gutshot II
Regular Member
About four months ago, a fellow KC3 member introduced me to a friend of his. His friend was an employee of the Louisville Water Co. and told us that LWC had a policy banning employees from carrying firearms while on company property or anywhere while on duty. He said that he had been told by his supervisor that if he brought a gun to work, he would be fired.
I was very surprised to hear this. When the new, amended KRS 65.870 took effect in 2013, the Louisville Water Co. was one of the first targets of KC3. They had "NO GUNS ALLOWED" signs on all of their property, including the main office downtown on 3rd Street. When notified of the new law by KC3, LWC agreed to remove all of those signs and comply with all other portions of the law. I spoke personally with their CEO and their General Counsel. I considered it a closed matter and expected no more trouble with them.
When I started looking into this, I found out that both the CEO and General Counsel that I had dealt with were no longer working for LWC. The first thing I did was to submit an open records request for any policy that they might have concerning guns and I got four documents. One was the contract between the company and the employees union, all 275 pages of it. There was no mention of guns in it. The other three documents as well as KY's preemption law can be seen here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5nu2rod4v0scc6q/Louisville%20Water%20Co..pdf?dl=0
I noticed that the new CEO and new General Counsel were CC'ed on the email that was sent to me. I sent those two gentlemen a message asking for an explanation. The General Counsel replied and told me that he had expected to hear from me. He was not aware of the contacts between LWC and KC3 in 2013 and he told me that LWC was a private company and did not have to obey KRS 65.870. I asked why they responded to Open Records Requests, if they were a private company. He had no good answer for that and guessed that they did it because they alway had in the past. He told me that several years ago LWC was sued when an employee was killed in an accident on the job. The company claimed immunity as part of Louisville city government and the judge ruled that they were not a part of Louisville Government and they were forced to pay a large settlement. Well, that might be and probably is true, but a company can very easily be private for one purpose, under one statute and public for another purpose, under another statute and he knew that as well as I did. It makes a case harder to prove, but doesn't make it impossible. I then asked about the board and who was on the board and how they got on the board. I asked if the Mayor was on the board and he said yes. I asked if the Mayor was an "exofficio" member of the board. An "exofficio" member is a member of a board only by reason of their public office. In other words, the Mayor of Louisville is always on the LWC board, no matter who the Mayor is and when a new Mayor is elected the old Mayor stops being on the board and the new Mayor takes his place. ciOf course, I knew that Mayor Fischer was a "exofficio" member of the board, all along. Not only is the Mayor on the board, but he appoints all the other members. I told him "OK, I won't argue with you about the Company being private, but the board is obviously a public board and they make policy for LWC and they can not make any policy about guns". He did not disagree, but then he said that the Louisville Water Co. had no policy about the possession of guns and had been unaware of the existence of the three documents, until I requested them. The facts are that originally LWC was a private company, started by two individuals and duely incorporated under KY laws, but back, long before the city merged with the county, the City of Louisville bought up all of the stock in the company. I asked if he thought that a reasonable person that read those documents would conclude that LWC had a "no weapons" policy and he agreed that was very likely. He went on to tell me that those were very old documents that were no longer in force and they would be changed to reflect the new policy or actually, lack of a policy on guns. This discussion went on for weeks. Finally he told me that it would be done in 30 more days.
Well, it didn't get done in 30 days and didn't get done in 60 days, but it has been done, now. All references to firearms and firearms policies have been removed from LWC documents. The process of educating all of the supervisors and mid level management has begun. They estimate that it will take at least 30 days for the new information to trickle down to all 450 LWC employees. It appears that many of these supervisors and mid level managers thought that there was a company policy on guns. Sometimes they thought this because there had been a policy, years ago and it was never clarified. Sometimes, because those people just made their own policy up or thought that there should be one like this. Now, the mistakes will be cleared up. As of now, LWC has no policy on guns, period and that will be made clear to everyone. They will have a strict violence policy. If anyone threatens someone, with a gun or without, that will be a big problem and will lead to punishment.
I was told that many of the LWC people involved in this just "freaked out" when it was brought to their attention and the General Counsel told them it was not something that he wanted to spend the next 10 years fighting in court, especially when he thought that there was a good chance that they could lose. Eventually, everyone came to realize that they had no choice. It is a shame that it took so long. I am not a LWC employee. No one on the KC3 board of directors is a LWC employee. This does not directly benefit KC3 in any way. This and things like it are done to make life in KY more livable and safer. We all have a right to defend our lives. A person should not have to surrender that right, just because he accepts employment with a public employer. KC3 will fight these things where ever they exist and there is a possibility of winning. If you know of any "NO GUNS" signs on public property or any public agency that bans guns let us know about them. These things can be fixed, but we can't fix them if we don't know about them.
I was very surprised to hear this. When the new, amended KRS 65.870 took effect in 2013, the Louisville Water Co. was one of the first targets of KC3. They had "NO GUNS ALLOWED" signs on all of their property, including the main office downtown on 3rd Street. When notified of the new law by KC3, LWC agreed to remove all of those signs and comply with all other portions of the law. I spoke personally with their CEO and their General Counsel. I considered it a closed matter and expected no more trouble with them.
When I started looking into this, I found out that both the CEO and General Counsel that I had dealt with were no longer working for LWC. The first thing I did was to submit an open records request for any policy that they might have concerning guns and I got four documents. One was the contract between the company and the employees union, all 275 pages of it. There was no mention of guns in it. The other three documents as well as KY's preemption law can be seen here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5nu2rod4v0scc6q/Louisville%20Water%20Co..pdf?dl=0
I noticed that the new CEO and new General Counsel were CC'ed on the email that was sent to me. I sent those two gentlemen a message asking for an explanation. The General Counsel replied and told me that he had expected to hear from me. He was not aware of the contacts between LWC and KC3 in 2013 and he told me that LWC was a private company and did not have to obey KRS 65.870. I asked why they responded to Open Records Requests, if they were a private company. He had no good answer for that and guessed that they did it because they alway had in the past. He told me that several years ago LWC was sued when an employee was killed in an accident on the job. The company claimed immunity as part of Louisville city government and the judge ruled that they were not a part of Louisville Government and they were forced to pay a large settlement. Well, that might be and probably is true, but a company can very easily be private for one purpose, under one statute and public for another purpose, under another statute and he knew that as well as I did. It makes a case harder to prove, but doesn't make it impossible. I then asked about the board and who was on the board and how they got on the board. I asked if the Mayor was on the board and he said yes. I asked if the Mayor was an "exofficio" member of the board. An "exofficio" member is a member of a board only by reason of their public office. In other words, the Mayor of Louisville is always on the LWC board, no matter who the Mayor is and when a new Mayor is elected the old Mayor stops being on the board and the new Mayor takes his place. ciOf course, I knew that Mayor Fischer was a "exofficio" member of the board, all along. Not only is the Mayor on the board, but he appoints all the other members. I told him "OK, I won't argue with you about the Company being private, but the board is obviously a public board and they make policy for LWC and they can not make any policy about guns". He did not disagree, but then he said that the Louisville Water Co. had no policy about the possession of guns and had been unaware of the existence of the three documents, until I requested them. The facts are that originally LWC was a private company, started by two individuals and duely incorporated under KY laws, but back, long before the city merged with the county, the City of Louisville bought up all of the stock in the company. I asked if he thought that a reasonable person that read those documents would conclude that LWC had a "no weapons" policy and he agreed that was very likely. He went on to tell me that those were very old documents that were no longer in force and they would be changed to reflect the new policy or actually, lack of a policy on guns. This discussion went on for weeks. Finally he told me that it would be done in 30 more days.
Well, it didn't get done in 30 days and didn't get done in 60 days, but it has been done, now. All references to firearms and firearms policies have been removed from LWC documents. The process of educating all of the supervisors and mid level management has begun. They estimate that it will take at least 30 days for the new information to trickle down to all 450 LWC employees. It appears that many of these supervisors and mid level managers thought that there was a company policy on guns. Sometimes they thought this because there had been a policy, years ago and it was never clarified. Sometimes, because those people just made their own policy up or thought that there should be one like this. Now, the mistakes will be cleared up. As of now, LWC has no policy on guns, period and that will be made clear to everyone. They will have a strict violence policy. If anyone threatens someone, with a gun or without, that will be a big problem and will lead to punishment.
I was told that many of the LWC people involved in this just "freaked out" when it was brought to their attention and the General Counsel told them it was not something that he wanted to spend the next 10 years fighting in court, especially when he thought that there was a good chance that they could lose. Eventually, everyone came to realize that they had no choice. It is a shame that it took so long. I am not a LWC employee. No one on the KC3 board of directors is a LWC employee. This does not directly benefit KC3 in any way. This and things like it are done to make life in KY more livable and safer. We all have a right to defend our lives. A person should not have to surrender that right, just because he accepts employment with a public employer. KC3 will fight these things where ever they exist and there is a possibility of winning. If you know of any "NO GUNS" signs on public property or any public agency that bans guns let us know about them. These things can be fixed, but we can't fix them if we don't know about them.
