Sunday, April 13, 2008

Owensville’s resounding referendum… “Get us out of MoPEP!”

After Tuesday’s election the headline of the Gasconade County Republican said “Owensville residents have spoken and their message was clear…they want different thinking in city government.”

Voters elected Sam Britton and John Kamler to the Board of Aldermen. Both are members of “Concerned Citizens” the citizens group that opposes Owensville’s MoPEP “connection.” Voters also overwhelmingly approved a non-binding referendum on the city ballot which gave the Board of Aldermen direction to seek bids and pursue selling off the city’s electric generation system with the object of finding an exit from the MoPEP contract. Residents cast a resounding 506 “yes” votes and just 68 “no” votes.

The City of Hermann elected a new mayor and two new aldermen, all of whom, I am told, are open-minded and focused on resolving their MoPEP issue. The new mayor, Larry Miskel was a seated alderman, so someone will be appointed to finish his term.

The City of Hermann is involved in litigation to resolve another city utility issue, whether a city can inflate their electric rates to subsidize other non utility city services. The details are in the Friday, January 11, 2008 post. Headline: “The Hermann Class Action Suit – Part 1 of our utility rate problem.” The deposition and discovery process has been slow going up to now but with the election changes perhaps the pace will pick up. The lawsuit challenges a long established practice by most small towns with their own utility departments. Municipally-owned utilities are exempt from regulation by the Missouri Public Service which is not only a weakness that has fostered this illegal use of utility fees but the lack of oversight and control of these small town cash cows made them a prime target for MoPEP.

Owensville candidates discuss city’s share of MoPEP debt during candidate forum

In the Wednesday, April 2, ’08, Gasconade County Republican story, “Critical vote faces Owensville residents,” Editor Dave Marner provided readers with a near-verbatim Q&A from their candidate’s forum, a debate which was dominated by the MoPEP controversy that has raged since Owensville signed their MoPEP contract. When Owensville’s citizens vote on Tuesday they will be largely voting on candidates who are defined by their attitudes either for or against the MoPEP contract and their MoPEP electric prices. The news report quoted Ward 2 candidate John Kamler’s response to a question, “Our aldermen did not know what they were signing or understanding.” Kamler continued noting the city’s attorney admitted publicly to having only read every other page of the “Restated and Amended” 2005 MoPEP (Missouri Public Energy Pool) contract since the facsimile copy he [the lawyer] received was not copied on both sides of the page.” (A moment of silence while we all absorb the magnitude of the culpability revealed in that statement.)

On the Owensville ballot there will also be a rather confusing straw poll to test citizen’s will as to whether they want their new city council to start the process of getting them out of the MoPEP contract so they can do business with a private electric company that, unlike MoPEP, is regulated by the Missouri Public Service Commission.

In the article, Marner pointed out that in the 2007 Owensville annual audit the audit firm of Verkamp and Malone, CPA, Rolla, revealed to the city that Owensville’s “pro-rata share of the above (MoPEP) liabilities at Dec. 31. 2006 was $994,977.” At the time the auditors made that calculation of the city’s MoPEP liability, MJMEUC/MoPEP had only sold revenue bonds to buy shares in the first four power plants. MJMEUC has since invested in a total of 7 and perhaps 9 plants so Owensville’s pro-rated share now would be at least double the 2006 amount. Marner’s article added that, “This was the first year the city’s independent audit actually acknowledged this debt existed. Debt, by the way, which was “not included in the financial statements presented.” Members of the Concerned Citizens of Owensville group are credited with pointing that issue out to the auditors.”

More citizens in towns with MoPEP contracts need to be asking our city auditors to find out what our liability exposure is.


Monday, April 7, 2008

What is that eerie glow?

It may not mean she’s glad to see you it may mean she’s been living in the “stack shadow” of a coal-fired plant. Just when the news couldn’t get any worse for the “clean coal” boys there’s a story in the Scientific American by Mara Hvistendahl about research done in 1978 In a 1978 paper for Science, J. P. McBride at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and his colleagues looked at the uranium and thorium content of fly ash from coal-fired power plants in Tennessee and Alabama. Coal contains uranium and thorium which are both radioactive elements. They are trace amounts and in their natural state are not a problem but when burned into “fly ash” the uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels. For the story….