Governor’s Press Conference re: WAPA
December 1, 2007
to listen click play below
This is Holland Redfield.
Unfortunately, as we predicted a month ago in our
editorial on the WAPA crisis and the PSC’s
June and August denials of the LEAC fuel escalator, we,
the consumer, are going to experience the
largest single rate increase in the history of the
utility.
Talk about sticker shock, we’re talking about a whopping
22.3% increase in your December
WAPA bill. Clearly, this could have been avoided if the
PSC had had the courage to deal with this
issue back in June and August of this year.
If your average light bill was $200.00, you will now be
paying a $244.60. This annualized increase
is $535.20. If your WAPA bill was $400.00, take a big
gulp because your new bill will be $489.20
which annualizes to a difference of $1,070.40. If your
WAPA bill had been $500.00, hang on to
your socks, you will now be paying $611.50 which
annualizes to a total bill of $7,338.00.
The social and political fall-out of these increases
cannot be measured and can only be speculated
on; we have never been here before. We are talking about
lifestyle altering choices which we, as
consumers, will have to make. That’s choices between
food, medicine, gas for your car, tuition for
your children or being able to pay your mortgage or
rent.
At the Governor’s press conference on November 30th, you
could sense, just by the inflection in his
voice, his anger and frustration with the present
situation.
We support his position that the adversarial position
that the PSC has taken towards WAPA has
been counterproductive and destructive and has left the
utility and the consumer in a untenable
situation.
We also recognize that because of the government owing
WAPA about $18 million that this has
had a severe impact on WAPA’s cashflow and its ability
to perform routine maintenance or
maintain an inventory of spare parts, much less invest
in upgrades or efficiencies to save consumers
money.
We call on the administration and the Legislature to
come up with the money and pay WAPA what
they are owed just like any consumer has to every month.
We call on the Governor to bring the stakeholders
together to sit down and hammer out some
solutions and to set a time-certain for the
implementation of those solutions. The initiative should
have the priority of the space race back in the 60’s
which put a man on the moon.
We call on the Energy Office to roll up its sleeves and
to set up an Energy Smart program to
educate our consumers on how to save money on their
utility bills. That program should be built
around public service announcements in the print &
electronic media as well as educational
programs and adult education seminars in our public and
private schools.
And, don’t forget to out the lights when you leave the
room.