Last night's City Commission meeting was very pleasant and lasted only about 1 hour. There was no one agenda item that caused great controversy.
Tim Gregori was there and in response to a comment Ed McKnight made, once again explained why we have imbalances in the power market. I can't write fast enough to record what he said and I never took shorthand, so I can't tell you if what he said was just "smoke and mirrors" or not.
The one item that generated the most comment was city staff's recommendation that the city logo be changed to reflect the city seal. Commissioner Bronson made a motion to deny changing the logo, stating that the proposal to combine the seal and logo "does not really reflect what the city is about". The motion to deny changing was passed, 4-0. (Commissioner Jolley was absent). A member of the audience suggested holding a contest if the city still wants to change it. A good time to do this would be next year when the city celebrates its 125th birthday. Cheryl Patton, assistant city manager (Greg Doyon was out of town) thought this to be a good idea.
The one item that generated the most comment was city staff's recommendation that the city logo be changed to reflect the city seal. Commissioner Bronson made a motion to deny changing the logo, stating that the proposal to combine the seal and logo "does not really reflect what the city is about". The motion to deny changing was passed, 4-0. (Commissioner Jolley was absent). A member of the audience suggested holding a contest if the city still wants to change it. A good time to do this would be next year when the city celebrates its 125th birthday. Cheryl Patton, assistant city manager (Greg Doyon was out of town) thought this to be a good idea.
After all of the commotion of the election, it was refreshing to be at a city meeting that was relaxed and not confrontational.
1 comment:
Tim did say something very significant and important.
The point I have been making is that the Imbalance market was used in a scam in conjunction with the water credits, a related but separate item, to prohibit the city from receiving the water credits (debts).
The reason I like the water credits (debts) is because I'd rather owe money at 0% with no payback period rather than paying cash up front. In a time of fiscal tightness I'd rather have the money. The amount for last year, 2007, is $400,000. Could we have retained one police officer for $400,000? I don't have complete figures for this year but it's easy to just imagine a few hundred thousand more.
When this was brought up to the ECP board there was no response. At the next meeting I demanded a response and colleen interrupted informing Mr. Golie that this was beyond the scope of his duties to be aware of this, in other words none of his business and he agreed. I pressed him for an answer if he was OK with not receiving the credits and paying cash and he said he doesn't care because we sold power on the imbalance market at a profit. (what does that have to do with enforcing contracts?)
This is how the scam works. All contracts limit water credits (debts) to block one power only. Block three power was significantly under subscribed, freeing up massive amounts of power to be sold on the imbalance market. The credits received for the sales of block three was then applied to block one on a pro-rated basis to eliminate the water credits (debts). To add insult to injury the pilot program, which we now know sells power to insiders at a loss, was used as an excuse to buy block three in the first place.
Now we know the source of information, the claim that we made a profit in 2007 from the imbalance market, it was Tim. Tim also said he knows that all the evidence to prove it is in the hands of Colleen. Tim spent all that time explaining that there is an imbalance market and how it works, everything we already know, but did not address the point of how the market was used to violate the contracts and did not mention water credits (debts) at all. I'd call that smoke and mirrors.
But here is why I question the claim. If we sold massive amounts of power for a profit then at the end of the month or year the profits would decrease the losses and total cost of doing business. The cost of power would have gone down, but it didn't, the cost of power and the losses went up significantly.
Its been three months now. If the city could prove their claim of profit you'd think they would have done so by now. Remember they spent years withholding the information that SME was more expensive than NWE to start with.
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