Warning

 

Close

Confirm Action

Are you sure you wish to do this?

Confirm Cancel
BCM
User Panel

Posted: 7/20/2017 8:29:37 PM EDT
About four months ago, a fellow KC3 member and ARFCOM 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 always 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. Of course, I knew that Mayor Fischer was an "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 duly 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 or they did as I did and read the documents. 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 have no problem with that. Threatening people is a crime.

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 an 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, for the people that live here. 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. Besides, if one public agency gets away with it, others will think that they can and try it, too. Danger can present itself at any time, even when we are at work. LWC employees are sent into some pretty dangerous and isolated areas, 24 hours a day, every day. 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.
Link Posted: 7/20/2017 10:49:08 PM EDT
[#1]
Great work! I wish I had known about this and helped! Very good reasoning on your part about their status as a private entity but the board being appointed by the mayor. I'm super excited about this!
Link Posted: 7/21/2017 7:49:15 PM EDT
[#2]
Softpoint, you are the man!!!!
Link Posted: 7/22/2017 3:41:25 PM EDT
[#3]
I love reading these types of stories!
Link Posted: 7/23/2017 9:40:50 AM EDT
[#4]
Fighting the good fight.
Link Posted: 7/24/2017 11:41:55 AM EDT
[#5]
Link Posted: 7/28/2017 5:14:04 PM EDT
[#6]
Link Posted: 7/29/2017 6:05:41 PM EDT
[#7]
Good work as always.

Has KC3 ever looked at KCTCS? They have signs posted and an employee policy barring deadly weapons from the premises.
Link Posted: 7/29/2017 8:55:48 PM EDT
[#8]
Discussion ForumsJump to Quoted PostQuote History
Quoted:
Good work as always.
make news laws ourselves.
Has KC3 ever looked at KCTCS? They have signs posted and an employee policy barring deadly weapons from the premises.
View Quote
For those that don't recognize the target here, KCTCS is the Ky. Community and Technical College System and just as the name implies, it is part of the Ky. public college system. Public colleges and universities in Ky have almost unfettered authority to regulate guns on the property that they control. They are treated as if they were private property. A KCTCS facility is just like UK or UofL, in that respect.

For the last three years, there has been a bill in the General Assembly to get rid of these "Gun Free Zones", including colleges and universities and city and county buildings and K-12 schools. That bill has gone nowhere, mostly because of lack of interest. You did know about that bill didn't you? You did call your State Senator and State Representative to urge them to support it, didn't you? This is the only way that these things can be changed. KC3 can see to it that the existing gun laws are obeyed, we can't change them ourselves. I feel certain that the bill will be back again next January. KC3 will be there, fighting to get it passed. If it doesn't draw any more support from the gun owners of Ky. than it has in the last three years, it will just be ignored again. These things will not get changed on their own. It doesn't "just happen". The sponsor of that bill has been State Representative Tim Moore, of Elizabethtown. He has caught a lot of heat from anti gun people for doing so, but he keeps coming back. It is a shame that the Ky gun owners won't give him a little cover from all the attacks.
Close Join Our Mail List to Stay Up To Date! Win a FREE Membership!

Sign up for the ARFCOM weekly newsletter and be entered to win a free ARFCOM membership. One new winner* is announced every week!

You will receive an email every Friday morning featuring the latest chatter from the hottest topics, breaking news surrounding legislation, as well as exclusive deals only available to ARFCOM email subscribers.


By signing up you agree to our User Agreement. *Must have a registered ARFCOM account to win.
Top Top