The discussion regarding a People's Utility District for Clatsop County is bound to be contentious. Over the years PUD's have slowly developed even though they offer big advantages over paying an investor owned utility company. Once you do a little research you quickly begin to ask your self why there are only six PUD's in the state. It doesn't make any sense at all.
Most people say they are satisfied with what they have until they learn that PUD customers on average pay upwards to 30% less every month. That's when the the two major private power providers march out the arguments about how expensive it will be to pay them for everything they have built and how unreliable public power supplies and services tend to be. The problem with these arguments are that it's pure hog wash at best.
Pacific Power can't argue about rates. Right now it costs about $97 for every 1000 kWh you use. Tillamook PUD customers pay around $79 per thousand. Clatskanie PUD customers pay around $40. They benefit from power sales to the Wanna Mill and the development of their own power sources. PUD's have access to hydro power supplied by the federal Bonneville Power Administration which is the cheapest power source around year in and year out. They also have gas-fired power at a smaller percentage. Compare that to Pacific Power which relies primarily on coal to the tune of about 72% of it's power source.
There are community ties with Pacific Power, of course, that would seem to make the utility a good "community partner" I understand just as the story about a possible PUD surfaced a local museum suddenly got a check for $10,000. The fact is PGE and Pacific Power are required by law to contribute 3% of what they make to charitable, or not for profit community organizations. You still pay for that. Check your Pacific Power bill. it's a separate line item.
The fact is every PUD in Oregon is a community partner in the same way. That's not because the Oregon legislature mandated it. It's because the people that run the PUD live and work in the community and participate in community support year round.
If the county commission proceeds with this idea it won't change anything for people currently covered by a PUD or Electric Coop. The boundaries of a new PUD can't interfere with those.
A major player in this discussion is Pacific Power's Sheila Holden. She is well known locally and that is her job. She is the face of the power giant here. Holden is a regional manager for Pacific Power and has earned her position and reputation as a change agent, mixing business with personal passion, cheerleading for businesses, pushing for social services for low-income people and creating economic opportunities for women and minorities in Northeast Portland, and here acting on behalf of her company in the 2007 storm to provide supplies to feed those stuck in shelters unable to return to damaged homes and workplaces.
She is very highly though of and rightly so.
In this debate however she will be pushing the company line. We know this because of her reaction at a recent Astoria city council meeting and a discussion of the possible PUD which she said she had only heard about incidentally. She seemed puzzled that the county had not approached Pacific Power. She stated that any PUD would have to buy Pacific Power's system here and it would be very expensive. She didn't quote a figure. When asked about what her company might do to help the area in an emergency she said if it's not in the company service area she suspected there would be great resistance to lending aid. Too bad since she makes much of the strong ties the company has to it's roots in Astoria. I guess that only applies if we pay our bill including the line item that allows her to have fountains rebuilt and give grants to museums.
I agree that Pacific Power investors should get fair market value for what the company has built here. The county has the figure already because the county assessor keeps track of those filings with the state revenue department. All private utilities are required to file a report on the market value of their holdings. The number doesn't seem to bother anyone at the county, nor has it made the proposal economically unfeasible thus far.
The company won't have a choice to sell everything to the PUD because of eminent domain rights which includes paying fair market value, not what Pacific Power wants to charge. A PUD has that right but not the right to exercise eminent domain on any other industry or individual..An important point to remember as the campaign starts to get nasty. And it will.
Here's an example from a 2003 Oregonian article that was written as PGE was battling a proposed PUD in Portland that shows exactly how the company will use Holden here:
In a fight to keep its customer base, Pacific Power has joined PGE in distributing and financing anti-PUD information. But Holden -- and her long-established community credibility -- may be the secret weapon in this dogfight.
For the last two years, Holden has run the North-Northeast Economic Development Alliance. The group will soon release its first State of the Community report, which monitors all of the area's investments.
Last year, Holden was a chairwoman of the citizens committee for the Interstate Corridor urban renewal area. Her group helped identify projects that later got cut out of the funding loop of the Portland Development Commission.
What's more, in 1988, Holden helped create a business incubator called the Cascade Business Center. Pacific Power provided the financing and North Vancouver Avenue building, which now houses the Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs, or OAME.
"If it wasn't for Pacific Power paying my salary," Holden says, "I wouldn't have the freedom and time to do that work."
Now, it's payback time. Holden plans to use those contacts she's made helping people to build community angst over the public-utility initiative.
"We see this right now as a grand opportunity," Holden says, "to tell them what's real and what's Memorex."
She's good.
At the end of the day the decision to form a Clatsop PUD will come from voters who will have to decide three ballot issues. 1) To form the district, 2) To elect a local board to run it and, 3) To vote on a levy to pay for the legal work and any engineering studies and provide other start up costs that will need to paid back to the county. The power may or may not come from the Clatskanie PUD depending on decisions made by the board of the Clatsop PUD
That's the basics. The fine points are still in development.
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