The fight over electric power in Millersburg is about to enter another round. The Millersburg City Council will hold a second public hearing tonight (June 19) on its proposal to kick Pacific Power out, take over the town’s electric system, by condemnation if necessary, and run it as a municipal utility. Pacific Power is expected to use the hearing […]
If the Millersburg City Council goes ahead and expels Pacific Power in favor of its own municipal electric company, it will be over substantial opposition from the town’s residents. That was my impression after Tuesday night’s public hearing at the Linn County Fair & Expo Center.
The exploration of forming a municipal electric utility in the city of Millersburg started in the spring of 2013 with a confidentiality agreement between ATI Wah Chang and the city government. Some of the talk after that was in executive sessions closed to the public, but on Monday the public gets a chance to speak up and ask questions.
A crew was working at Pacific Power’s Hazelwood substation in West Albany Thursday, installing a modern breaker to replace one that suffered a “catastrophic failure” on Monday afternoon, causing a widespread power outage in Albany and Corvallis. To learn more about the cause, I talked Thursday with Doris Johnson, Pacific’s Albany-area business representative, and James […]
When a power failure hit the Albany area on Monday afternoon and knocked out all the traffic signals, motorists did what they usually do when this happens: Without being told, they took turns.
If you wanted to know the implications for the rest of the Albany area of a Millersburg electric power takeover, it would help to have an advanced degree in electrical engineering. Lacking such a degree, most of us will be interested in what the engineering staff of Pacific Power says based on a preliminary analysis the […]
Millersburg power vote looks likely
If public sentiment expressed at a hearing Thursday carries any weight, voters in Millersburg are likely to get an election on the question of whether the town should expel Pacific Power and take over the electric system within the city limits. Speakers demanding an election (I counted seven of them, including the lead spokesman for […]
Tags: ATI Wah Chang, Millersburg city council, Pacific Power, public power