Multnomah PUD. Let the bitter debate begin here!

 http://www.oppc.net/

Maybe Dan Meek can come and give a quick response to these questions.

I remember the big increase in my electric bill when I moved from Seattle (whose electric power, Seattle City Light, is a division of the City of Seattle) to Southwest Portland (whose electric power, Portland General Electric, is a private industry). But it is also true that in locales in Oregon where electric power is owned by PUD or Cooperative electric bills are much higher.

In Oregon, most of such PUDs and coops only serve small rural or suburban areas, possibly raising the per-customer cost of operation.

In Seattle, Tacoma (Tacoma City Light) and Vancouver (Clark Public Utilities), per-capita costs are lower primarily due to (1) the large area and customer base they serve and (2) the length of years they have been in service.

It may be therefore possible to lower your electric bill by voting for publicization of electric utilities in Multnomah County. But it will be very likely that it will be many years before your electric costs will go down.

1. Cost involved in reorganizing the power grid out of PGE (PGE serves a wide area outside Multnomah County including Salem, Beaverton, Lake Oswego and others, requiring the new PUD to separate its power grid from the rest of PGE) and integrating the Northeast Portland and downtown Pacific Power grids.

2. Cost involved in setting up new billing system.

3. Legal costs involved in acquiring Enron and ScottishPower PLC's Multnomah County assets, possibly through condemnation and subsequently a big lawsuit.

The whole debate for this cause is not motivated by pragmatic interests but by philosophical agendas of so-called democracy (i.e. statism). This is not about bringing electric power back to the people; it is only about moving the stockholder-owned utilities to the inept government bureaucracy run by politicians who are not businessmen and by career bureaucrats who treat the new PUD as their personal fiefdom. Making the PUD a separate special district entity will even make things worse than making it a department within the County.

It will be more efficient and practical if the County will simply take over the billing and ratesetting part of the electric utilities, as a reseller of electric power to residential customers. The per-capita cost of electricity will immediately go down as there will be no lawsuit to fight, no or very little reshuffling of powergrids and hardware, and the County will get a better deal because it would buy electricity at wholesale. The County would also be empowered to withhold any unpaid tax before passing your money to Enron or ScottishPower.

For those who'd like to bring the power back to the people: Buy your own generator and/or solar panels.

Katie

- Plunge Multnomah County into $1 Billion in debt.

The PUD, if formed, can't simply take possession of the Poles and wires and distribution systems from Pacific Power and PGE. The PUD will have to condemn and buy these systems at an appraised value. This will cost a billion dollars. This is a billion dollars that Multnomah county residents will have to pay off through their electricity bills. Multnomah residents will bear the expense and the risk of this proposition.

In a time when budget crisis threatens to shut down schools, throw poor people out on the street and stop medications for the frail, how is it a good idea to go $1 billion in debt??

Bullshit.

First, the only thing Multnomah County has to do with a hypothetical "Multnomah County PUD" is to validate signatures on the PUD petition, run the election for PUD formation, and then run the elections for PUD board members. The PUD is a separate, independent entity. The PUD's debts are not the County's debts.

Second, the PUD will have to pay "just compensation" as determined in a court of law, should it decide to condemn PGE's (i.e. use its power of eminent domain) assets. Whatever that amount is, it will take into account (a) depreciation, and (b) the amount that ratepayers have already paid to build these assets. Moreover, the purchase price will be funded by a bond issue that will come at a rate of interest significantly less than any private corporation can get.

Contrast with the outcome if a PUD is not formed: PGE, as part of Enron corporate criminal conspiracy, is in bankruptcy. It's assets will be disposed of by a judge in New York City who is operating solely in the interests of Enron's creditor's. They will therefore be sold in such a way as to maximize the price they can fetch (and hence the debt load that any private purchaser of PGE will have to pay). There will be no taking into account of depreciation and stranded costs. And, to reiterate, that higher debt load will be financed at higher rates of interest.

It's Enron (let's cut the "PGE" crap, OK, PGE is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Enron, "PGE" as such hasn't existed for years except as a facade for Enron to hide behind) that is a threat to schools, seniors, and the poor, by (for openers) charging them excessively high rates. The Portland School District alone had over $600,000 extracted from it by Enron's excessively high rates (caused entirely by Enron's own criminal conspiracies to manipulate the energy market).

- No generation assets. Expensive, risky power supply.

The estimated $1 billion needed to take over the distribution systems from Pacific Power and PGE won't include a AA battery's worth of electricity. The condemnation on the service territories of these companies are very unlikely to include any power generating assets. If PUD backers think they are going to take over PGE's generation, they are in for a fight. If they think they're going to take over Pacific Power/Pacificorp generating assets, they are seriously deluded.

The new PUD won't have very advantageous dealings with BPA as a power supplier. The PUD won't inherit any of long term contracts that PGE or Pacific Power hold with BPA. They'll have to make new agreements. BPA rates have gone up 45% in two years and they're set to go up another 15% this year.

Instead, they will have to buy power on the open market, which is volatile and could turn out to be very expensive. Look at the energy crisis of 2001 as an example of how electrical utilities get shafted when they can't produce enough of their own power. A utility is then forced to make the choice of whether to pay prices that border on extortion or let the lights go out.

A giant pile of bullshit.

First, PUD's sure as hell are entitled to condemn generating assets under Oregon law.

Second, let's remember what I discussed before: If there's no PUD, then the Enron subsidiary PGE will be auctioned off by bankruptcy court. There's already court precedent (in a Federal court, related to the bankruptcy of PG&E in California), that generating assets can be separated from distribution assets in such an auction. If this happens, the generating plants escape from state PUC regulation and can charge whatever the market will bear for the power they produce. In the case of Enron's Clackamas River Project, this amounts to a license to print money: the Clackamas Project is decades old and thus mostly paid for, and hydro is amongst the cheapest forms of energy to produce. Any bankruptcy judge that doesn't do something so clearly in the interest of the creditors he's sworn to act in the interest of is gonna get impeached so fast it'll make his head spin. So, far from being the outcome of a PUD, the utility with no generating assets is exactly the outcome that Enron toadies like you will see should you get your way!

Third, BPA is required to treat all public utilities equally when contracts come up for negotiation. That's scheduled to happen in a few years. When that happens, a PUD is a PUD is a PUD, no matter if it formed five years ago or fifty-five years ago. Who cares if Multnomah County PUD ends up paying more for preference power than a PUD would have had Multnomah PUD not been in the market in an alternate scenario? That theoretically higher price will still be lower than the price Enron's successor will be paying for non-preference power. That's the comparison that makes sense for current Enron ratepayers.

Fourth, even where public power authorities have no great blocks of preference power to buy from the likes of the BPA, they still have lower rates and better service! Ask any resident of Sacramento or Los Angeles if they envy the higher rates and rolling blackouts that residents of San Diego or San Francisco had to suffer. And on the East Coast, the newly-formed Long Island Power Authority, despite its big debt load from taking over the old LILCO (notorious for having some of the highest rates in the USA), managed to cut rates 20% in the very first year of its existence! Of course they have lower rates: they've cut the unnecessary stockholders and corporate fat cats with their huge salaries and bonuses out of the picture.

- An inexperienced utility with no control system or IT infrastructure to manage 300,000 customers.

This PUD will be a brand new utility faced with the task of merging parts of service territories of PGE and Pacific Power. This new utility will probably have to build a new control system to merge the two. This is a big expense that the county will have to pay.

This utility will also have to set up a Customer tracking and billing system for an estimated 300,000 customers. This is a big expense that won't come as part of the foreclosure. Any reader out there in the IT profession can attest that this promises to be a very expensive undertaking. Multnomah County residents will be paying for this with their power bill as well.

What a heaping truckload of bullshit.

"Utilities" don't have experience, people do! Just whom do you suppose Multnomah PUD would hire to run the new utility? The logical answer is the same employees who run our local Enron subsidiary, and whom have been so badly treated by that corporation for their years of loyal and hardworking service. The people who would be given the boot are the same unnecessary parasites that have created the whole mess: stockholders and investors who may know nothing about electricity but use their power and money to lay claim to dividend checks paid for from our rates, and the lying, cheating, and thieving upper management who is extracting multi-million dollar bonuses while shafting those who work for them (pension funds, anyone?) and running their business into the hole.

Second, a condemnation of Pacific Power is not in the plans. They've not been the lying bunch of thieves that Enron has been. But once there's a PUD, yes, it could condemn Pacific Power. Consider that a reason for Scottish Power (Pacific Power's owner) to stay on their good behavior lest they get spanked and sent to bed without any supper like Enron's gonna get.

- PUD's and Co-ops have the most expensive power rates in Oregon.

The seven highest rates paid by customers in Oregon all come from PUD's and Co-ops. As a general rule Public power does not translate to lower rates. This is because smaller utilities don't have much bargaining power with big power wholesalers.

Proponents of the PUD like to point out one or two other PUD's who currently have lower electricity rates than PGE. These are most likely due to long term, locked-in, contracts with BPA. These contracts stabilize prices for a time even as generation costs rise. This is deceptive to customers, because these utilities will face steep rate hikes from BPA once their current contracts expire and they have to renew. This is when they'll fee the pinch from several years of accumulated BPA rate hikes.

A barge load of bullshit.

First, as a general rule, public power does translate to lower rates! Even relatively small Columbia River PUD has lower rates than Enron (aka PGE). Multnomah PUD would be the biggest PUD in Oregon; it would be anything but small and powerless.

Second, Enron has big contracts with BPA as well. Those are gonna expire and need to be renegotiated as well. So the contract-renewal issue is a complete red herring, as it's gonna happen regardless. Only difference is that a PUD is entitled to get preferential rates that Enron isn't.

- Loss of Tax revenue.

PGE and Pacific Power pay local taxes and franchise fees. The Multnomah County and the City of Portland will lose an estimated $40 million annually by condemning these service territories in favor of a PUD which pays no taxes. Remember all of the trouble we've gone through this year just to be able to keep schools open?

That's enough bullshit that you'd have trouble fitting it all on a 100-car unit train of hoppers.

PUD's pay franchise fees and make payments in lieu of taxes. In the meantime, perhaps we should bring up the role income tax plays in funding Oregon schools. Wanna know how much income tax Kenny Boy and the rest of your heroes at Enron paid to Oregon last year. $10!!!!!

That's right, if you paid more than $10 in income tax, you did more than Enron (aka PGE) did to fund education at the state level!

And with a PUD, the schools wouldn't be scrambling to find the $600K to cover the extra rate increases Enron brought us. Oregon schools need Enron like a recovering alcoholic needs a year's worth of free drinks at the corner bar.

My only question for "Devil's Adversary" is how much Enron is paying him to shill for them. Would be interesting if the web logs for Indymedia showed him coming from an Enron IP address.

First, you have chosen a most unfortunate subject to post your comments under. The one thing entities like Enron and Scottish Power are most emphatically not is any sort of "free enterprise". What sort of "free enterprise" starts with an intrinsic natural monopoly, backs it up with a government-granted monopoly in its service territory, then gets awarted a guaranteed rate of return, no matter how crappily it runs its business? Well, that's exactly what your "free enterprise" utilities get.

I remember the big increase in my electric bill when I moved from Seattle (whose electric power, Seattle City Light, is a division of the City of Seattle) to Southwest Portland (whose electric power, Portland General Electric, is a private industry). But it is also true that in locales in Oregon where electric power is owned by PUD or Cooperative electric bills are much higher.

No, this is not true! I'm rummaging around right now looking for the rate comparisons. I'll post 'em when I can find them.

In Oregon, most of such PUDs and coops only serve small rural or suburban areas, possibly raising the per-customer cost of operation. In Seattle, Tacoma (Tacoma City Light) and Vancouver (Clark Public Utilities), per-capita costs are lower primarily due to (1) the large area and customer base they serve and (2) the length of years they have been in service. It may be therefore possible to lower your electric bill by voting for publicization of electric utilities in Multnomah County. But it will be very likely that it will be many years before your electric costs will go down.

Congratulations. You have just proven that LIPA doesn't exist and didn't reduce rates by 20% from what LILCO charged. Except it does and they did: http://www.lipower.org/company/ . Oops.

1. Cost involved in reorganizing the power grid out of PGE (PGE serves a wide area outside Multnomah County including Salem, Beaverton, Lake Oswego and others, requiring the new PUD to separate its power grid from the rest of PGE) and integrating the Northeast Portland and downtown Pacific Power grids.

Not so. Utilities actually get faced with similar situations all the time at the edges of their service boundaries. A new customer wants service and the only nearby lines are the ones on the other side of a service territory line. What happens is that the utility in the new customer's territory has the utility across the line "wheel" it the power needed to serve its new customer. Standard practice, happens all the time.

2. Cost involved in setting up new billing system. 3. Legal costs involved in acquiring Enron and ScottishPower PLC's Multnomah County assets, possibly through condemnation and subsequently a big lawsuit.

Chicken feed compared to what Enron has cost the Oregon economy. And the condemnation Scottish Power is not currently in the works (though it could be if they start engaging in Enron-style shenanigans).

The whole debate for this cause is not motivated by pragmatic interests but by philosophical agendas of so-called democracy (i.e. statism). This is not about bringing electric power back to the people; it is only about moving the stockholder-owned utilities to the inept government bureaucracy run by politicians who are not businessmen and by career bureaucrats who treat the new PUD as their personal fiefdom. Making the PUD a separate special district entity will even make things worse than making it a department within the County.

Oh, puhleeze!

What "inept government bureaucracies" are their running electric utilities? Seattle, Tacoma, Vancouver (both of them!), and Eugene all have public power, all have reliable service, and all pay less than those of us poor suckers paying Enron for our service!

Looks like the real issue here is inept private, for-profit, corporate bureaucracies!

It will be more efficient and practical if the County will simply take over the billing and ratesetting part of the electric utilities, as a reseller of electric power to residential customers. The per-capita cost of electricity will immediately go down as there will be no lawsuit to fight, no or very little reshuffling of powergrids and hardware, and the County will get a better deal because it would buy electricity at wholesale. The County would also be empowered to withhold any unpaid tax before passing your money to Enron or ScottishPower.

Why? If the people are to control it and run it in their own interests (as I think they should), then they should own it. All of it.

For those who'd like to bring the power back to the people: Buy your own generator and/or solar panels.

What, and foresake the use of this wonderful infrastructure that so many have worked so hard to build and for which we've already mostly paid via our rates?

Not sure this posted the first time I tried. Forgive me if it comes up twice.

As I said, Let the bitter debate begin here.

First: Public Debt. You are correct, and I mis-stated. Multnomah County won't be stuck with the Billion dollar debt. Still, we the rate payers are going to have to pay it off with our electricity bills as long as we live here.

Second: Generation. The PUD will probably be able to condemn some generation from Pacific Power and PGE, but the tricky part is this. You're only taking a part of the service territory of each of these two. They will still have service territories with which any generation assets could be used to serve. Tell me that's not a nasty fight.

Third: Inexperience and lack of Infrastructure. People do have the experience to run a utility. What they do not have is the ability to pull all of the neceessary infrastructure to run a new utility out of thin or from their very noses. It is expensive. I don't care whether that cost is "chicken feed" compared to what Enron has done to this economy already.
This is a cost that Multnomah residents will have to pay - again. It doesn't translate to lower rates.

Fourth: When last I checked, this PUD initiative did include Pacific Power. From what I can tell, it has nothing to do with public anger at Pacific Power or its parent company Scottish Power. I live in Northeast Portland and my electricity bill is much less than it has been in PGE territory- It has to do with the fact that it was inconvenient or complicated for the OPPC to separate the two for the purposes of their PUD measure. I ask you this. If separating two already separate entities is too difficult for OPPC, the how can we trust them to run a brand new utility?

Fifth: Why is this not a measure to condemn all of PGE? That is my major issue here. Doesn't that make much more sense? Wouldn't it do more good for Oregon if a Public Power commission took over all of PGE rather than condemning merely a few poles and wires in Portland? I could get behind a measure like that.

To you personally. I have nothing to do with Enron. I hate Enron as much as you do. Enron sponsored a war just to divert attention from themselves. You might remember it. I'm sitting at home in North East Portland typing on a Macintosh.

Personally, I don't believe that this PUD is going to save anybody any money. Fucked over PGE customers are going to be fucked over PUD customers. A government takeover isn't going to do good things for our economy. Isn't this bad economy the sole reason we're having this debate?

All of these statements are utterly false. This is the propaganda of Enron and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Portland General Electric Co. (PGE).

Why would Indymedia want to disseminate these false statements. Enron and PGE will pay millions in the paid media to disseminate these lies.

For the truth, check out the web site of the Oregon Public Power Coalition (OPPC) at  http://www.oppc.net.

If we can take the generation of power into our own hands, we can control what kind of energy gets generated. This means that we can choose what sources of energy we use to provide us with power, and eventually the dams could be not as needed...

This also means that we could decide what to do with the surplus money from the continued sale of surplus energy that right now go into private corporations' stockholder's pockets. ... and will continue to do so if not diverted at this critical juncture.

We could set an example for the country by using alternative power sources.

We have the right that the citizens with foresight gave us in 1932 to control the means of power generation in our state.

The legislation being introduced for tax credits is less clear to me, but this legislation also seems like it would provide the financial incentive for big and small buisiness and individuals alike to create alternative energy sources and to pollute less... Does anyone else have more info about this?

I think the question raised above is a pretty easy one for indymedia readers. I'll put it more simply:

- Should we continue to support a corporate utility monopoly that focuses on profit and stockholder gain
OR
- Should we create and support a locally elected utility board that focuses on what is good for Multnomah County and isn't beholden to corporate execs or shareholders?

The real debate is this:

- What expectations do we have of our public utility board members?
- What members of the independent media community should be running for the local utility board? (Are there any folks out there who are really dedicated to the details around green power and other power innovations?)
- What can we do to ensure the candidates we support are elected onto the board?

Toni

First: Public Debt. You are correct, and I mis-stated. Multnomah County won't be stuck with the Billion dollar debt. Still, we the rate payers are going to have to pay it off with our electricity bills as long as we live here.

But who cares? Who cares if we end up spending less paying for that debt than we now spend paying for Enron greed and malfeasance? That's the most likely outcome; that's the outcome that happened when Columbia River PUD formed in the St. Helens area (and they weren't taking over from Enron, had issues related to splitting off a new service territory, and didn't have anywhere near the economy of scale Multnomah PUD will). Ditto for LIPA's takeover of LILCO (well, they had no "separation" issues, but as I've pointed out that's a non-issue.

If you're proposing replacing expenses A and B with expense C, and C is less than the sum of A and B, you'll save money. Even if C is itself a big expense.

Second: Generation. The PUD will probably be able to condemn some generation from Pacific Power and PGE, but the tricky part is this. You're only taking a part of the service territory of each of these two. They will still have service territories with which any generation assets could be used to serve. Tell me that's not a nasty fight.

Riiight. And there magically can't be such fights when PGE/Enron is broken up by bankruptcy court. Free-market fairy dust will prevent it. Whoever heard of things like "bidding wars" or "competition" between capitalists. Puhleeze.

Third: Inexperience and lack of Infrastructure. People do have the experience to run a utility. What they do not have is the ability to pull all of the necessary infrastructure to run a new utility out of thin or from their very noses. It is expensive. I don't care whether that cost is "chicken feed" compared to what Enron has done to this economy already. This is a cost that Multnomah residents will have to pay - again. It doesn't translate to lower rates.

Hello? Yes it will translate to lower rates if the newer expenses are less than the older ones!

As they will be. It's not a major deal -- really, now, just what would you do if you were an Enron/PGE employee and your old employer was bought out? Decide to go on the unemployment line out of a sense of self-masochism, or accept the offer from the PUD to continue doing the job you know so wall for the new agency? The only thing that the PUD is changing is getting rid of the corruption at the top -- the day-to-day running of the utility will involve the same kind of tasks it currently does. Done by the same workers. Who'll be delighted to be getting PERS pensions instead of useless crap Enron pensions. (Just for openers.)

The only people being cut out of the picture are the criminals and parasites that have made such a mess for us. Address that, instead of ignoring it and repeating PGE lies like a broken phonograph.

Fourth: When last I checked, this PUD initiative did include Pacific Power. From what I can tell, it has nothing to do with public anger at Pacific Power or its parent company Scottish Power. I live in Northeast Portland and my electricity bill is much less than it has been in PGE territory- It has to do with the fact that it was inconvenient or complicated for the OPPC to separate the two for the purposes of their PUD measure. I ask you this. If separating two already separate entities is too difficult for OPPC, the how can we trust them to run a brand new utility?

Yes, the allowed service area for Multnomah PUD includes Pacific Power's area in Multnomah County. There's nothing that requires the condemnation (or acquisition via other means) of those assets. If Pacific Power behaves itself, its the acquisition will continue to be unpopular and Just Won't Happen. But it's nice to have a good, valid threat to keep PP on its best behavior. PP could get bought out by a bunch of thieves just like Enron was, but it won't if they can be spanked and sent to bed without any supper if they don't behave. And don't delude yourself into thinking that the state PUC will provide any meaningful oversight -- the whole PGE/Enron debacle has proven definitively that those "regulators" are incompetent, corrupt, and totally under control of those whom they purportedly "regulate".

Fifth: Why is this not a measure to condemn all of PGE? That is my major issue here. Doesn't that make much more sense? Wouldn't it do more good for Oregon if a Public Power commission took over all of PGE rather than condemning merely a few poles and wires in Portland? I could get behind a measure like that.

Because, for openers, people in other counties just might want the autonomy to make decisions on their own instead of having the show all run from Portland? If they want to make a big PUD, Oregon law provides ways for the individual PUD's to form joint agencies or authorities.

Somehow I have a sneaky feeling that a "one big PUD" would be met by handwringing about "that's dangerous because there's never been a PUD that large" and "that's unfair because Portland would be running the show for everyone else". Say it ain't so.

To you personally. I have nothing to do with Enron. I hate Enron as much as you do. Enron sponsored a war just to divert attention from themselves. You might remember it. I'm sitting at home in North East Portland typing on a Macintosh.

Then why are you spouting their propaganda virtually verbatim?

Personally, I don't believe that this PUD is going to save anybody any money. Fucked over PGE customers are going to be fucked over PUD customers. A government takeover isn't going to do good things for our economy. Isn't this bad economy the sole reason we're having this debate?

You can choose to believe in the tooth fairy and not in your mother hiding dimes under your pillow if you want and there's nothing I can do to stop you. You do look rather silly believing so, however.

I've posted numerous reasons why the PUD can logically be expected to save money, and you've chosen to ignore them and instead restate the original premises. Which you can continue to do if you're interested in demonstrating for all you're nothing but an Enron shill, protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.

I am not knowledgeable enough to know how much of the first post is true and how much of it isn't.

BUT, i do know that several of the reponses posted are true, including what I think is the most important - privately owned power companies are NOT in a free market.

The only thing that happens in utility deregulation is that the public monopoly, with its democratic control structure, becomes a private monopoly, over which the public then has little or no control. Then private companies control the price we pay for power and have free reign to do whatever they want (ala Enron in California with their completely phony power "crisis"). There is no "free market."

It is certainly true that there will be significant public costs to transfer the electric utility back into the public domain, and it may, in fact, be several years before the price of power for the consumer goes down. BUT BE THAT AS IT MAY, it is better for all of us IN THE LONG RUN to control something as basic as our own electricity than to leave it in the hands of private monopolies - private monopolies who will never give us clean energy, will never lower our bills, and who will never be accountable to us!

I'm very sorry that some of the opponents of a public utility don't seem to have any long-term vision, choosing instead to get distracted by the short-term costs. Because it is exactly that kind of short-term, reckless thinking that is a significant part of the problem not only with the way we organize the production of electricity, but also with the ways in which we actually produce it.

I would only suggest that we think in terms of the long term benefit, rather than the short term cost.

If I you suspect me to be an "Enron shill", then you must have an agenda of your own. You're hoping to be a PUD commisioner one day? Good luck to you, seriously.

Why did I bring up these issues? I brought them up because they concern me. I don't put any faith in a petition brought to me by someone whose only statement was "FUCK ENRON". I brought these up because I don't trust you, the PUD Commisioner-hopeful, to run a utility. I brought them up because I thought that someone on indymedia might be able to refute these pessimistic claims. I don't think you have refuted them.

Instead you've managed to string together expletives and to say that I must believe in the tooth fairy because I don't believe what you have to say. Somewhere in there you did manage to make one clear point. You don't care about the costs and risks involved because you really believe that it adds up to less than what people are paying now. I need more convincing than that. If you're going to campaign for this measure (and you will because you're after a nice new job at the PUD) take note: Screaming "Bullshit "and talking about the tooth fairy isn't going to convince people. You've got a couple of months to practice those arguments.

To N Tesla and to Dan Meek:

I have looked all around on OPPC web site. I don't find anything to specifically refute these claims. Here's my suggestion to you:

1) go here:  http://www.citizensagainstthegovernmenttakeover.com/
2) Read their flier. This is what you have to convince people is untrue.
3) Formulate your responses to try to refute these claims (possibly without using the word "Bullshit" or accusing your opposition of believing in the tooth fairy). If you want to convince people here is what you should do the following:

- Find someone credible who will say that it won't cost a billion dollars to condemn the systems.
- Get someone from BPA to say that their wholesale rates won't go up any further and that the PUD won't have any problems with their power supply.
- Get someone credible to say that it will be no problem and no major expense above current costs to set up the infrastructure for a PUD to take over the PGE territory in Multnomah County.
- Put the 60,000+ Pacific Power/ Scottish Power customers and 2000+ area employees at ease by telling them that the Utility won't be condemned because of Enron's indiscretions. I still don't hear any complaints about Pacific Power when the PUD is discussed. I don't believe a PUD is going to save PGE customers any money, thus I don't believe it will save me any money as a Pacific Power customer.
- Get someone credible to say that there won't be any revenue loss to Multnomah County or the City of Portland if a PUD is created.


4) Put it on the web site. Bring it to the hearing. Then you might win.

Anti-PUD posters are concerned about the $1 billion that buying PGE will cost ratepayers through eminent domain.
The figure that OPPC has always put forth is $1.5 - $1.9 billion. We have never deviated from this figure.

Sounds like a lot of money.
And it is.

However, ENRON has stated recently that it won't accept a purchase price at the bankruptcy auction of less than $3billion. This was reported in The Oregonian a week ago.

Hmmm. $1.9 billion is less than $3 billion, by more than 1/3.
$1.5 billion is less than $3 billion by 1/2.

Ratepayers are going to saddled w/acquistion costs when the utility changes hands again, regardless of who buys it.
It only makes sense to go with the lower amount.

The ratepayers have been paying for these assets via their bills for decades. We own a poriton of them, which is why eminent domain gives us the cheapest price. Ratepayers need to step up and protect their interests. Otherwise PGE is wide-open for a takeover by another big company all over again. After all, any company watching this fray will see that they, too, could get robbing us blind away with it all over again. No one but OPPC is interested in stopping them.

It appears to me that both Anti-PUD posters live in Pacific Power Territory. Both claim that a PUD won't save them any money.

Our non-existant PUD already has saved YOU money:
In July 2002 Pacific Power's request for a $138 million rate hike was approved by the Oregon Public Utilities Commission. All 100% of their request was granted.

Then in October 2002 the OPUC reversed their decision, somewhat unexpectedly.

What happened?

OPPC happened. We began gathering signatures in August 2002. By October we'd been working on it for 2 months and making serious headway. This did not go unnoticed.



Instead of attacking us for trying to rescue our electric company from a bunch of thieves, you should be sending us a a thank you note with a check in it.

OPPC's mailing address is: 818 SW 3rd Ave., #1335, Portland, OR 97205
You can make the check out to "OPPC".

No one is fooled; your agenda is transparent. You are clearly in the service of PacificPower as your arguments are a mere parroting of those seen elsewhere by them. Yet you insist on hiding and claiming to be something you are not. Your lies are obvious and no one here is falling for them. All the editorials and posting under false pretenses will not save your business. You have stolen from us for years and people are not going to take it anymore. You cannot hide the fundamental truths that underly your business practices. For your own spritual and mental health I invite you to consider closely your actions; do you wish to help people or merely help yourself? I will also issue you a challenge: give one example of a public utility takeover in this country that did not result in lower rates for consumers.

"Devil's Adversary" says:

The estimated $1 billion needed to take over the distribution systems from Pacific Power and PGE won't include a AA battery's worth of electricity. The condemnation on the service territories of these companies are very unlikely to include any power generating assets. If PUD backers think they are going to take over PGE's generation, they are in for a fight. If they think they're going to take over Pacific Power/Pacificorp generating assets, they are seriously deluded. The new PUD won't have very advantageous dealings with BPA as a power supplier. The PUD won't inherit any of long term contracts that PGE or Pacific Power hold with BPA. They'll have to make new agreements. BPA rates have gone up 45% in two years and they're set to go up another 15% this year.

Judi Johansen, president and CEO, PacifiCorp, Portland (taken from http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2003/03/31/editorial4.html) says:

Based on the proponents' own cost estimates (which we believe to be too low), the new utility would have to incur thousands in debt for each customer in the county just to buy the existing distribution systems. That's before they've purchased a single kilowatt-hour of energy. A startup utility of the kind proposed by OPPC would face a very uncertain energy environment. The new startup utility will own insufficient generating facilities. Bonneville Power Administration, after increasing its rates by nearly 45 percent since September 2001, will impose an additional 15 percent surcharge to its rates later this year. It would be risky for this startup agency to venture into the highly volatile field of electric supply procurement to meet the needs of Multnomah County's electric consumers?and 100 percent of the risk would be borne by those consumers.

We don't need weblogs to see through such obvious bullshit propaganda as this. This just proves how desperate they are to hold onto their exploitive profits.