The public hearing of the Commonwealth Public Utilities Commission was well-attended by members of the public yesterday, more than one year after it last held such a hearing. However, much to the some disappointment, Commonwealth Utilities Corp.\u2019s rate matters were removed as part of the session. <\/p>\n
At the beginning of the hearing, hearing officer Harry Boertzel announced that rate matters will be deferred until the next session, which schedule is still undetermined. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt a prehearing conference [on Wednesday] including Georgetown and CUC, CUC requested that all rate matters that would have been heard this morning will be postponed until the next regulatory session. After discussing that, good cause was shown for that, so today we\u2019ll be limiting ourselves to three matters,\u201d Boertzel said.<\/p>\n
Three CUC rate matters were supposed to be discussed at the hearing\u2014the Fuel Charge Reconciliation, the Fuel Adjustment Charge, and the FAC Electric Surcharge or the replacement of water and wastewater electric surcharge, which was Docket 15-03.<\/p>\n
One member of the public aired his disappointed that rate matters will not be discussed. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really kind of disappointed here because I\u2019m here to listen to what you guys sent out on the notice but you said earlier that you\u2019re not going to talk about the rate. That was the reason I am here because you sent out a notice. Are we here for the public hearing for the rate? He said earlier that we\u2019re not going to talk about the rate,\u201d the resident said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to know, is this really a public hearing for the rate or are we being misled? He added.<\/p>\n
Boertzel responded that the commission agreed to the deferment. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was our intent to hold a two-day public hearing on a number of rate matters. CUC requested [on Wednesday] that the hearing on those matters be deferred until the next regulatory session,\u201d Boertzel said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be a hearing on the rate matters that interests you but it will not be until several months from now and you\u2019ll get new notices for that,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Boertzel did not disclose the reason for CUC\u2019s request\u2014nor did the corporation or the commission offered any.<\/p>\n
According to assistant attorney general Michael Witry, the public can request for the documents showing why there were changes to the hearing session.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf members of the public are wondering about the process that led to today\u2019s hearing changing from the rate hearing to this informal sort of briefing hearing, the documents that led up to that exchange between CUC and the commission are public records, they are available via a public records request to the commission. If you\u2019re interested in finding it out, just write a letter saying I\u2019d like to see these documents,\u201d Witry said.<\/p>\n
Not being misled<\/strong><\/p>\n On separate interviews, CUC legal counsel James Sirok and CPUC chair Joe Guerrero declined to give reasons on the deferment. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not at liberty to say anything on that, sorry,\u201d Sirok said, \u201cWe asked to defer it. It\u2019s that simple.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWe have the ability to request to defer, we requested and it was granted,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n Boertzel said the commission has the power to postpone matters. <\/p>\n \u201cThe commission can, for good cause shown, postpone consideration of anything,\u201d Boertzel said, explaining that \u201cgood cause\u201d meant that reasons as to why or whether they need additional time, issues that need further development were evaluated. <\/p>\n Boertzel said there is \u201cno injury to the public because it\u2019s just a delay. It\u2019s a matter of the commission\u2019s discretion.\u201d <\/p>\n According to Sirok, there was no issue of being misled.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re still having the same hearing that we announced. We just took certain items off the thing and it\u2019s not misleading,\u201d Sirok said. <\/p>\n Prior to CUC\u2019s request to defer rate matters on Wednesday, the CUC board just had a special board meeting on Tuesday to discuss in an executive session their \u201cstrategy\u201d for the hearing on rate matters. <\/p>\n After the two-hour, closed-door meeting, the CUC board even made a motion to \u201ccontinue on Docket 15-03\u201d which is CUC\u2019s application to eliminate the Water Electric Charge and Wastewater Electric Charge and to increase the electric rates, fees and\/or charges.<\/p>\n Sirok said deciding to continue with \u201cthe same position with Docket 15-03\u201d is a different matter with their request for deferment. Notices<\/strong><\/p>\n The same member of the public also raised question as to how notices were given out and disseminated. <\/p>\n \u201cI heard you said that you informed the public that you disseminated information about when to have the meeting but to tell you frankly, I\u2019m here today on just the mere fact of hearing people talk about it. I have an account here at CUC but I didn\u2019t receive this [mail notice],\u201d the resident said. <\/p>\n Per laws on public hearing, notices must be \u201cadvertised not less than once in each of three consecutive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the Commonwealth, the first publication being not more than twenty-one days before the scheduled hearing and the last publication being not less than two days before the scheduled hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n Additionally, the entity\u2014in this case CUC\u2014\u201cshall notify its customers of the proposed change in rates in the normal billing process not less than three weeks before the date set for the public hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n Boertzel responded that notices were published and disseminated as per Commonwealth Law. He added that CPUC and CUC published the notices three times each.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t clear however, if notices to customers were sent out by CUC on time as the commenter as well as other CUC ratepayers said they weren\u2019t able to receive a notice. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The public hearing of the Commonwealth Public Utilities Commission was well-attended by members of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[11377,915,49,11378],"class_list":["post-227171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-commonwealth-law","tag-cpuc","tag-cuc","tag-joe-guerrero"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u201cIt\u2019s two different things,\u201d Sirok said.<\/p>\n