City could lose its ability to leave FMPA
UPDATE 8:50 AM September 2, 2009 - Commissioner Golden gave the following statement:
It was my mistake for not pulling the right consent agenda item and I apologize
to the people for the confusion that led to my failure to act. At this very
moment, I am at city hall straightening this out. I will present my concerns
over the bad timing and FMPA issue and will follow through to make absolutely
sure our exit from FMPA will not be jeopardized because of a timing issue with
the repair of the GT1 transformer [that was on the consent agenda as item E
last night]. Because this is the second time generator repair issues have threatened
our exit from FMPA... I assure you I will give this my full attention until
the problem is resolved satisfactorily and will keep the public informed as
to the progress. Again, I apologize for the screw up.
Tuesday night September 1st 2009 – It’s not often that utility
waste is spotted ahead of time and is reported to a commissioner in time for
them to stop it. But tonight’s situation with consent item E was one of
those events and Jo Ann Golden had been given advanced information on what is
an extremely important situation.
FMPA our power provider, would like nothing more than to see us back in their
clutches and we already had one close call with the steam generator S3. For
months as the clock was ticking away… Mr Mulvay did nothing to fix S3
as the FMPA clock ticked away toward keeping us in FMPA forever.
What happens is this… if we can’t fix a generator
within a years time, FMPA can retire it and stop paying us a monthly capacity
credit. But that’s not the worst part of it. If they retire it…
it basically means we will never be able to afford getting out of FMPA and their
high rates. That’s how critical tonight’s consent item E was and
it appears Ms Golden didn’t even raise an objection.
The problem is that the transformer for GT1 a gas turbine generator just had
expensive repair work done to it. It was returned and re energized with 138,000
volts. Problem was that no one had carefully checked the breaker on the A phase
feed and they blew up the transformer they just repaired.
Now, three months of the one year time limit allowed by FMPA to fix a generating
asset has passed and consent item E and the city manager is telling us it will
take another 10 months according to the backup material. This would put us beyond
the deadline which is the second time now utility staff has tried to put residents
in that bind.
Ms Golden knew it but apparently failed to act as reported by an observer.
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