Higher electricity rates? Councilmember Harrell’s take

| Utilities | West Seattle news | West Seattle politics

Once a month, the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce is hosting small brown-bag gatherings that president/CEO Patti Mullen has dubbed “Lunch with LEOs” – local elected officials. We’ve made it to all three, and today, the guest was City Councilmember Bruce Harrell, who heads up the council’s Energy and Technology Committee. The roundtable chat with seven of us representing local businesses/organizations covered a wide range of topics; of most interest – will Seattle City Light rates go up? Harrell stressed that SCL is technically a distinct entity but that he hasn’t seen any “data” regarding alleged money woes, which he says include “leaked” suggestions they might seek a rate increase of 20 percent next year. He says, “There might be a rate increase of some sort, but nothing close to that,” promising to closely scrutinize any such request, and the utility’s operations. He also discussed the city’s just-submitted application to get federal funding to put City Light on a “smart grid” – they’re hoping for up to $100 million of the $200 million he says it would cost to install technology that would enable more efficient management both at the operations level and at the individual customer level. Harrell says it would also assist in outages, potentially rerouting power around a trouble spot. That was good news to Marcia Chittenden, operator of the Chittenden House B&B, who told the story of how her business was without power for a week and a half after the December 2006 windstorm. According to Harrell, the “smart grid” money is being sought from a “stimulus” fund administered by the U.S. Energy Department and a decision on the grant should be in by October. Other projects Harrell says are on the drawing board include pursuing subsidized broadband for some low-income residents. Participating in the gathering as well as covering it, we put in a pitch when it was time to go around the table: Since his committee oversees technology as well as energy, we asked to have Seattle Police crime information available online, in something closer to real time – right now, the primary way reports are distributed to the media involves turning them into PDFs, copying them onto CDs and distributing them to precincts for reporters to peruse.

publicadministrator July 16, 2009 (5:48 pm)

“SCL is technically a distinct entity” um, what does that mean? …are we missing the context with that quote?

As far as I know City Light is a city department beholden to the committee Harrell chairs, and rate increases need to be approved by the full council(yes, SCL is also beholden to rate payers, the Mayor and citizens).

City dept heads were required to submit their budgets to Finance Dept. earlier this month, before being reviewed by Mayor’s office. Any proposed rate increase would have been included…

WSB July 16, 2009 (6:02 pm)

Don’t know if I can reach him for clarification tonight but I will try. That’s what he said. I’m looking for the operational specifics online and the term “publicly owned utility” is all that keeps coming up. Perhaps it’s unique in being a city department that operates its own business with other customers. He spoke of the city being a customer of Seattle City Light, for example.

mike July 16, 2009 (8:12 pm)

I’d like a second option for electricity.. oh wait, I can’t have that.

WSB July 17, 2009 (11:59 am)

Response from CM Harrell:

“City Light is distinct in that, unlike other city departments (Police, Fire, Transportation) it has a separate and distinct revenue stream and only pays a small percentage of this revenue into the City’s general sub-fund (approx. 6%). City Light’s revenues, by law, cannot support non-utility functions so it would be inappropriate to take revenue from City Light and, through interdepartmental adjustments, pay for more police officers for example. However, it is a city department; its supervisor reports to the Mayor.
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Its budget is submitted to the full council for review during the City’s ordinary budget process and any rate adjustments will be reflected during that process. I used the word “technically distinct” to emphasize the fact that there have court rulings in utility law such as the Okeson decision which make it very clear that there is a separation of functions. In that case, the courts made it clear that the City, as a customer, must pay for its streetlights and it would be unlawful to have part of the City’s infrastructure, such as its roads or lights, paid by the rate-payers. I hope this clarifies my use of the term. It does not imply that City Light is exempt from the other characteristics of city departments, though.”