Power, Politics, and Public Service: A Candid Talk with PSC Candidate Lee Muns

The following is a conversation I had with Lee Muns, a resident of Harlem and a candidate for the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) in District 2. This transcript is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an endorsement of Mr. Muns or his views. No independent fact-checking has been conducted regarding the statements made during this discussion. The conversation is mostly transcribed using the Firefly transcription tool, with some light edits made between statements for clarity and flow.

This post is too long for email, so you will need to open it in Substack to read the full conversation.

Karin Parham: So good afternoon. I am here with Mr. Lee Muns. And we are going to start more of a conversation really than an interview.

Lee Muns: I look forward to it.

Karin Parham: So you're running for the PSC in the primary against the incumbent Tim Echols. So why did you decide to run?

Lee Muns: Karin? For years in the industry that I work in the construction industry, we do a lot of fabrication work for different plants, power plants, chemical plants, in the heavy industrial industry. So it is something that I have followed for years. And I am originally a pipe welder by trade. Started out doing that in my early 20s and during that time I had the opportunity to work at plant Vogtle units 1 and 2. I also worked at Savannah Riverside. And so I've always been the type that I was very intrigued wherever I was working. What was it going to do, what was it going to make, how did it operate. And so especially in the power industry because it is so intricate to our lives, I always took a great interest in it. And because I have worked in different power plants, I worked at power plant up in Maryland, I worked in one up in Tennessee and then have worked at some different ones in South Carolina. And whether I worked there myself or our company did work for them and so I would have a good understanding of what was going on and what they were trying to accomplish and the output and the distribution and load demands and you know, when there were peak loads, when there weren't peak loads, how are they going to, you know, meet those loads? And then, you know, we sit here in Columbia county and they're building all these new neighborhoods and go, everybody wants electricity. Everybody wants to have power in their house. And if you keep growing, it's not like you just turn that switch on and the power is just there. There's a lot that takes place behind that SW to make sure when you flip that switch the lights come on. When you turn on the oven or the stove to cook dinner, it gets hot. There's a lot that goes behind it. So for years I have followed that and it's been a passion.

Karin Parham: Now why did you decide specifically now? Now is the time to… primary Because I know you're a Republican. So you're running against Tim Echols [another Republican].

Lee Muns: Yes.

Karin Parham: Why do you think he's not doing a good job or no?

Lee Muns: I do not think he's doing a good job. He's been in there for a long time. Originally he was appointed to the position. He never initially ran for the position. He was appointed by Governor Deal. And if you look at the other commissioners that sit on there as well. They have been appointed by a governor. It's not something that they chose to run for. I am choosing to run for this because of my passion about the industry. My passion to see that the people are properly represented. Now, I understand Mr. Echols is running for reelection. That's normally what you do once you get the office. But looking historically at what happened with Plant Vogtle going $13 billion and cost overruns, and they sat there and allowed it to happen, and then they all want to blame it on Westinghouse, that it happened. Well, I'm in the construction industry. I knew the players that were working on the job. I knew the things that were going on. I knew that it was supposed to originally be a modular construction type project. And I knew that the company, Shaw Group, built a large facility in Louisiana where they were supposed to build all the components to go into this plant, and then ultimately that shuttered. They had issues down there with welders and welder qualifications and everything else. So really, within the first two years of the job, there were issues that were coming about. And had they really been following what was going on, they would have been aware of that and they would have started asking questions. But if you just sit at it from afar and you don't get intimately engaged, you don't follow the industry, and you just take verbatim something that you're told by the entity that you are regulating, do you really know all of the facts? And they didn't know all of the facts every day. Because these are people I look for work from, too. I follow the industry locally, nationally, and internationally. You know, those are the things I look at. A lot of people don't realize that the two units they were building at Plant Vogtle, the Chinese built four of them just like it in China in less time frame than we built the ones here. The South Koreans went to Saudi Arabia, built four units in less time than we built the ones here. And so as a regulator, which is what the commissioners are, you're supposed to ask the tough questions. You're not just supposed to take verbatim what you have shared. You're supposed to be a little bit smarter. It's just like if an officer goes to investigate a crime, he doesn't just stay at the crime scene, he canvases the neighborhood. What did you see? What do y' all know? And that didn't happen. So that's the reason why I'm running and the timing. I'm in a good place professionally where I have a Good staff working for me and everything else. And I can afford the time to give to the position that is necessary. And as I have followed my opponent ever since he went into office. And one of the things that people don't know is yet he started his TeenPact organization. But if you go back and do the research, at the very beginning when he started that [TeenPact] - Georgia Power was one of his big sponsors, right?

Karin Parham: Yeah. I read a statistic that said something like 70% of his campaign donations are from the entities that he's supposed to be regulating or their allies.

Lee Muns: Before he even got there. That's what I'm saying. Before he even got there, he had an intimate relationship with Georgia Power for the group that he started. And then he got on there and it has just continued. And what I've told people is I will never take a campaign contribution from any of them or from anybody that I do knowingly knows is in the upper level management of the company.

Karin Parham: Seems like it would be a conflict of interest [to take donations].

Lee Muns: Not that it would be. It is. Is it illegal? No, no, it's not illegal at all. However, it's just like they talk about transparency and doing things correctly. Transparency starts in your mentality. How am I going to conduct myself if you don't establish that up front? You can say transparency all day long. But if you don't believe it in your heart that there are certain things that I must do to live that out and to show that in my actions, you can talk it all day long.

Karin Parham: Right.

Lee Muns: And it's just fodder.

Karin Parham: So I just want to... So you're stating right now on the record, you're not going to take any campaign donations from any of the entities that you would be regulating?

Lee Muns: As it is right now. I'll be very honest with you. Everything that I have done, I have funded myself. I went and paid for my qualifying fee. I paid to have my website done. I paid to have a few yard signs done and some cards that I could hand out. Other than that, I've gotten a $250 contribution. I've gotten a $100 contribution. And then a good friend that I grew up with gave me $500 and that's all I've got. But what I am doing is crisscrossing the state, getting out there and talking to people just like I'm here talking with you today. Because I'm a people person and I want people to look me in the eyes. I want people to be able to ask me questions and I want them to understand me. And you can't do that any other way than sitting in front of somebody.

Karin Parham: No, that's true. That's true. I agree. I think we lose a lot... We put so much on social media. It's good in some ways and bad in others, but we lose some of that human connection. Most of our reactions or interactions are online…

Lee Muns: Well, it's the whole. In my office, when I am working on my computer... Computer screens, if I am working on my computer, I have my back to my door. And I have told every last one of my staff, if you walk in my office and I am looking at that computer screen, you can pretty much say whatever you want to say. But do not think that I am truly listening to you. You wait till I turn around and I look you eye to eye because I want to see the look that's on your face about what you're fixing to share with me.

Karin Parham: Right, right. And it's hard when you're on a screen or something like that. You lose a lot of tone and a lot of communication.

Lee Muns: Well, there's verbal and nonverbal communication.

Karin Parham: Right, right. I mean, I just made a hand gesture, you know, and that's not even going to play out on the transcription.

Lee Muns: But to get the context, you have to be there. And the other thing that you have to do is you have to. You have to have respect for who you're talking to. You know, I know spiritually, you and I are on different spectrums. However, where I'm at is I accept the fact that every person I sit down and talk to, no matter how they look, no matter what they say, no matter what they believe, in my beliefs, in my spiritual beliefs, God gave them life. And so because of that little thing that he chose to give somebody life, I'm gonna give them respect.

Karin Parham: Well, we're not too far apart on that. Even if we come from different faith traditions. I think that is a basic tenet of most faiths.

Lee Muns: I can't be judged on other people's decisions, but I can be judged on my first interaction with them of whether I'm receptive or non receptive. And that makes a big difference about where anything goes from there.

Karin Parham: Very much so. I do want to hit on some of the... Because you're kind of a controversial figure within the Columbia…

Lee Muns: Leaders always are…..

Karin Parham: …within the Columbia County Republican Party. I know you've been criticized. There was a $3.2 million judgment against your company. Was that back in 2018, I believe?

Lee Muns: I can't remember exactly.

Karin Parham: Okay, so it was about, retirement contributions for the union… Your union workers. So do you want to address it?

Lee Muns: Absolutely. I have no problem addressing it. For roughly 25 years, I was a unionized contractor. And I actually came up through the union trades myself and went to apprenticeship school at the union and everything else. And I was very proud of the person that I was. My trade, actually six months before I finished my four year apprenticeship because I did so well with my welding, the company that I worked for had gone and purchased about $5 million worth of automated welding equipment. And the big thing was then the two gentlemen who were the welding instructors out there were older. And so the mantra was, who's gonna get their job? Who's gonna come in there and get this creme de la creme job? And one day I got a call from the lead guy to come over there and talk with him. And I sat down with him and he said, would you like to come and work in here? I said, I haven't finished my apprenticeship school yet. Doesn't matter. You're the person we want. And I said, well, yes, sir, I'd be crazy if I didn't. And then he told me, he said, well, we bought all that equipment back there, and you're gonna get back there and you're gonna develop the procedures and we're gonna have you train all the welders that are coming in for this new project we've got coming up. And so that's. And then I stayed in that position for about seven months. And there was a new company coming in to take over. And I had an opportunity then. I was a young man to go to Plant Vogtle while it was being built. And I kind of knew about the new company that was coming in, and I could tell things were going to change. It wasn't going to be the way it's been for years. And so ultimately I took a job at Plant Vogtle. The gentleman that helped bring me in there, he was totally ticked off at me. “We went to bat for you, we got you this job”, and I'm eventually going to get to this, but I want to lead into it. But six months after I left, I ran into him. He said, “Lee, I gotta apologize to you.” He said, “you saw something we didn't see. He said, everything that you shared with me that you felt like was gonna happen has happened. You made a good move.” Rock along. So I was known around town for being a very good welder. I went and worked at other places. Then I worked for a local company, and he would send me out working for other people. So my work kind of began to speak for itself. And then I had a contractor come to me one day, and he had a specialized job he had gotten. And he said, “Lee, I heard you might be interested in going to business for yourself”. And I said, yes, sir, I've considered it. And he said, well, I have a set of drawings. Give me a price.” I gave him a price. He said, “Your price is good. You want the job? I said, well, yes, sir, I think I do. And he said, well, I know you're just starting out young and you're gonna have to hire some people and you're gonna have to make payroll. He said, I will help you make payroll every week till you get on your feet and get going. That was when I was 27 years old. I've still worked to make my own paycheck since then. Now, rock along to the union issue. Right about the time that I had issues with the union prior to this coming about, I had been the president of our local contractors association and everything else. And there was some stuff that the union was doing that was not good for the membership. And the big thing was the pension. They were not managing the money correctly. And at the time, they were nearly $40 million underfunded, which, if you understand anything about collective bargaining, if you are a signatory contractor, if the underfunded level got to a certain amount, they could walk in your front door and say, we've calculated we need $100,000 to keep everything afloat. We'll be back tomorrow to get a check. So whatever the amount is, $100,000, $500,000, whatever it is. And so, you know, this rock along. But then Vogtle 3 and 4 came along, and we had a congressman that was in there, and Georgia Power wanted to get these federal loan guarantees. Well, in order for all of that to take place, they put a stipulation in the federal loan guarantees that the job had to be built with construction. Union labor, couldn't use anything else, had to be built with union labor. So immediately, all the unions around here knew they had all of that work locked in. So they didn't care about any other contractors at the time. We had about five local contractors at the same time. Then I was trying to negotiate a new contract with them going forward. And they basically said, well, if you're not going to pay the same thing that they're paying at plant Vogtle, we're not going to sign a contract. And I’m going, guys, I would pay y' all a hundred dollars an hour if I could be profitable at doing it, but I can't. That job and what I do is two totally different markets. I cannot be competitive in this market. And I had realized years ago that this might come about. So I had set my companies up as four different entities. I had a union company. I had a non-union company. I had a company that owned all my equipment and my trucks, just in case one of the guys had a wreck and somebody wanted to sue something. They couldn't get everything I had. And then I had a parent company that owned all of them. And so we reached an impasse. I said, guys, y' all got plenty of work coming. I said, I can't. I can't pay this rate. I said, so I guess we won't have a contract. And so, because the law allows it, that they had an underfunded amount, just like I told you earlier, they could come and ask for $100,000. Well, now, because I didn't agree to a contract, had I chose to just close my doors and just go out of business and go to work for somebody else, they could not have come after me for anything. But because I enjoyed what I did, I was good at what I did, I wanted to move forward. And so I said, well, we just won't do any union work. Well, that wasn't good enough for them. So they came and they sued that one company. And ultimately the judge ruled that because their pension plan was upside down and with the way they calculated it, this was my portion of that liability. And so they did a judgment against it. And like I told the union guys, I said, guys, if I had $3.2 million, do y'all think I would worry about trying to stay in business? I said, I'd be fine with $3.2 million. I'd just go live on it. But the whole time, Karin, every hour that every man worked, I paid in that I was contractually obligated to pay in. This whole judgment comes from their management of their fund. Nothing. I was not a trustee. I didn't sit on any committees. I didn't do anything. But I knew. I knew how it existed. And because my company was growing, I had been befriended by some gentlemen who owned some very large companies in Atlanta. I'm talking about companies that do $250, $300 million a year. And they were the ones who originally came to me and told me about the unfunded situation and told me that I needed to protect myself and that's why I had set up all the different companies years earlier. Okay, they had told me that this potential will come. Well, when it did, okay, so they got a judgment against the one company and it went away. And I said, okay, maybe they got the flesh that they wanted and I'll move on. Well, that wasn't good enough for me. So then because the Obama administration and the Department of Labor made a rule, not a law, made a rule that if one person owned all of the companies, you could sue all of them for the withdrawal liability. Now, had I had one person that was not a family member that owned 31% of my company, they could not have sued me. But because I owned 100%, they could sue me. So their goal was then to just put me out of business. But what they didn't do their research about was I owned my office building and my fabrication facility personally. So during the bankruptcies, they never got any of that. They ultimately got off. At the time when they started suing me, I owned 23 vehicles, I owned some cranes, owned all kind of stuff. And understand the first cycle went on for about a year. The other three companies went on for about another two years. This is a three year duration.

Karin Parham: So it liquidated all of your businesses is basically.

Lee Muns: They all went bankrupt. They all went bankrupt. And during that process, we had to sell off stuff to keep going. At the very beginning when this started, I reached out to a local attorney who ultimately sent me to an attorney in Atlanta. The night she and I talked, she was sick. We were on the phone and we talked and then I prayed with her and she said, I'll call you back tomorrow. She called me back the next day. She said, you know, after we talked last night and you prayed for me, she said, God impressed upon me that no matter what it cost, I'm going to represent you through this whole endeavor. She said, it's not going to be easy and it's going to be very expensive. And she said, as long as you can pay me when you can't pay me anymore, I'm still going to be right here. When I did my last bankruptcy, her legal fees were $135,000. The day after my last bankruptcy was over with and the bankruptcy attorney trustee called me and said, look, you know, I get it. You had to liquidate equipment over the years to pay your bills, keep your building payment, pay your file bill, try to keep going. He said, there's really nothing for us to auction off. He said, you just got this little bit. He said, if you'll write me a check. He said, I'll let you keep that one truck, that welding machine, and those few items. So I said, okay, I'll write a check for that. So I kept those pieces of equipment. The day after it was all over with that attorney, she called me and she said, Lee, I do not want you ever to think about what it said on that bankruptcy statement about the fees that I incurred. She said, God has left you with that welding machine, with that truck, and with that office and with that fabrication facility. She said, now you and your wife go and rebuild. My wife opened up a company so they couldn't come after me anymore, and that's what we've been doing ever since.

Karin Parham: Okay, so now it's under your wife's name?

Lee Muns: Yep. I work for her.

Karin Parham: Isn’t that always the way it is, though? Really?

Lee Muns: As I told some young men yesterday, three words y' all need to know in your life to be successful. Number one is the most powerful word you can use is no. And the other ones that'll keep you out of trouble are, yes, dear.

Karin Parham: My husband would agree with you.

Lee Muns: So the thing is, the bankruptcy and the judgment had nothing to do with what I owed. It was basically blood money that the union wanted out of me because of their mismanagement. Now, what's truly ironic is one of the gentlemen who was a trustee, who also happened to be a contractor and was very adamant about coming after me because I was a bigger company than he was, and he always wanted to be the biggest guy in town. Two years after all this happened to me, his company went bankrupt. However, he owed $2.5 million in actual benefits that he had not paid for the hours his people had worked, something I never did.

Karin Parham: Now, which… Which union is it? Is it the pipe fitters? I've talked a little bit with the electricians union because my son might be looking into that, so.

Lee Muns: Well, if he is, let me know. I know some. I know some great people there. It's. You know, I tell any kids, it's a great way to go in and learn a trade, and ultimately, if you decide, okay, it doesn't work for you, it's no loss. You know, when Vogtle was being built, so they had to. The union had to hire so many people, right? There were about 300 apprentices. They got hired to work down there. All of the majority of them got let go before they got locked in to the retirement that was paid for them. And that's why now that particular pension fund is 132% funded. It's because they worked all those apprentices, had all that money paid in, supposedly on their behalf, but then they terminated them before they got vested. And now those young men are not going to get anything. That's how it works. So. But again, going into the trades. Trades are a great thing. And it's one of the things I tell kids. Ultimately your success lies between your two ears and in your heart, what you decide to do. But everything that you can learn, nobody can take it away from you. And it's one of the things my life story is. I got married at 18, I was a father at 19. I got kids, I got grandkids. I went into business early. I went through all this stuff I went through, and you can still make it. And you have a testimony, you have a life to live. And, and. But if you just all of a sudden, ever, anywhere along that way, all of a sudden go, whoa, is me, you just lost it. You have to keep. You have to keep moving. You have to learn from every instance that you have. So I hope I've explained the bankruptcy. It's not something that I feel bad about. You know, some changes happened.

Karin Parham: So you don't have any current obligations?

Lee Muns: No.

Karin Parham: At all.

Lee Muns: Okay.

Karin Parham: So I just want to make sure. Because that really shouldn't come up if you don't have any current.

Lee Muns: All of that was. Was discharged in the bankruptcy of all of my companies. I have no legal obligations whatsoever. I mean, no financial or legal obligations for anything.

Karin Parham: OK. So some of the rhetoric mentioned a few incidences of like, interactions, I guess, of aggression.

Lee Muns: Let's go with the first one.

Karin Parham: You know which incidents I'm talking about?

Lee Muns: Yeah, absolutely. The first one was that the woman that I married when I was 18 years old, we were together for 28 years. And was I perfect during that marriage? No, I was not. Did we raise three great kids? Absolutely. They are very successful. At the end, you know, it was because she had a business, I had a business. You know, I don't want to get into much about her, but I mean, I understand she was frustrated, but she had a very successful business. I had a business. You know, she did not want to reconcile. I tried for a year to reconcile. She did not want to reconcile. So it took us nearly two years to get divorced. However, earlier on, I mean, there were frustrations. And so one day I had some personal matters that she and I needed to deal with. And stupid me, because she owned a hair salon, went there to try to take care of that stuff. She didn't like it. She got frustrated. I got frustrated. Then, you know, all I wanted was a credit card, a company phone, and the company car. And I brought her another car to have, you know, to take. I just wanted to get those things, you know, split away. So I just wanted the credit card, the phone in the car. And then, you know, she got belligerent. And then, as you can imagine being in the hair salon, 14 other girls working for her, you know, they saw she wasn't happy. So then everybody gets engaged in it. Immediately when it went in that direction, I just left. I just left. And ultimately, an officer showed up, and he called me, and I told him, I said, I'll be glad to come and meet you. I just knew I needed to get away from there before, you know, anything might get out of hand. It wasn't because I did, but it was because all of a sudden, a bunch of women, excuse my expression. I don't mean to be bad about women, but you can imagine in a hair salon, the dynamic. And so I just. I just got out of there. I left, and he called me. I came back, I met him, and he said, well Mr. Muns, he says you didn't do any domestic violence stuff. He said, at worst, you were disorderly. And he said, so I'm gonna write you a ticket for disorderly conduct, and you'll have to go to court for this. I said, that's fine with me. In fact, at the we were talking, I had tears coming out my eyes. And I said. I said, this ain't what I want. I said, I want the marriage to work out. And I said, but, yeah, it's frustrating. And I said, you know, I did a super thing. And so I ended up. I had to go to court. Bobby Christine, at the time, was the magistrate judge. So I went in front of him, and Bobby asked me. He said, well, he said, Mr. Muns, have you seen your wife since this altercation? And I said, well, yes, matter of fact, I have. He said, well, for what? I said, well, she cut my hair the other day. He said, you serious? And I said, yes, sir. In fact, she's cut my hair several times since then. I said, because I'm trying, you know, to repair the marriage. And I said. Said, For 28 years, she's the only person that's cut my hair. And he said, okay, I'm gonna have you do some Community service. And I said, fine, I get it. You know, I understand it. So I did my community service at Columbia County Cares and then went on.

Karin Parham: That was in it. Was it 2008?

Lee Muns: Right.

Karin Parham: That's when that was. Okay, so. So, are your businesses under your new wife? Okay, just making sure.

Lee Muns: I'm. Yeah, yeah. Maybe everyone under the first. I mean, the place she has now, she had always wanted to, you know, have her own place, and she had two other ladies that came in with her. And, you know, I sat down and ran the numbers for them and all that kind of stuff. And the gentleman who owned the place was the dentist we went to. And, you know, ultimately we built out the place, and it's a very successful business.

Karin Parham: That's good. I mean, sometimes things don't work out [referring to the 1st marriage].

Lee Muns: No. And so, I mean, that's what happened. But, you know, people are trying to say that, you know, I did domestic violence or domestic abuse. It wasn't any of that. In fact, we both know the sheriff intimately. And in fact, my first wife went to prom with the sheriff, and after this happened, she called him and told him and said, Clay, this is not what everybody's making it out to be. I don't want anything negative to happen to him. He doesn't deserve that. He doesn't need that. It was just a bad situation. And then too many people got involved with him. Of course, I never talked to the sheriff personally. I don't know, you know, what he may have done or not done or whatever. But she did tell me that she had called him.

Karin Parham: Interesting.

Lee Muns: But see, this is what people don't know, right? They just want to sensationalize everything. But I know each step that I walked to walk through that.

Karin Parham: Well, you have a right to say your story, your side of things. Also, what else was mentioned? An incident in Tybee Island?

Lee Muns: No, down at Jekyll Island. It was during the state convention. During that time. It was toward the end of the convention, and it was when they do resolutions….

Karin Parham: What year was that? Which convention was that?

Lee Muns: OK. I think it was 2021. Yeah. And I was vice chairman of the party, and I was standing. I'm not gonna say the gentleman's name, but we were standing over by a wall, and it was his first time going, and he was asking me about, you know, what all was going on and what was taking place and all that kind of stuff. And it was very loud in the room. The room was just, you know, people were complaining about resolutions and doing this, you can imagine. And so maybe I may have been talking a little bit louder than I should have. I don't know. But then all of a sudden, this gentleman. And of course they say that I slammed my shoulder down on the table. There wasn't a table anywhere near us. Wasn't a table around. Anyway. I'm like, where in the world does this come from about a table? He turned around, he hollered at us, told us to be quiet. I said, okay, I'm sorry, I didn't realize we were disturbing you. And then I think he may have turned around one more time. And then. So me and the gentleman who were talking, we finished our conversation. I just walked over there. He was looking toward the front of the room. I laid my hand on his shoulder to get his attention. I leaned down, I said, sid, I'm sorry that if were loud and you couldn't hear or whatever. And I said, but this gentleman's new to the process. I was trying to explain to him what all was going on. I said, so I apologize if we impacted your ability to try to hear what's going on. And I walked away. I walked away. Nothing else. And there were state troopers, police officers, all in the place. An officer did not get called until 8:30 that night to come to his hotel room because he and Dewey Galeas were there together. And Dewey convinced him that I had assaulted him and they needed to call the state patrol. And so.

Karin Parham: He's the previous commissioner. Right.

Lee Muns: And that I ran against.

Karin Parham: Wasn't there like some coffee incident or something?

Lee Muns: Oh, yeah, that was here a while back.

Lee Muns: There's a lot about Mr. Galeas that people really don't know. And I'm. It's not. I'm not going to get into it and I'm not going to give fodder to it. But if you were to talk to enough people, you would find there's. There's some issues there. But. So the state trooper who investigated it did not get there until about 8:30 that night. And all of this, you can go and look in the report, you know. Well, had I assaulted the man, why wouldn't you go get somebody right then in the facility and address it right here? So the next day the trooper calls me and leaves a message and I didn't get it. So the following day I called him back and I said, you know, well, I did, yeah, I did try to call him back. And I left a message because he was off duty. And then he called me the next day when he was back on duty. And I said, you called me yesterday? And I said, you know, what is this about? And he said, well, can you tell me what happened with you and Mr. Curry? And I told him. And because he didn't give me any leading questions, he wanted to see what I had to say. And I told him what happened. And he said, well, yeah, that's basically what I've ascertained happened. He said, I don't see where you assaulted him or did anything out of the way. He said, but because they called me, I have to make a report. And I said, okay. I said, well, when you get your report done, I said, if you could. I said, do I need to come back down to Jekyll Island? Because if I do, I said, I'll drive back down there and do whatever you need for me to do that. Well, ultimately, what Mr. Galeas wanted was an incident report against me. And now three different things I've tried to do in my life, they bring it up against me, you know, and so I didn't get.

Karin Parham: Because I… I got this all off of the comments when Augusta Press ran their article. I read the comments and I was like, oh, wow, it's all.

Lee Muns: It's very sensationalized in the newspaper article.

Karin Parham: And, well, I mean, it was in the comments. It wasn't in the Augusta Press itself that I read. I mean, I went back and looked at, you know, the bankruptcy and kind of just, you know, touched on that a little bit. But in the Augusta Press recently ran that article on your running. And so then I had seen people posted comments on that Augusta Press article. So that's kind of where I got this information from.

Lee Muns: Okay, I didn't look at it, but I know the Augusta Press put out an article back kind of when it happened or whatever.

Karin Parham: I’ll have to go look at that.

Lee Muns: So they sent me the report and I didn't get all of it. So I called back down there and actually when I called, I ended up talking to the supervising officer. And he said, Mr. Muns, he said, I really hate this has happened. He said, you didn't do anything wrong. And he said, I really wish I could make the report go away. He said, but I can't. He said the officers made the report. And so he said, but I think we have responded in it that you didn't do anything. He said, I hate it. You know, this is kind of the way Political stuff works. You know, people are probably going to use this against you later on, and of course, you know, they have and. But I know who I am and it's. That's basically… I mean, there was an event a couple of weeks ago at our district convention. Mr. Galeas was there. I was speaking to a young man who was talking to me in the hallway there. Mr. Galeas went by and just stared me down like. And he did so in such a way and was walking at such a speed that the young man I was speaking to, he just ran right into him and ran over him. And the young man looked at him and said, what's wrong with you? I, you know, I've got people that I don't like. I've got people that have done things, but I don't spend my life trying to go get retribution against somebody. You know.

Karin Parham: You think you're both in the same party and so you could, you know, come together of like minds, you know, and like, hey, we need to…

Lee Muns: You would think, yes, we could come.

Karin Parham: Together and be a part, because I'm a Democrat. And so that's. If there's friction, I always say, let's get together for coffee.

Lee Muns: But, you know, both sides love to eat their young and love to tear one another up and what is kind of like, you know, I played high school football and the reason were successful was not just the 11 guys on the field, it was every guy that we practiced with every day of the week that we lifted weights with, that we just lived life with. We all had a commitment to one another. And if you weren't one of the 11 on the field, you were, you know, praising the ones that were out there and yelling for them and supporting them and doing whatever you could because were a team. You know, you may have had the little old guy that ended up making the team and you knew he would probably never get on the field. But you know what? In his heart, he was just as much of that team as anybody else that was out there getting knocked around. And that's the way we looked at him and that's the way I grew up.

Lee Muns: Mean, then another, I mean, another thing that you probably don't know is my wife, my current wife, her ex husband is the county manager. And so every time I have tried to run, when I ran for the county commission, everybody thought that I was trying to go do retribution about him. And I said, I'll be one commissioner. I can't fire nobody. I serve on a body. I love serving people. That's why when I was in the union, I became the chairman of the apprenticeship program. My grandfather was one of the early founding members of that unit. For years, they had existed without an apprenticeship coordinator, and apprenticeship program was not what it should have been. When I was a chairman of the apprenticeship committee, I said, guys, we are going to hire a coordinator to run this school and get the educational program the way that it needs to be. And I mean, I hit all kind of opposition. Anytime you take on a leadership role or you want to change the status quo, you're gonna rub some people. But it doesn't mean that what I'm doing or you may try to do is wrong. It just means you have a different outlook on it.

Karin Parham: True, true. I agree. And, you know, I mean, so…. You know, people are gonna push back on things and do this kind of push back and forth, but I don't like to see character assassinations. I don't either, you know. You know, you should be able to talk about issues without tearing each other down.

Lee Muns: You know, another thing they did was, you know, to try to go after me because, you know, my wife and I own the business. I mean, they did things towards her that should not have been done. She didn't do anything. She married me. Okay. I guess that's her cross she has to bear. I don't know. I guess I think anytime a spouse can say that sometimes, you know, you may be in disagreement or whatever, but, I mean, she said, I do. I said, I do. And, you know, we. We have moved on and done. Done well with it.

Karin Parham: Right. So going back to the PSC, you had said that you want to be dedicated more to transparency. How would you achieve that? Transparency?

Lee Muns: One of the things, and it's just like when I served on the school board, you know, is you. You ask questions. You ask knowledgeable questions, you review the information that's been presented to you, and you say, this doesn't. All this doesn't flow together. Tell me about. I see A and b. There's a. A1 in here somewhere, right? Tell me. Tell me what's in A one.

Karin Parham: How did you get from A to B?

Lee Muns: Yeah. And so, you know, that's the thing that I will. I will ask questions. I know when I first went on the school board and I actually came to the school board with a lot of school system education because my mom was a teacher, my dad was in administration in the Richmond county school system.

Karin Parham: What years were you on the school board?

Lee Muns: 2000, 2004. OK. And for 30 something years I had deer hunted with superintendents, principals and everybody else that worked in the school system. So half the time when you were playing cards on Saturday night, you were hearing stuff about school business. And so just being in that environment, I learned a lot. And so when I was elected to the board, I knew a lot of the behind the scenes stuff and I was able to ask questions that they normally didn't get asked, but they were very relevant and, you know, so that's just how I came about. But as some people that were on the system, administrative staff told me one time, they said, Lee, and we've never spent this much time putting stuff together to get prepared for a board meeting. I said, what are you saying? They said, now they know you were going to ask questions. So they really made sure that they got their ducks in a row. And I said, should have been that way before I ever got here. But that's, if that's what's happening behind the scenes, that's great. Another gentleman who was a former superintendent, not Columbia county, but another place, and he served on a lot of things with the county, on some study committees and stuff like that. I ran into him at a public event one time and he came to me and he said, lee, never get discouraged. He said, I know people sometimes say stuff. And he said, but in all my years that I have seen school board members, I have never seen one come to a board meeting more prepared than you. You actually read your stuff and you know what's being presented and you ask questions and they don't like it, but that's your job. And that probably meant more to me than any compliment I've ever gotten from somebody.

Karin Parham: So just asking more questions now. How often does the PSC, how often do they meet?

Lee Muns: They have standing meetings twice a month and then it depends on if other jurisdictional disputes come about anything else. And then the other thing is when they're going through the IRP process, the Integrated Resource Plan, they do hold more in depth meetings and study sessions and everything else. But from what I have seen, there's never any challenge that comes from them. They just. Okay, okay, thank you. Appreciate you for sitting there. Glad you were here today. No, right. In depth questions. And the other thing that I look at was back in 2023, they came in with an interim IRP. And if you look through it and then you look at the IRP now, you realize that the debacle with Plant Vogtle really put them behind being on the cutting edge of what's coming about because they had such a horrendous loss coming and they knew it, and they spent all the time trying to get it finished that they lost sight of the other things that they needed to be getting ready for.

Karin Parham: I mean, I know. So just looking at it from, you know, people. People paying their power bill. I know people are upset that their power bills are going up.

Lee Muns: Absolutely.

Karin Parham: And I mean, I just got notification. I do flat rate billing and, you know, my bill's going up 50 bucks a month, and we haven't changed our power usage. So, you know, that's $600 a year.

Lee Muns: I just went up $35 a month.

Karin Parham: Yeah, that's $600 I'm not spending out in the local economy. It's going to Georgia Power. And, you know, when was it? Was it last year? They posted these record profits. Profits.

Lee Muns: Yep.

Karin Parham: But yet we have these overages on the Plant Vogtle... And you just have to kind of wonder, well, we'll see. Who are they representing?

Lee Muns: You want the company to be successful, Right. They have to be in order to be viable, to provide what they provide. But had I been sitting there on the commission, one of the first things I would have said is, guys, y' all are going in the hole on this. Okay, we're going to cover the cost, but you're not going to make any profit on that, right? But see, they let them. Yeah, they let them make profit on that. Somebody had to feel some pain somewhere.

Karin Parham: So another, you know, sort of concern along with that. So now I looked at kind of what Mr. Echols is saying. Oh, well, he wants. Now they put a rate freeze in. In place, but it almost feels like it's a little too late. First of all, that should have been put in place.

Lee Muns: The rate freeze is not in place.
Karin Parham:Okay. Interesting.

Lee Muns: They have not officially voted for a rate freeze.

Karin Parham: They're just kind of putting that out.

Lee Muns: Putting that out there right now because people are upset. There’s getting ready to be an election. Even the Governor got up there with two of the PSC commissioners and talked about, boy, they're so glad we've reached a rate freeze and everything else. Legally, we have not. It's all talk. A vote on the rate freeze potential will not happen until July.

Karin Parham: Interesting. So whatever meeting they're having in July…

Lee Muns: The other thing is they still get to come before the commission for recouping costs associated with Hurricane Helene, which means you still could get a rate increase. Because of all that from, you know, potato potata. If you're paying more. Wherever it came from, however result of it's a rate increase, I have to.

Karin Parham: Pay more for not having power for.

Lee Muns: Two weeks, you know, so that's, you know, that's what exists. And of course, you know, my whole mindset is even to be a viable business owner, I have to do everything I can to provide my customer the best and keep my overheads as low as I can. That's business, you know, And I can assure you, if you start looking into the total operational process, there's fat to be trimmed. And so, in other words, people are saying since Mr. Echols has been on there, he has voted for 22 rate increases that have totaled 77%, you know, and they'll go, well, we're 11% lower than so and so, 11% so so and so. And I'm like, I don't care what everybody else does. I care about what we do. And if there's somebody else that's lower than us, why are we not as low as them?

Karin Parham: Now there's also. So, you know, people have talked about, you know, because solar panels are big. Right. Everybody wants to put solar panels on the roof. I looked into it, and it would. It wouldn't make economic sense for me. It takes, like 20 years to recoup the cost.

Lee Muns: Oh, my goodness. I finally talked to somebody that fully gets it, and like I've said, it.

Karin Parham: Would take me, like, 20 years to make it all back…

Lee Muns: So it's not economically biased.

Karin Parham: Right. I wouldn't do it unless I was doing it for philosophical reasons.

Lee Muns: I mean, most of us do not have the financial wherewithal to do everything that we want from philosophical standpoint.

Karin Parham: Right, Right. I mean, I would love to….

Lee Muns: Now, but a lot of philosophical stuff that we do, other than things regarding our faith, means that there's a sacrifice that we're willing to pay for.

Karin Parham: So, I mean, there are some incentives, and I haven't really looked into it too much, but part of it has to do with how they structure the fees… The rate that Georgia Power will give you when you have solar and you have overages and you're feeding the grid, they don't pay you a better rate then. So, you know, I don't know exactly what the numbers are.

Lee Muns: Bottom line is it's not economically viable. I mean, some people do it because they believe they want it.

Karin Parham: Well and they believe that it's going to improve the resale value [of their home].

Lee Muns: But the other thing is, if you wanted to say, if you went out there and you owned 50 acres and you wanted to go out there and put in a solar farm that was going to give you enough power and give you a whole bunch to sell back to Georgia Power, they won't take it. They have a cap on what they'll take from you.

Karin Parham: And why is that? I mean, I just don't see why they would structure it.

Lee Muns: So, see, my whole thing is. And what's happening in the state, number one, I'm not for going and cutting a bunch of trees down. Forestry is a big industry in the state. So if we really wanted to say, okay, solar, like I shared with somebody the other day, solar is like sprinkles on a cake. They're nice to have, but you can have the cake without the sprinkles and still be okay.

Karin Parham: I mean, I think I, I believe in solar. I think that it would…

Lee Muns: But it can all it can augment. It will never take the base load. Never. It can’t.

Karin Parham: Especially if we're doing like those data centers. And so let's hit on data centers.

Lee Muns: Because we have a new one I was fixing to get into. If you go throughout the state, even you go up to the White Oak now and you see the big buildings that are up there. If solar was truly viable and a good thing and a good supplement to what we're doing, why do all those big old buildings not have solar panels all on the top of them? Well, the reason they don't is because of the weight that you would put on the roof of the building. They are not built to withstand that type of load capacity. So we need to have this conversation that says, can we start going to the building owners and what would be the cost increase and can we ultimately make this where it's viable for all these big flat buildings that we're building? I mean, if you go, if you travel around the state like I do, there's a 300,000 square foot building here, there's a 500,000 square foot building there's a 450,000 square foot building there. Well, that's a lot of roof area that you could put solar systems on. You're cutting down the trees already. So why not make the most of the piece of property proper? Well, in the White Oak center on that 1900 acres up there, they're talking about putting in 8 million square feet of facilities they ought to mandate. Every last one of them have rooftop solar. Yeah, every last one.

Karin Parham
So where, we lived in South Korea for a number of years back and forth, and they're big into solar there. So our roof, our home had solar panels. This last time when were stationed in Camp Humphries. I mean, it was pretty simple. Created some problems during the rainy season, our house leaked and there was a leak from the solar panels down into our house, and it created a whole big issue. And then I didn't have power. One thing people don't realize with solar panels, too, is when you have things like freezing rain and things like that, they don't work appropriately. Maybe you can buy different ones. But I know ours in Korea, at one point, they did not work efficiently in that [weather].

Lee Muns: Just because the sun comes up every day doesn't mean the solar panel is producing.

Karin Parham: Right. So if it's, if there's like heavy snow and there was snow on it, they weren't necessarily, you know, until it melted off, working all the way.

Lee Muns: I mean, I've gone past some smaller solar farms and you look out there and all the panels are dust covered, which you're not going to operate at optimum efficiency. You know, so the thing is, it's just like having a dog. If you don't take care of him every day. Is he gonna stay in the best health?

Karin Parham: You have to pay attention to it.

Lee Muns You have to pay attention to what's going on. But these people got subsidies to go out there and build them. They went and built them, you know. Okay. Nobody goes there and really, you know, looks out for it. If you happen to have a severe hail storm, then you're gonna lose a bunch of panels to it. So the thing is, do we totally want to do away with it? No. Do you want it to be a compliment? Sure. Do we need to work to make it cost effective? Absolutely. And there are other ways to do it, you know. Now, people have talked about wind. Georgia topography does not lend itself towards big windmills. And like I told people the other day, I love to eat Georgia shrimp. I don't want anybody going off the coast of Georgia messing up the ecosystem. And if you've ever seen what the base, the concrete and the massive steel that goes in the base or wind farm, you would go, no, I ain't doing that. You go out to Texas. I went out there deer hunting two years ago. We drove through Texas at night and you see the red blinking lights out there for miles. But guess what? They have flat land. And ain't nothing on it.

Karin Parham: I was gonna say western Kansas. We've driven through western Kansas. Right now it's all wind farms. But I mean, it is windy as all get out.

Lee Muns: But there's. There's no trees out there to cut down. There's. There's nothing to impact.

Karin Parham: And some of the gorges on the west coast are good because it creates kind of a wind tunnel.

Lee Muns: I've been out there to Palm Springs, as you go to Palm Springs and through the valleys coming through there. And if the people want to have that up there, that's fine, but it doesn't suit here. So the biggest thing is having a solar complement. And so we build in a lot of these big buildings. So we say, okay, let's go to the builders and say, hey, what would it cost to increase your framing in order to carry this load? And then you can do that. You're not taking. You're not cutting down any trees, you're not doing anything. You're right there where the people own it, they can maintain it, all that kind of good stuff. So the conversation needs to be had. It doesn't. It doesn't need to be that you're forcing anything. Just like you said, if it's economically viable and it supports your plan of managing household, that's what you want to do. But the other thing is a lot of people here in Columbia county don't realize a lot of people living in newer homes, which means they're more energy efficient. You go down to East Augusta, places like that, people are living in homes that are 50, 60 years old, they're not energy efficient, and some of them more poor economic areas. You have multi generations living in a house. So that means instead of two people opening the refrigerator. Every day there's six or seven. There's more people coming and going. There's more leaks in the house. So you have to understand how does that affect them as well. And they're the ones that's getting hit even worse. And they're more on fixed income, right. You know, my mother in law is on a fixed income, right. You know, and fortunately for her, in the summertime she's cold nature, so her house stays hot, you know, so it works out well for her. But you have to take. You can't just base your decisions based upon your own individual mindset and exposure. You have to think about how this affects everybody collectively. I just read the other day Oglethorpe Power is getting ready to build two gas turbine units, combined cycle units. Gonna cost roughly $1.3 billion.

Lee Muns: And they will produce as much electricity as what Georgia power just spent $36 billion building at Plant Vogtle. Check those numbers.

Karin Parham: Yeah, Plant Vogtle it's been pretty controversial with the cost overruns with the, you know, and some people are a little sketched out about nuclear too. Like, what do you do if you have a meltdown.

Lee Muns: Yeah, but here's the thing. When they built Vogtle 1 and 2, they went over. So what has shown me is the grand scheme of things, they don't have the expertise to be in control of building plants, right. And doing the oversight. So see, Oglethorpe Power, they're having this company come in and build this plant, and they're gonna contract them and they're gonna do it. George Power tries to get too intimate in the management of the construction process. And so you have to have that check and balance situation. But when you're in there intimately calling the shots, you can't slap the hand of the person when they screw up because they're saying, but you told me to go do this, you told me to go do that. That's why we have contracts in the process. So they overran there. And then if you look in Tennessee, they just signed a contract to build a four unit SMR plant, small modular reactor plant. And, you know, there's a lot of new technologies that are out there. One of the things I want to do by being able to have a seat on the PSC is you have a voice into the whole energy industry and you get to start asking questions, you get to start challenging people. One of the places nuclear is the safest, most cost effective, cleanest type of energy production there is. I've worked in nuclear power plants. I've worked at Savannah, Riverside. Even in the old reactors they had out there, you have to make sure that the safety protocols are in place and the safety procedures. But even Georgia Power has Plant Hatch that's been operating since back in the 70s and operates well. The big thing that we as a country have missed when it comes to nuclear is bringing some uniformity to the process. If you look at the nuclear power plants that were built, not a one of them are alike. Operationally they work the same way, but physically they're all different. Which means if you want to get a part for your car, you go to O'Reilly or you go to Autozone or what, they all got it. If you need a part for plant program 1 and 2 or 3 and 4 or for where plant hatch or plant Farley. No, no interchangeable parts.

Karin Parham: Gotta go and have them custom made.

Lee Muns: Gotta have them custom made. Which drives up [the cost] immediately. When they say nuclear, it drives the cost up. So we as a nation need to look at this going forward. While I understand private enterprise. I get that part. I get that part. However, energy availability, energy production is critical to the viability of our free society. Everybody's got to have, bar none, everybody's got to have it. So to a certain extent, you need to stipulate uniformity. Currently right now, the Secretary of Energy, you know, they're coming out looking at the approval and regulations for new nuclear power plants. How can they? It's not streamlined to make it easier. Where people can go out there and screw up is streamlined so that we can be more effective. I mean, how do you think China built four units like at Plant Vogtle in less time? Because they had uniformity in the process. They had a good decision making process. The South Koreans going to Saudi Arabia, building four units over there, you know, there was consistency and all that kind of stuff. Stuff. And so what we've got to do is for years they built all the ones and I mean they're licensing them to run longer. But we need to look at a new way of looking at this going forward. Because one of the things that made us people go to China for manufacturing was number one, we were sending them money. We're the ones who gave them the money to do what they're doing. But then they were able to go in there and build state of the art facilities and they had unlimited power. They needed a power plant. Boom, 24 months it was built. They got all the power they wanted. But look at what we do here. You know, it takes so long right now. Just as I was reading an article the other night and you know, Oglethorpe Power has already gotten that plant in the plans. If you looked at GE right now they make one of the best gas turbine generators that's out there. Basically they dominate the market. However, to get in line to get one, you're about five years out. So you can't say, oh yeah, we think we need this power plant. Then all of a sudden it's going to be built in three years.

Karin Parham: You have to plan ahead for how.

Lee Muns: Much you're going to. This goes back to what I said about plant Vogtle because it took 14 years. They missed a lot of the marks to be saying we got more demand coming. We need to be thinking about that as well. But they were still trying to get themselves out of the hole.

Karin Parham: Well, when we're talking about these data management centers and that apparently I know our local commission, they're really gung ho about putting this data management center in because of I guess the incentives or the tax revenue that they can get from it. And so I think we're seeing that across the state. But those eat up a lot of power. So I mean, are they planning to build capacity in order to have more of those data centers in Georgia? Because there are some people who have environmental concerns about those data management centers.

Lee Muns: Concerning the data centers, number one, we just talked about they're going to build 8 million. They're talking about 8 million square feet. You know, one of my concerns is they're building it on land that belongs to the development authority. So if they're on land that belongs to the development authority, are they going to be paying property taxes? You know, everybody talks about this money that's coming in. The other thing that happens are data centers are going to be very high power users. We all know that currently manufacturers in the state of Georgia are not required to pay sales tax on their power bill. Now, if you put data centers and you consider them a manufacturing facility, does that mean they're not going to pay sales tax on their power bills? And so then the next thing is my thought processes are data centers. While you and I can do stuff and it's fun and nice, you can have Grammarly or some other thing on your phone that's not the big users. It's going to be more businesses, design firms, all this other kind of stuff is going to benefit more from AI and data banks, crypto and all that kind of stuff than anybody else. But yet it looks like we're going to saddle the homeowner and the ratepayers with the bill. You know, the whole thing always has been about business is I want to do everything I can, but I want to do it for somebody else's money. You know, that's always been the mantra.

Karin Parham: You know, so I say with politicians, I'm like, they all spend money like drunken sailors. Just what are they spending the money on?

Lee Muns: Well, what are they spending on? And they never take any regard of who it's actually coming from and how it impacts. Impacts them. So the thing is, with the data centers, my thought process is if you, the companies that are building the data center, you need this, you want to do this, then y' all come together, build them in a location that's suitable for them and everything else, y' all come together as in a collaborative effort and build your own power plant, power your own stuff, right? Augment it with solar, rooftop solar. You build your own power plant. If you have excess, sell it to the power company. You build your power plant. You're the one who needs it, you build it. You build your own distribution within your complex and you do that stuff there. But see, the power company doesn't like that. Because then all of a sudden, oh, but you're getting into our profits, right? I think your profits are pretty good right now. I think they're at a pretty good level right now. What we've got to do is look at viability, sustainability, and ultimately what it affects the individual homeowner ratepayer. How is it going to impact them? The bottom line, everybody makes these high level decisions. They don't think about how it's going to impact.

Karin Parham: I guess that's my concern from where is... Okay, if we're pushing these data management centers, so then we're gonna have to increase exponentially how much power we're producing by a bunch. And who's gonna pay for that? Am I gonna pay for that?

Lee Muns: No, you shouldn't. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, you shouldn't. And that's the thing, you know, it's just like running for this office. There have been some elected officials that have come to me and told me the things that I'm saying are good things and they're going to support me, they're going to vote for me, but they won't come out publicly saying anything. And the reason being, Georgia Power writes a lot of Campaign checks.

Karin Parham: Yes, they do, as we've seen.

Lee Muns: And, you know, so, you know, they're not. They're not gonna. They're not gonna say anything. And. And really, a lot of what I'm saying is counterintuitive to trying to get elected, but.

Karin Parham: Unless we can get a higher turnout.

Lee Muns Yeah, yeah.

Karin Parham: You know, that's the bad thing. It's not a [regular] campaign cycle, so there tends to be really low [turnout].

Lee Muns: So that's why I'm going around and I'm talking to you today and I'm talking to other people, and I'm saying, look, I don't want to ruffle feathers, but I want to make sure that good decisions are made that can be the best thing for the most people, you know, and that's where you have to take that into consideration. Know, it's just like I kind of just chase a rabbit right here, you know, around here, we. We are. I think it's five, maybe five or seven counties. We all pay into the TIA Transportation Investment Act. And we have round one, and we have round two. Well, most people don't realize round one still has $600 million sitting in the bank.

Karin Parham: That's supposed to be for. What is that for?

Lee Muns: Well, that's supposed to be for road projects around here.

Karin Parham: That's on round one.

Lee Muns: Yep. And I mean, it's online. You can go look at it. So I asked our county commissioner, I said, I pretty much have an idea where the interest money goes. I said, but how about go and confirm for me? She went and asked, come to find out, all the interest that's made off of tax money that we collected in these counties goes to the state. So if the state. You go do the Math, you're getting 4% on $600 million. A lot of money. So if you're getting that, would you really want to see that money get spent very quick?

Karin Parham: So this $600 million that goes like that's supposed to be spent on road projects. It's not supposed to just sit there.

Lee Muns: Right. But the thing is, logistically, you can't get them all done that quick. And that's the component that people don't understand is when you do, these governmental entities know that they're going to collect that money fast and then it's going to go out slow. In Columbia County has over $200 million sitting investment accounts making money. Some of it's money from the American Recovery Plan, still just sitting in a bank. Well, that money was given to the county to spend, but if you don't know it's there and everybody else doesn't know it's there. We'll just let it sit there and draw interest. And that interest off of that one account is about $1.2 million a year. So what I'm trying to tell you, Karin, is I'm a pipe welder who has made it a point to become very educated about processes, about politics, about things that go on. And because I have people that are a part of that machine don't like me. They don't like me because I ask too many questions and I know too much.

Karin Parham: Well, I mean, I will say so. You know, I sat in the HB581 hearings and actually you had me look at that situation a little bit differently because at first I was like, people just don't want to pay taxes. I mean, which is legitimate. Right?. They don't want to pay property taxes. But when you said, well, we have individuals who are living in mobile homes and somebody builds a McMansion, you know, down the street from them and now their property bill, property tax is a double. And I thought that ain't, that's not right. I agree with Mr. Muns.

Lee Muns: There's a house being built right down there now on Lewisville Road. It is probably going to end up being a seven to eight hundred thousand dollar house. Within a half a mile of that house are a lot of people that still live in mobile homes and they are going to be detrimentally impacted. Because of that one home. Now is it great that a homeowner built. Absolutely. If they got it and that's where they want to build it, go for it. But don't punish everybody else that's around there. And then the other thing is I, I called the tax, I sent an email to the tax commissioner because they have it in the county that if you own 10 acres or greater, you can put it on under what they call conservation, which means you pay very little taxes. Do you know right now there's 45,000 acres in Columbia county that's under conservation? And there are some people that are harvesting trees off of conservation property. Still just paying conservation taxes.

Karin Parham: Probably not, huh? I don't like people just cutting down the trees.

Lee Muns: Well, no, but I mean.

Karin Parham:That's the little environmentalist in me.

Lee Muns: Well, and see, I don't either.

Karin Parham: I don't think it's good for our community to cut down all the trees.

Lee Muns: But you have to look at this though. One of the things that we have done. It used to be that if you had a stand of pine trees, it was going to be after you harvest it, you replanted. It was going to be 20, 25 years before you could harvest again. Well, now with the technology and everything that they've come out with trees, you basically can replant a place that you harvest, and in 13 years, you can re harvest it. And I mean, so the technology and the science and everything they've done and we have to realize we do use a lot of good products and byproducts in what we do. But the thing is, again, you want to have the level of society that is good and viable for us, but at the same time, you want to protect it, right? And like I tell people, it's a balance. I love to hunt, I love to fish, I love to swim. I want to be able to eat what I shoot. I want to be able to fry what I catch, right? And I never want to have a reservation about if I want to go swimming in a body of water, is it safe for me to go swimming in that body of water? And I mean, so you have to think about it. I mean, years ago, you know, people went out and it was time to flush their radiator. They just went out there by the curb and they let the antifreeze go down there and they took the hose and flushed it out, put new antifreeze in and went on. But we learned that's not a good thing, right?

Karin Parham: It's not.

Lee Muns: That's not a good thing. However, when I was in Union county the other day, they were telling me that they were up in the mountains now. Beautiful place up there. There were tanker trucks coming from Atlanta, coming from the landfills in Atlanta with leachate yet in the tankers and dumping them in the waterways in the county.

Karin Parham: Oh, no.

Lee Muns: And they had a contract with the county to do it. We are too smart and too wise and have too many great minds to continue to do stuff like that. But a lot of times. But see, there is a government entity that's doing it. It's not a private person, right? It's the city of Atlanta cutting a deal with some county up there, some county up in the mountains to give them a bunch of money. So you can always say that it's a private enterprise, right? No, it's across the board, everybody.

Karin Parham: And it's a lack of transparency. And there's just in our reporting now, I feel like we've done away with most of our local reporters. We don't do any investigative Reporting….

Lee Muns: Know, I mean, governmental entities and politicians love the fact that there's no longer this investigative reporter that's sticking a little recorder in there. What's your feelings about this?

Karin Parham: I know.

Lee Muns: You know, now they, we just.

Karin Parham: Pulled an open records request and here's all this. Yeah.

Lee Muns: They now they can calculate it and manipulate it and it's. It's not good. It's not good.

Karin Parham: Yeah, I agree. But I'd like to bring back robust investigative reporting again.

Lee Muns: While you and I may not agree on everything, I commend you for what you do. Trying to make sure people are just informed.

Karin Parham: I just think it's important. You've got to know what's going on in your own backyard.

Lee Muns: The biggest problem is people are not informed. And so therefore when an elected person says something for lack of reluctance and anything else, people, they just believe it.

Karin Parham: Well, and what's concerning sometimes is, I think sometimes even our elected officials just believe things that they're told also. Yeah, Right. And it might not be accurate or necessarily honest. They might not. That's why our elected officials might not like the sausage that's being made behind the curtain either.

Lee Muns: I went online to look at the IRP that's being submitted and I couldn't believe the amount of information on there that's redacted. If this is the document that you want me to base my decisions upon, where's all the data?

Karin Parham: Right. They should have, they should have more open data.

Lee Muns: Available.

Karin Parham: Like this is a government body. It's supposed to be regulating the power companies so that we don't have a monopoly. Now, are you a Georgia Power customer?

Lee Muns: I am.

Karin Parham: Okay, so that's good. I am also. Mr. Echols is not. I know that's one bone of contention with some.

Lee Muns: None of the commissioners are Georgia Power customers. Now at the event I spoke at the other day, Mr. Jones says he was. But if he lives where I believe he lives, he's not actually. He has some of the cheapest power rates in Georgia. And that's one of the other questions I want to ask is how Cobb EMC buys power from Georgia Power, sell it to their customers at 9 cents a kilowatt.

Karin Parham: Yeah, why don't I get those rates?

Lee Muns: And you know, but all of your EMCs are non profits. And they operate very efficiently. They have very good programs. I don't think any of them produce power. But then you have The Municipal Electric association of Georgia that actually owns part of plant Vogtle, they own 22%.. And so they have a power commitment of 500 megawatts from plant Vogtle that they get. That's their commitment. They only utilize right at 180 something megawatts for their needs. The other 300 and something megawatts is sold to Alabama Power, not even used in the state of Georgia.

Karin Parham: So we're selling it to Alabama, but then we. We have to pay for the overages just as the paying customers.

Lee Muns: Exactly.

Karin Parham: For all this huge capacity that is going to. I mean, I'd almost say, all right, we'll build all the data centers. So at least. Yeah, at least you're not selling it to Alabama Power.

Lee Muns: You had companies like Oglethorpe Power and miag, and then you had Georgia Power all in a conglomerate built, having the ownership. And when you saw Oglethorpe Power and MIAG starting to sue the big guy, you know, there's a little bit of discord in the ranks. So that's why when everything went awry, Oglethorpe Power didn't end up being responsible for any overages. NEAG is not responsible for any overages. Georgia Power took them all, gave them to you.

Karin Parham: Instead of spreading the pain as they could. Right. And then they, of course, didn't cut into their own profits. You know, that's. I guess my biggest bone of contention is, you made these choices. You did all these overages and then you're making, you know, me and you and, you know, the single mom down the street is having to pay for it. Did the CEO of Georgia Power give up his yacht? I mean, no, probably not.

Lee Muns: You know, and you know, you're in a very unique situation. We live in a capitalistic society. However, Georgia Power is not part of that capitalistic society. They are a regulated monopoly.

Karin Parham: Right, Right. By the nature of what they are. And it has to be regulated. It has to be actively regulated.

Lee Muns: Everybody says, well, you want them to be able to attract investors. And I'm like, okay, so what are their investors going to invest in? What are they going to go build? What are they going to go take out loans and build?

Karin Parham: I mean, it used to be power companies and I was in personal finance before I joined the Army. So, you know, you counted on a certain amount of profit for utilities, and it was very moderate. Right. You know, it wasn't a huge amount. It was considered a slow and steady type of investment.

Lee Muns: The other day that called me who supported me and she's a CPA, and she said, Lee, I own Southern Company stocks and I appreciate the dividend that I get, but sometimes you reach a point that it's too much. Yeah, it's too much and it needs to be brought back in check. Now, were they not a regulated monopoly? Make as much as you want as your customers can stand. You know, when you're in a situation that your customers have a choice, they can buy from you or they can buy from somebody else. The industry regulates itself. But when you only have one solution, then you have to have the regulators to do the regulating.

Karin Parham: Well, and there are certain industries that are prone to being monopolies, and power is one of them. I think that's why it used to be. Actually it wasn't individual companies. Right.

Lee Muns: You know what the largest power company in the United States is?

Karin Parham: No. Which one?

Lee Muns: TVA. It's a federally owned corporation. And they are a for profit corporation, but they don't make these kind of profits. But they supply power to more people than any other corporate power corporation out there. But yet they do some amazing things. And so that's. The other thing is, let's go look at what other people are doing. Because I do, I look at things nationally, I look at what other places are doing, and I'm going, we are so focused on this company being profitable that we're forgetting everything else.

Karin Parham: Yeah. And why is it that important for it to be that profitable? I mean, you know, you want it, you don't want it to go bankrupt, of course, you know, and you want…

Lee Muns: No, but I mean, but you want. Look, there's 41 EMCs that are doing that and they're non profits. And the people that are working for them are making good money, have good jobs, good benefits, doing good things. You know, so there's, there's such a thing as profits. And then there's another thing called gluttony.

Karin Parham: No, I agree. I'm not, I guess I've been accused of being a Marxist or something, but I'm really not. I just believe in regulated capitalism because I think it makes the playing field better for us.

Lee Muns: Regulated capitalism is regulated by the consumer. When the consumer has a choice, Right. But when the consumer does not have a choice, right. Case in point, right here in Columbia County, Amazon Fulfillment Center, Georgia Power is the power company. Right. There at the development authority's place, White Oak. But do you know who supplies power to the Amazon fulfillment Center? Jefferson Energy. Amazon paid them to run a line because Jefferson Energy is on this side of i20. So they paid them to run a line under I20 to feed them so they could get the lower EMC rates. You and I don't get that choice?

Karin Parham: No, most definitely not. …People don't know that.

Lee Muns: That's what they don't like, information. Knowledge is power. It's when I sat on the school board and I did a lot of other things. What I did was just as that gentleman shared, that I prepared myself. I get to the point of a decision based upon the research, the reading, all the stuff that I do. I just don't come to a decision by happenstance. I educate myself and I tell people all day long, you cannot tell me I'm wrong and just leave it at that. If you want to tell me I'm wrong, you need to prove to me I'm wrong. Because I have done the homework, I have done the. The research, and I came to my position based upon knowledge, not just a feeling. And it. But if you want to come to me with knowledge and make me rethink where I got, because maybe there was something that I missed along the line or something like that, game on. Go ahead. But don't. Don't just try to talk me down. But. Oh, you're wrong. You're wrong. You're wrong. Okay. And your basis, you know, because at this level of decisions, it needs to be done by significant review and taking in the information and everything else. You don't. You just don't get to just cart block, just. No, you're wrong.

Karin’s Note: We continued our discussion off the record after this.