So, for my Los Alamos friends who have wondered what I posted that was so controversial that the local news outlets wouldnt post, here it is in its entirety. I have included the original letter, that I dubiously received at work. Following the points in the original letter from Councilwoman Henderson, my points of clarification are between the double asterisks. Its a lot of local stuff about our county government and how our public utility is organized, so it wont be all that interesting to non-Los Alamos people, but this is interesting in another aspect, as this is the type of thing that happens on state and federal levels all the time. My summary of what this County Charter Amendment means is that there is a push to get utility revenues back into the hands of the general County coffers; essentially a luxury tax, without it actually being called that. Also, there will be more ability to recall Utility Board members (originally appointed by the County Council), even without just cause. I suppose that is in case there is a disagreement in politics and policy. Anyway, here is the whole mess..of particular interest locally is the ski hill water line issue and the desire to have County Broadband service: From: kristinhendersonla@gmail [mailto:kristinhendersonla@gmail] On Behalf Of Kristin Henderson Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2014 7:01 AM To: Henderson, Kristin Subject: What Amendment Two Does - why Im for it Hi All, In the November election - early voting on now! - there are two proposed changes to our Charter. Amendment One is noncontroversial; clean up and reorg of language. Amendment Two is about the Utility Board and important enough alone to go to the polls for. I am in favor; it puts some community oversight on a citizen Board that controls millions in public assets and has a really important job. I try to explain what it does below. I am in favor and hope many more vote FOR also, but below is why. Thanks, Kristin ~~~~~(Letter to the Editor, LA Monitor and LA Daily Post): I am voting FOR Amendment 2 on the upcoming ballot about our Utilities Board. Contrary to the opponent’s dire depictions, it does not give unchecked power to Council, or radically change the government structure established in the 1960s. It does, however, put in some failsafes and backstops that I think most of us would actually assume are in place now. Our local government has two parts. One is the Department of Public Utilities, which provides water, sewer, gas and electric. It is managed by a Utility Manager, policy decisions are set by a citizen Utility Board, and neither the Board nor the Manager reports to Council. **This is not entirely the case. The Council does already approve capital projects and annual fiscal budgets. Any expenditure over $50,000 has be to approved by the County Council. The County Administrator is an ex-officio, but non-voting member of the Utilities Board, and most certainly does have a voice in the decision-making process. The entire DPU must abide by the same rules of governance that the general County does. Any ordinances voted on by the Utilities Board must be ratified by the County Council.** The second is the County government, providing police, fire protection, libraries, parks, and the jail, for instance. These are managed by a County Administrator, policies are set by the County Council, and you elect the Council. With Amendment Two, the changes: 1- Require the Utility Board to abide by the Sunshine Laws of New Mexico - to announce all meetings and agendas. ** The Utility Board does already have to abide by the Sunshine Laws of New Mexico. The Utility Board meetings are open to the public and are on the same day each month. The schedule is published and the agenda is an accessible document. Anyone interested in the meetings, content and the agenda should see the Utilities webpage, specificallly: losalamos.legistar/Calendar** 2 - Require the Board to report once a quarter to the community - in a report to Council - any issues that might be of concern. ** Again, this is a process that is already in place, perhaps in a different form. All the issues of concern are posted in a public place on the DPU website (and many on the Facebook page). See: losalamosnm.us/utilities/Pages/DPUReports.aspx It would not be a problem to present a formal report to Council. Council does hear all of the DPU issues and is openly welcome at the Utility Board meetings.** 3 - Require the Board, once every 5 years, to hire an outside utility consultant to review their processes. ** The Utilities Charter already requires this. It is a constant project that is constantly being worked on and updated. Personally, I have spent countless hours working on these reviews by outside consultants. The DPU have documents produced by the consultants that describe the state of the utility infrastructure and suggestions for future projects. ** 4 - Require a member of Council to be an ad hoc Board member, who can speak at a meeting, but not vote. ** This is probably not a bad idea. I think the term is ex-officio member, however. Currently, the Utilities Board does have a Council liaison, Kristin Henderson.** 5 - In the most contentious change to the Charter - Allow the Council, with a super-majority, to replace a member of the Board - requiring 6 of 7 votes. ** The Council giveth, and taketh away... The Council already appoints the Utility Board members! Until recently, I have not seen any unprofessional or unbecoming actions befitting of a Utilities Board member worthy of recall by the County Council. Ironically, it was an incident concerning the Charter Review that spurned a questionable act by a Utilities Board member in front of Council. A Councilors good judgement and an intervention from the County Attorney had to quell the act. I think the press reported on the incident. It was of dubious intention and unfitting of a Utilities Board member.** Board members serve for 5 years, and are appointed one a year by Council. There is no ability now for Council to remove a Board member. If a Board member makes poor decisions, acts inappropriately, or opposes something the community wants - there is nothing that Council can do, now. ** See point #5 above.** Although the ability to remove a Board member is a big change, it would have to be voted on in public, with public input, and with a minimum 6-1 vote. 6 - Establish a Dispute Resolution process. If Council and the Board disagree on something, there is no resolution process now. ** The Utilities Charter is akin to the Constitution of the United States. The Utilities Board may not act outside of that, else it can be challenged in a court of law. There are some issues that are contended but throughout the history of this County, and thus the existence of the Department of Public Utilities, the actions of the DPU staff and the Utilities Board have been upheld by the Utilities Charter. It works in very much the same manner as the Constitution of the United States.** 7 - Establishes a process to add a new utility. The new process aligns with State law. Currently, there is no ability to add a new utility. (Like, Broadband.) ** Ok, now were getting at the heart of some of the contentious matters. The DPU is chartered to hold a monopoly on the essential utilities that are considered Public Good. These are utilities that are essential to life and health in our day and age: water, natural gas, electricity, and sanitary sewer. Any other utility is considered a luxury. The DPU operates on behalf of the rate-paying citizen in the area of public good. Public money is spent on infrastructure that is for the public good (i.e. failing sewer lines get replaced, corroded and beyond functional-life gas lines get replaced, etc.). Something like Broadband is a consumer item and in the arena of a capital venture. According to the Charter it is not part of the responsibility of the DPU to provide luxury utility services. It is a franchise-able venture and should remain in the private sector as a consumer item; beholden to the dynamics of competitive business. It is similar to cell-phone providers and is a regulated business. That being said, the general County does have an IT/IM Department that owns and maintains a County IT network. The Public Works Department owns and maintains a storm sewer utility network. It is not unfathomable to have the general County develop, own and maintain such a utility network. The DPUs extremely large task of providing safe and cost-effective utility service should not be interrupted or imposed upon by the needs of a luxury utility service. One does not rob from Peter to pay Paul.** Some issues in the foreseeable future include: · Past Boards have opposed Broadband as a Utility, in any case, and opposed running a permanent water line to the Ski Hill. Both these items might be under consideration in the future. ** Another good point of contention (the Ski Hill water line) -- This is a personal project for me, as I am acting as a project liaison to the new owners of the ski area (TCP/Sipapu) and am doing everything within our operational rights to get them water -- probably even going a little overboard with my time spent on this. I am and have been for many years, the president of the Southwest Nordic Ski Club and have worked directly with the ski area on several projects, both private and work-related (i.e. water projects). I grew up downhill ski racing for many years, including in college, love to ski with my kids, and would personally be thrilled if the DPU could serve the Ski Hill with County water. No one in this town wants to see that enterprise succeed more than me. But, there are a myriad of issues surrounding the logistics of this. First and foremost, there is this little issue with the Countys anti-donation ordinance. We simply cannot just go build them a new water line because it would be good for business. All developers around here know that this is just the way it is with this Countys laws. It is not legal. There are other ways to accomplish that by the general County, however. It can be taken to a vote on the premise that it would be good for economic development, funds can be allocated by a bond issue from taxpayers, and viola!...we have the money and ability to build that water line. This public process is already in place. It is done all the time: golf course club house, Mesa Public Library, new municipal building, White Rock library, White Rock Visitors Center, the new Nature Center, LRW Public Pool, etc., etc. These all included big-time County-funded utility projects.** · Past Boards, over the decades, prioritized low rates at the expense of charging for infrastructure replacement. We now have old and failing infrastructure, and the current community will be asked to pay for that. ** This is another very interesting, and involved issue. Yes, the DPU has old and failing infrastructure. This is not a secret and is something that is very much taken seriously. But, there is only so much burden of debt and operating on a margin that the DPU and its rate-payers can bear. It is a very difficult process of decision making. The DPU knows exactly what the situation is and how much it will cost. The problem essentially boils down to how willing is the rate-payer to bear this burden. Believe it or not, this County does have a fairly sizable population that has difficulties making ends meet each month, and consequently have a hard time paying their utility bills. This is where the concept of the infamous Tiered Water Rate comes into play. Do the larger consumers pay incrementally more? Is that fair? I can say from personal knowledge that the situation is even more scary than the general County citizen would like to know. The problem is that the County was originally handed a poorly designed and constructed system that had seen very little upkeep during the government years. It was all constructed at about the same time, and is consequently now showing the signs of aging at the same time. Early administrations just didnt have lens wide enough to see this, but in this day and age, with the technology we have for inspecting underground infrastructure, we now know the story pretty well. So, now we have some new issues to confront. We are already raising sewer rates, with one of the highest rates in the state (sewer pays for sewer, water pays for water, etc.: each utility pays for itself and cant borrow from the other ones to pay for capital projects and O&M; i.e. the money-making electric production cannot pay for failing infrastructure). We want to raise water rates with a newly adopted tiered water rate based on consumer use. These are unpopular and difficult ordinances to pass, but are in process with more to come, unfortunately.** · Prior Boards chose low rates over reliable power. We had outages literally when the wind blew. This was not necessary; it was a choice of prior Boards. It was expensive to address, and will continue to be. **Same problem as above. The DPU now fully staffs two electrical engineers who are exceedingly talented and dedicated to improving the Countys electric distribution reliability. Many significant projects and reconfigurations have been accomplished in a very short amount of time, with an almost unprecedented improvement in a short amount of time. The DPU has spent everything it has in the electric distribution budgets and reserves to accomplish its improvement benchmarks, and the bar will continually be raised. I ask anyone interested in these programs and what the future plans are for increased reliability to go to the DPUs website: losalamosnm.us/UTILITIES/Pages/default.aspx ...or just go into the offices and have someone discuss it. ** · We have one substation where electricity comes in to town. Most communities our size have at least two. The substation is old; if it fails, we will be out of power for a week, need to rent a portable substation for six months, and build a new one; the charges will be passed on to you. **To be technically correct, the Townsite does not actually have a substation -- we use the TA-3 sub-station, bringing two circuits across LA Canyon. White Rock does, however, and is all brand new and state-of-the-art. Townsite has a very new and state-of-the-art switching station that was very expensive and complicated to design, construct, and put into service. The DPU Electric Distribution Manager and senior electrical engineer is working extremely hard on a project to construct a dedicated sub-station for the Townsite. It is a very complicated project with regional implications tied to DOE policies, coordination, and ownership of infrastructure (i.e. bringing circuits across Omega Bridge, etc.). Furthermore, if the TA-3 substation goes down, were not the only ones in trouble -- it also feeds LANL! It does have a lot of contingency and has never catastrophically failed as the authors point has suggested.** · The Board is considering arbitraging our power - selling it to other communities at one rate, and hoping to buy it at a lower rate. We might make $4 million a year. Or, lose money. Losses will be passed on to you. **The County already does this at some level. The DPU has an electric power production division, owning two hydroelectric plants, the PV array, is a partner in the San Juan Generating Station, among other WAPA power pool ventures. The ventures make money because everyone uses a lot of electricity. Its good business. The County is also contracted by the DOE to purchase and sell power for both LANL and Sandia National Laboratories, in addition to purchasing the power used by the County rate-paying citizens. Bottom line is that the DPU is good at it and has been trusted with the important role by the DOE themselves. By doing this, the DPU brings in much more affordable electricity for the County rate-payers.** To be clear, it is good to have a Board focused on Utilities; it is a big job, members are to be commended. But there is real liability to the community in having an unchecked system. **Again, the County Council has to approve many functions of the DPU. Those checks are already in the system...** These changes were proposed by three different citizen committees who reviewed our government structure. So we can believe nothing will ever go wrong, and as an homage to the 1960s, change nothing.
Posted on: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 05:32:56 +0000
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