To the editor:

In his letter (Oct. 28), an Island Power board member, Randal Samstag, compares PSE’s service in Kitsap County to the service a PUD provides in Snohomish County.

He says that PSE had more outages in 2015. He then argues that Bainbridge Island should switch to a municipal utility — because public power utilities, like the PUD, are supposedly “far more reliable.”

Let’s test this argument. PSE also serves Skagit and Whatcom counties, just to the north of Snohomish County. So how does reliability compare in these areas?

I checked the service reports. It turns out that Skagit and Whatcom residents experienced fewer outages in 2015, with a shorter average duration, compared to the outages experienced by Snohomish residents. Perhaps the cities the PUD serves should all switch to PSE!

Island Power should be more careful with its data comparisons — because public power utilities aren’t “far more reliable” after all.

DAVID JOHNSON

Bainbridge Island