March 4, 2004

Milton Lee
Chief Executive Officer
City Public Service Co.

Dear Mr. Lee:

I for one hope you do get your $280,000 bonus this year, in addition to your base salary of $280,000, because you are obviously holding down labor costs at our publicly owned utility company.

As one example, you have kept the number of telephone assistance personnel at substandard levels, as attested to by thousands of customers or would-be customers who are put on Hold for an hour or two, or in some reported cases for an entire day— or who can't get CPS to even answer the phone in the first place.

Another area of efficiency is one I can personally confirm. For the past three months running, my wife Carole has been filling out the Change of Address form on the back of our CPS bill envelope, and for three months your efficient operation has been ignoring the form. This indicates to us that the Change of Address people are consistent in their performance, and that you are quite likely keeping CPS labor costs under a tight cap.

Holding the expense of your own personal paycheck to just $10,769 a week (not counting benefits) is appreciated. Heaven knows other utility CEOs are probably out there really skinning their customers.

Mayor Ed Garza and the other Board members who approve your compensation are also consistent in their performance, but that's a matter for another day.

Best regards,

Brad

Brad Messer (the one at the new address)
KTSA Radio talk host