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Electric Company Wants to Work With ReadsboroBy Jen Thomas - June 03, 2008
iBerkshires Staff
READSBORO, Vt. — As the Select Board looks forward to the sale of the municipally-owned electric company, open lines of communication between the town and proposed buyer Central Vermont Public Service is a priority.
At their meeting last week, the board heard from CVPS representative Joseph Klaus, senior vice president of operations, engineering and customer service, who encouraged the town to set up an informational meeting to answer any lingering questions about the sale.
"We want to do whatever we can to start out on the right foot here," Klaus told the board. "I came to talk about how we should proceed because we're in this together. We're delighted to have the opportunity to work with Readsboro and have this work for everyone involved."
The sale of the electric company was delayed last February after the board failed to meet the deadline for a public hearing before Town Meeting. The board did not select CVPS as the buyer (over Green Mountain Power) until mid-January, too late to organize a meeting that the board said is required by law to be 50 days before voters are asked to weigh in on the issue.
The board and Klaus discussed the next steps for the town as they make plans to put the issue on the warrant for the next regular town meeting.
"We better start now. We need to stop dragging our feet on that," said Chairman Raymond Eilers.
Klaus offered to make up a timetable of events that need to happen in the coming months and said CVPS would finalize the purchase contract to keep the process moving forward.
"We want to make sure we don't make any mistakes like last time," Vice Chairwoman Charlotte Clark said.
The Public Service Board will also require that the town hold a public hearing so Klaus told the board to consider having two separate meetings on the issue.
In other electric company news, the town is still struggling to comply with the mandates sent down by the PSB in April concerning a rate increase. The town is concerned about the cost of making the entire town — not just the electric company — Governmental Accounting Services Board compliant, which they've estimated could cost between $10,000 to $50,000, including the cost of training to use a new accounting system.
"If this is mandated by the PSB, there's nothing we can do. The money has to come from somewhere," Clark said.
At the meeting, the board also tabled discussion on energy efficiency and action on the electric meter repairs at the sewer plant to give Select Board member Tony Caruso more time to research the issues. |
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