Ask for help, get a "compliance audit"

After my late wife and I first moved here over a decade ago we heard rumors that TVA was very heavy-handed about dealing with issues they judged as attracting too much attention. We later discovered to our dismay that the truth is far worse.

We came to TVA's attention three times in the last two years for issues related to a neighbor. In every case we were 100% blameless. There was absolutely nothing about anything we did that was irregular in any way. Despite being squeaky clean, we were targeted for onerous and highly questionable adverse actions. What triggered them? In every case it was reaching out for help to either TVA or another government function that connected with TVA.

In one case we were forced to move a boat trailer entirely on our private property. It was on a flat area and now it's on a slope that's very scary when our heavy boat is on it for winter storage.

In another case we were banned from having lawn chairs on the shoreline by our dock, including the chair my late wife loved to sit for hours reading and writing.

In a third case we were ordered to destroy expensive private property on our private property lot despite being told face to face, in advance by officials from TVA's help unit - the Public Land Information Center - that TVA had no interest in it.

Did I mention were were utterly blameless? The only common theme in these adverse actions is that we reached out to the government for help.

I'm a West Point graduate, and while I was there courses on Constitutional law were mandatory. That's why I knew to look in the Bill of Rights and found these words in the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law...abridging the right of the people...to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Justice Kennedy wrote that the right to ask the government for help without fear of punishment or reprisals is “one of the most precious of the liberties safeguarded by the Bill of Rights.”

And these weren't one-offs. I had a phone conversation with a TVA Regional Manager who freely admitted that TVA routinely conducts compliance reviews on people connecting with their help unit. They saw nothing at all questionable about it.

Imagine if the IRS as a matter of policy triggered tax audits of anyone using their help line, 800-829-1040. Or if the FBI opened investigations on anyone using their tip line.

So why would a Federal agency have such a policy? It goes back to what we heard when we first moved here, that TVA land management thinks it's understaffed and they just want to do their paperwork. That's why over ninety years they've evolved the practice of punishing squeaky wheels. It keeps the in-boxes empty.