In June of 2012, Mayor Bach sent a letter to the sitting City Council to consider his “vision” for downtown which includes “potential economic development on the current site of the Martine Drake Power Plant.” He also stated that the board should “consider not only the costs of moving or decommissioning Drake and the possible impact on electric rates, but also…the tremendous potential for vibrant new development downtown.” In September of 2012, three months after Mayor Bach wrote the letter, a local developer invited a likeminded group (including Mayor Bach) to a meeting to discuss the possible sale or lease of our Utilities. The keynote speakers were the former CEO of Xcel’s predecessor and the former mayor of Denver, a city which has sold off their electric and gas assets. From a newspaper article about the meeting, I obtained a list of attendees. I then checked the City Clerk’s website for the amount those individuals contributed to the strong mayor campaign and Bach’s direct campaign. An editorial in yesterday’s Gazette implied that my position of keeping our Utilities in the hands of our citizens is because of campaign contributions from the Utilities Employee Advocacy Group (EAG). As much as I respect the hardworking individual members of the EAG and the group as a whole, I make decisions based on what’s best for the entire City, not just one group. The insinuation is offensive to the voters of my district who elected me with a majority. It is also laughable in terms of dollar amounts. A review of campaign finance records on the City Clerk’s website will show an aggregate contribution of $545 from the EAG to my campaign. The aggregate of the contributions made to attendees of that meeting to the strong mayor campaign and Mayor Bach’s campaign was nearly $1 million. Also in regard to the Gazette’s editorial: 1) A sprinkler system would not have helped with this type of oil fire 2) Insurance did not require a sprinkler system, nor would insurance premiums have been lowered if one had been installed 3) It is ridiculous to think the board of any company would be involved in that level of decision making—the transportation company I work for employs 300,000 and is consistently one of Fortune’s top companies. Their Board does not consist of all transportation experts. There are executives from Waste Management, Home Depot and Caesar’s Entertainment. They were elected by the shareholders because their judgment, education and experience were trusted. I guarantee none of them involve themselves in decisions like placing sprinkler systems. Likewise, CSU Board members are elected by the “shareholders” (that is, the citizen owners) of Colorado Springs Utilities because they are trusted through the public vetting process inherent in a campaign. In April of 2013, the citizens of Colorado Springs elected a new City Council that, by Charter (our City’s Constitution), is also the Board of Utilities. The day after we were sworn in, in our first Board meeting, we cancelled a planned half-million-dollar ratepayer-financed study to look at the sale or lease of our Utilities. The folks who want to get their hands on our Utilities have had over a year to regroup. They’ve also had the unfortunate Drake fire that they may have seen as a wonderful opportunity. This is ironic, because if Drake had been an Xcel power plant, my guess is that Xcel would have just shut the whole thing down and gladly accepted the permanent rate increase plus a guaranteed 13% profit guaranteed to them by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). Yet we had such a dedicated and committed group who got Drake Unit 6 up and running through 24/7 ops. Last week Council reversed part of the rate increase necessitated by the fire. By September, Utilities employees will have Drake Unit 7 back on line, which will result in another rate reduction. Would Xcel have been as motivated to reduce rates? There has clearly been a consolidated push that culminated in the recent two unsolicited offers to buy or lease our electric utility. But my position hasn’t changed. Local control and local accountability make owning our own Utilities the best option for our citizens and our city.
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 16:04:03 +0000
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