The Reverend Doctor & The Restaurateur
Freelance author Saint Claire shows how water found its own level in one of the many tentacles of FirstEnergy's HB-6 scheme.
Thanks public records request Energy & Policy Institute (EPI) made of a Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) audit on FirstEnergy (FE), we have access to a series of text conversations related to Ohio’s largest public corruption scandal in history.
Of particular interest is a text exchange on February 3, 2020, between the since-indicted former FirstEnergy Vice President of External Affairs Michael Dowling and a “Mr. Hopkins,” who appears to be Terry Killeen, the Manager of Regional External Affairs at FirstEnergy in Cleveland.
Last week, we considered a painfully shocking conversation between two racist corporate hacks acting like strategic masterminds but instead were just another pair of assholes hanging out on the east bank of the Flats.
Filled with prejudice while riding the buzz of a “double Tito’s on the rocks,” the conversation illuminated a potential reason behind what changed Rev. Dr. Phillips' mind between that initial May 2015 shareholder meeting when he opposed FE’s pending rate increase and the May and June 2017 state hearings when he testified on behalf of the Cleveland Clergy Coalition in support of the bailout.
Or, to use the words of Dowling, Phillips “testified for us in Columbus after a financial ‘understanding.’”
But the earlier part of the text exchange is also intriguing.
At 10:17 PM, Dowling shares a screenshot of a separate text conversation with everyone’s least-favorite political leach, restaurateur and HB-6 middleman Tony George.
For context, in 2017, the Cleveland administration, then-Mayor Frank Jackson and then-Council President Kevin Kelley) ultimately chose NOPEC over TPI Efficiency for electric aggregation services for homeowners and businesses that were not Cleveland Public Power (CPP) customers.
TPI was one of four companies that sought the contract, and its agent was George.
George (a resident of Westlake, which is not Cleveland), upset that his political donations didn’t buy him everything he wanted, is alleged then to have bankrolled a group—Clevelanders First—to introduce a citizens-led ballot initiative that would reduce the size and pay of the city’s legislative council.
These became Issue 3 and Issue 4, respectively, and were set to be on the 2020 March primary ballot.
On the morning of February 3, 2020, The Plain Dealer reported that the group was withdrawing the petitions, which Dowling shared links in his text conversation with Mr. Hopkins.
The article alludes to the supposed agreement with Clevelanders First being brokered by the Cleveland Clergy Coalition, which centered on a commitment to conduct a “study to consider the best approach to reforms in Cleveland government.”
A day earlier, The Real Deal blog also wrote about the sudden change in Clevelanders First’s plan.
Unlike The Plain Dealer, though, the blog post includes a more direct power analysis on the move, particularly in the context of Cleveland’s troubled history with ballot initiatives and entrenched racism.
The blog operates from the perspective that reducing council’s size is a good thing but takes a negative view of what the author believes to have been a backroom deal between Rev. Dr. Aaron Phillips, executive director of the Cleveland Clergy Coalition, and George.
“How and why this deal came together is not altogether clear,” the blog writes, describing the compromise as a “fig leaf to cover George’s total capitulation.”
The blog also offers an interesting depiction of the Rev. Dr. Phillips:
“While the Clergy Coalition’s actual size and strength is not apparent, what is clear is that Phillips has become an important player in local politics.
His political consulting firm, Engagement Consulting LLC, is regularly contracted for service, especially by white west side judicial candidates without bona fide crosstown community connections.
His ability to get these candidates in front of black preachers adds to his credibility, if not necessarily to that of the ministers.”
Dowling and Mr. Hopkins had opinions on how the deal came together.
At 10:25 PM, the subtle genius that is FE’s former senior VP of external affairs wrote: “What’s he telling me without admitting it is that [George] got something for himself.”
Thanks to Dowling’s commitment to being the world’s worst schemer, we also see that—at least at the time—he considered the upcoming 2021 mayoral election “critical.”
But the bubble of festering shit that was FirstEnergy’s $60 million bribery scheme burst five months after Dowling and Hopkins’ romp in the 216.
And yet the city’s investigation into HB6 and FirstEnergy’s connection to Cleveland and the consideration of the city suing FirstEnergy for “recovering the cost and the damages that have been perpetrated on Cleveland Public Power by FirstEnergy because of its unfair practices” seemed to stop as soon as Kelley was no longer council president and Jackson was no longer mayor.
Towards the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, the long-standing, unpopular Cleveland City Council correctly backed the drum of corruption, like the late Guardians drummer John Adams.
The primary concern was recovering the costs and damages Cleveland taxpayers have been screwed with.
Perhaps their motives to target an outside corporation that infiltrated the Cleveland community, like earth eaters, were self-preserving, but there is no way in hell a covert operation such as this can be allowed to happen ever again.
Or, to use the words of Ward 8 councilman Mike Polensek, “This was clandestine, and it was dastardly. Who is to say it won’t happen again?”
But who’s to say this won’t happen again, isn’t happening currently, or hasn’t been happening as such all along?
It seems pretty difficult to argue that FirstEnergy wasn’t attempting to undermine legislative and executive leadership in Cleveland. And it does seem like they had a lot of help from a variety of Cuyahoga and Cleveland actors who are well-versed in undermining—perhaps more specifically—a healthy and thriving political atmosphere for Black leaders.
But what exactly did George get for himself out of this other unholy alliance?
And what type of action will be required of us during perhaps the most obvious collapse of our democratic institutions?
I promise you… the correct answer has nothing to do with George and his tentacles.
THOSE WMDs. How to responsibly dispose of your electronics… The last days of American orange juice… Why Mary Todd Lincoln became the most reviled First Lady in American history… The most accessible National Parks in the United States… The spy who exposed the secrets of the Black Chamber, one of America’s first code-breaking organizations.
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Why does Tony George look like Count Dracula?
Cleveland News Fridays is such a good running series