website is quite clueless. So there was a bad fire on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "RottenReporting"","block_context":{"text":"RottenReporting","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/featurescentral\/rottenreporting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/h6MoOGn.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/h6MoOGn.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/h6MoOGn.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10709,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/10\/20\/utilities-steering-committee-meeting-live\/","url_meta":{"origin":17773,"position":4},"title":"Utilities Steering Committee Meeting – LIVE!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"October 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"We're LIVE! at Danville City Hall for the first meeting of the Steering Committee for the Electric Services Assessment. This committee is to \"determine how best to cost-effectively serve current and future needs of Danville Utilities electric customers and the City of Danville and maintain progress in transforming the area\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":94525,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2020\/08\/31\/shame-on-the-city-danville-utilities\/","url_meta":{"origin":17773,"position":5},"title":"Shame On The City & Danville Utilities!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"August 31, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Pay your utility bill. If you can't pay your utility bill, get help to pay it. In fact, I'm going to tell you about a good payment plan that's available to help you out (not that Danville Utilities is talking about it). But with that being said...The City of Danville\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/sclogo200.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17773"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17781,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17773\/revisions\/17781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}