Russellville Electric Board General Manager Charles Canida will retire from his position effective November 1, 2024, the Franklin Free Press has learned.
The Russellville Electric Board went into executive session at the board's August 20th business meeting. Board Chairman Nick Willis asked Canida and board attorney Jeff Bowling to step out of the room before the executive session began. A short time later, Canida was asked to return to the meeting room where he reportedly told board members of his decision to retire based on medical issues and due to Canida and his wife raising a young grandchild they have custody of.
According to a source at the Russellville Electric Board Warehouse, Canida met with REB employees Wednesday morning to inform them of his plans to leave.
The board took no action Tuesday evening regarding the general manager position, but the board will likely hold a special meeting to discuss options including approving a written job description for the position and whether to name an interim general manager while the application process is ongoing, the source indicated.
That will be a stark contrast to how Canida was hired in December 2012, when he went from Chairman of the Board to General Manager at the same meeting he presided over. During that meeting, Canida resigned as board chairman, and shortly thereafter the board approved hiring Canida as full-time GM, in what some believed was a violation of Alabama's 'Revolving Door' provisions of the state's ethics law. That provision “prohibits certain activities by public officials and public employees for a period of two years after leaving their public employment.”
Darren Woodruff, who was appointed by the Russellville City Council in 2013 to fill Canida's vacated spot on the board, turned Canida and the board into the Alabama Ethics Commission several years later when he learned about what he believed was a clear violation of the Revolving Door Act. The response from the Ethics Commission was that too much time had elapsed from the 2012 meeting where Canida was hired and any prosecution was barred by the statute of limitations, Woodruff explained.
Canida was hired in 2012, according to Woodruff, without the board ever advertising the position or conducting interviews.
According to the REB source, the board attorney will be asked to work on developing a written job description and, once approved by the board, the position will be advertised as part of a 'by the book' process to hire Canida's successor.
Canida will be compensated for any remaining annual leave vacation days as of November 1, 2024, and will receive retirement through contributions he made to the Retirement Systems of Alabama. He will not be paid for any unused sick leave, and will not receive any sort of 'retirement package or compensation,' the source said.
The FFP has learned that the Russellville Electric Board did not request Canida to step down or retire. It was a decision he made individually, according to a source familiar with the process.
Canida's tenure as REB General Manager has been, at a minimum, controversial.
Two years ago, it was revealed that Canida opened a secret account at Alabama Central Credit Union with $25,000 of REB funds made as the initial deposit. Over the life of that account, no further deposits were made. And multiple withdrawals were made, exceeding $9,000, in either cash or purchase of gift cards. The withdrawals came in the days prior to conferences Canida attended, and others were made days before the lavish Christmas party Canida paid for with REB ratepayer funds held at the Shoals Marriott every December.
When the FFP made a request through the Alabama Open Records Act for all records of bank accounts in the name of REB, Canida withheld any information related to the existence of the ACCU account, which he then closed before later turning over those records and calling his failure to produce them months earlier an 'oversight.'
Canida's compensation package, including retirement, vehicle, expenses, travel, sick leave, annual leave, conferences, telephone and other benefits, soars well above $200,000 each year.
Canida drew the ire of many ratepayers when he used ratepayer funds to purchase a luxury SUV Yukon Denali for approximately $85,000. This was done only several months after the board bought Canida a new SUV, one that he said had warranty issues that could not be repaired, thus justifying the new Yukon Denali.
During Canida's tenure as REB General Manager, he was escorted by Russellville police officers and REB employees when he turned off power at the Russellville Post Office, interrupting mail delivery in the city.
Additionally, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when other local power companies established no-cutoff policies for residents financially impacted by the pandemic, Canida and the REB did not change their policy to account for the pandemic even though the Tennessee Valley Authority provided the Russellville Electric Board a monthly 2.5% wholesale power cost credit.
Local power providers had discretion to decide how to use the credit, which could have included lowering customer rates and/or limiting utility disconnects for those impacted by the pandemic.
Not only did Canida not recommend limiting disconnects, he requested a 3.1% electricity rate increase in January 2022 in the middle of the pandemic. The board approved that rate increase unanimously.
