October 31, 2003
Ye Olde PUD News Roundup
Time once again to check in with the surge in media coverage of next week's special election to decide the fate of a potential People's Utility District for Multnomah County.
This past Wednesday, Willamette Week reminded readers of its support for Measures 26-51 and 26-52, and recapped its endorsements for the PUD board.
On Thursday, The Portland Mercury weighed in with its support for the measures as well:
In spite of scare tactics by the measures' opponents, publicly held utilities are common--and even practical. Currently, one-fourth of the state's utilities are publicly owned. On average, those utility users enjoy lower rates. (Conversely, last year, PGE's rates topped all other utility rates in the state.)
More to the point, what the ballot measure will do has been wildly blown out of proportion. If successful, wooly haired hippies will not storm corporate boardrooms like they are overrunning the Bastille. Instead the true purpose and effect is merely to take an exploratory step into options for our electricity providers.
Four of the paper's picks for board members overlap with those of the Willamette Week (Dave Mazza, Xander Patterson, Jim Robison, and David Covington). But whereas WW picks Tom Markgraf to round out the board, the Mercury argues "there really is no strong fifth contender" and urges voters to "[s]ettle for either Fillard Rhyne or Nancy Newell."
Today's newspapers were overflowing with PUD-related material. In The Oregonian, there's a look at campaign spending which says this is "the most expensive initiative campaign in county history," mainly because of the enormous sums being funneled into the campaign by Portland General Electric and Pacific Power via their front group.
This article also has the following lovely paragraph wherein the industry front group's leader (Brian Gard, of Gard & Gerber, the PR firm with ties to the utilities) tries to rationalize his sleazy campaign of misrepresentations:
Gard said having partisans on both sides accuse each other of distortions is typical of any contested election.
Of course, even if it were true that PUD supporters were engaging in anything even remotely close to Gard's scare tactics, it would remain true that Gard's campaign manages to be both heavily financed (by the industry) and ethically (or would that be morally?) bankrupt.
Along with the article on campaign spending, today's Oregonian also presents some questions and answers about the PUD debate.
Elsewhere in this selfsame edition of the paper, Bill Michtom (a chief petitioner for the Multnomah County People's Utility District) argues in favor of the PUD, while Neil Goldschmidt (a paid adviser to Pacific Power) argues against it, although mainly by trumping up a threat to Pacific Power depite everyone saying that the PUD wouldn't be interested in Pacific Power.
Moving on, today's Portland Tribune gives a brief recap of what the election is about (and points to some of its own articles about it), and presents letters in favor and letters against public power.
So now the reminder: Ballots must be received at the Multnomah County Elections Division or a drop site location by 8:00 PM on Tuesday, November 4, in order to be counted.
Comments (4)
alan on 31 Oct 2003
I couldn't pick a 5th either so I wrote myself in.
jack bog on 03 Nov 2003
The PUD doesn't want Pacific Power? Don't believe that. They want a region-wide PUD block, and they need Pacific to do that. And if they don't want it, why did they write the measure so that they could take it?
kona on 03 Nov 2003
me too! i wrote myself in.
too bad i didn't know about you earlier, i wouldnt written you in instead, to up your chances. or who knows, perhaps we shall see each other at a board meeting soon.
The One True b!X on 04 Nov 2003
The board candidates have denied wanting Pacific Power. And for all I know, PUD ballot language is dictated by the state laws covering the forming of PUDs.
Which I'm not asserting, just offering as a one way the language could have been out of the petitioners' control. I'll have to sit down and re-read the relevant laws.