To the editor:

On July 12, the city council will almost certainly vote to spend approximately $100,000 for a consultant study to do an “impartial” study of the city purchasing PSE Bainbridge assets and the city running an electrical power utility.

It’ will eventually prove to be a wasteful use of tax money, but Tuesday’s expenditure is inevitable because there are community advocacy groups that have promoted a series of half-truths about the potential advantages of a locally owned controlled and operated municipal electrical utility, and some well known and respected members of the community have joined the local electrical utility movement.

A Bainbridge Island municipal electrical utility is a doable, but the advocacy groups and very likely the consultant report will still fail to address the following important historical and environmental factors:

The city of Bainbridge Island has a miserable record of putting customers first and foremost in utility rate setting.

The city overcharged city water ratepayers for years (highest water rates in Western Washington cities) until a ratepayer lawsuit forced the city to outside competition. City staff being charged to the water utility was reduced by more than half, and water rates were reduced by more than 60 percent. This didn’t happen because of “local control” … just the opposite. It took a very expensive lawsuit from some utility ratepayers. The city council failed for years to provide proper financial oversight. The water utility now has some $6 million dollars collected from excessive past customer water rates that is now too too aged and complicated to provide refunds to the financially gouged water system ratepayers.

The city’s sewer utility has the highest sewer rates of any comparable Western Washington city according to the recently completed city sewer plan. The same type problem exists in the sewer utility as it did for the water utility. Excess number of city staff are being cost allocated into the utility. The city council could have had an efficient study down with the sewer plan. Didn’t happen. Wasn’t an oversight. City staff didn’t want an efficiency study, and the city council again failed in the local control oversight role to include such an analysis, even more egregious when the financial sub-consultant was the same utility consultant that brought the city’s water utility personnel efficiency under control. “I wasn’t contracted to do a sewer efficiency study.”

The city’s SSWM utility has the same problem, but it’s also plagued with programs that are discretionary and/or duplicative and have historically provided no useful or practical data to properly operate a stormwater utility. No program reviews, not real control of personnel costs. SSWM rates almost double that of Kitsap County. Neither the Utility Advisory Committee or the city is willing to change anything at city hall to make that utility operationally and financially efficient.

From years of observations of the three small utilities the city now operates, one thing is clear:  Local control does not lead to either financial or operational efficiencies of city utilities.

Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) Tier 1 rates are almost certainly going to increase as the dams verse salmon issues heat up. If the Snake River dams are removed, which recent court decision tends to make that  increasingly likely, BPA will likely shift to more nuclear power, and new nuclear power purchases will drive up the cost of BPA power. And dams are not exactly environmentally benign … not only do they block fish passage, but perhaps more importantly the reservoirs stop the natural flow of water and heat up the water to levels that are considered too warm for viable salmon spawning. Predicted warmer summers will mean more river water for irrigation and even higher river temperatures.

Municipal power advocates ignore the problematic current and future environmental impacts of BPA focusing only on Colstrip and coal production by PSE, which now at least a plan to divest itself from Montana coal energy production.

Power reliability increased under a municipal electrical utility? That’s a little like Donald Trump’s approach to political problems … no plan. The city could clearcut all trees that could possible fall on any power line. The city could eliminate all squirrels and birds and other critters that occasionally get into electrical distribution equipment. Tnhe city could underground transmission and distribution lines … same thing PSE have tariffs to do if ratepayers want to open their wallets to have that done.

Anyone who has closely followed this city and understands this city’s historic and current financial and program failures for looking out after the ratepayer’s interests of the three existing small utilities the city operates would see through the flaw in “local  control” advocacy of having the city own and operate a considerably larger utility.

Both BPA and PSE electrical power rates are going to increase, so it’s a deception to advocate this city will have lower electrical rates if the city buys the PSE assets and owns/operates its own electrical utility.

I ask Power Bainbridge to reveal their plans to provide more reliable electrical power with fewer outages than plans proposed by PSE. I suspect they don’t have a plan.

But one key element the consultant report likely won’t address is this city’s historical and current financial management of city utilities which excessively augments the city’s general Fund through excessive cost allocations and utility taxes to the detriment of their utility customers.

Kiss another $100,000 good-bye for a consultant study that will likely conclude a municipal electric utility is feasible with some pros and cons (already know that) and will almost certainly add to a deep polarization of Island citizens as it moves to a political issue to be decided by ballot.

ROBERT DASHIELL

Bainbridge Island