REDDING CITY HALL, HOME TO THE POWER BROKERS
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Redding officially ends role in TANC transmission line
* By Scott Mobley * Posted July 22, 2009 at midnight
Redding officially pulled the plug on the TANC power line this evening with a unanimous City Council vote.
Council members credited power line opponents with shutting down the TANC line. But some defended the planning process as necessary.
"It is a process, and I don't know if we can get there earlier without the process happening," Mayor Rick Bosetti said. "But the folks that rose up made the process come up real fast."
Redding Electric Utility, one of five municipal utilities planning the power line, has spent roughly $265,000 out of a budgeted $600,000.
The controversial 600-mile long high voltage transmission line from Lassen County to the Silicon Valley was already dead.
The Transmission Agency of Northern California commission last week voted to end planning for the project after three of the major financial backers pulled out.
And the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA), the agency coordinating environmental planning on the federal level, announced Monday it was canceling that process.
Steven Kerns, a biologist and power line opponent from Round Mountain, told the council it was "getting off a dead horse."
"You got involved in this through an item on the consent calendar with little discussion," Kerns told the council. "The question really becomes how did you become misinformed. Your discussion this evening should not be about getting off the horse, but how did you get on it."
Council member Dick Dickerson said the council was not misinformed about the TANC transmission line. The council merely agreed to study the line to determine whether or not it was a good idea, he said.
Donna Caldwell is a Cottonwood resident who discovered her property was in a study area for TANC transmission corridor siting. She told the council that the grass roots struggle against the power line will forever remind her that decisions made in distant places can threaten her in her home, and she called for more information about such decisions.
Dickerson credited Caldwell and other power line opponents with helping force TANC to abandon the power line.
Vice Mayor Patrick Jones agreed with Caldwell and Kerns that the council should have discussed the merits of the TANC line earlier and more often.
"With so much at stake, so many lives affected, if we had more information, maybe we would have made a different decision with the use of public funds," Jones said.
Mayor Bosetti said he's not sure whether Redding would have pulled out of the TANC program sooner. He said he wanted to hear more from TANC officials before deciding, and he never got that chance, since the agency canceled its meeting in Redding.
"Ice Bears" approved
In other business this evening, the council approved purchasing 50 "Ice Bear" thermal energy storage machines to help REU use less energy during peak demand times on hot summer afternoons.
The utility plans to spend roughly $451,000 on the machines, which would sit next to conventional air conditioning units on roof tops or on the ground at smaller businesses and office buildings around town.
The Ice Bear is a smaller version of machines already in use at Redding Library, Redding Municipal Airport and the State Compensation Insurance Fund.
The machines make ice at night, when energy is relatively cheap for REU. That ice melts during the hot afternoon, when it is used for cooling rather than compressor-generated refrigerant. Conventional air conditioning switches back once the ice is melted.
REU has installed eight Ice Bears at its fire stations and corporation yard. The machines cut energy use by roughly 10 percent, REU Director Paul Hauser said.
Comments » 3
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* July 21, 2009
* 11:23 p.m.
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IG writes:
Too little too late for all but Patrick Jones...To the rest of City Council,You're FIRED...
* July 21, 2009
* 11:49 p.m.
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elvirabarker#205849 writes:
And the 265k of ratepayers money is "just money under the bridge" as Hauser says.
* July 22, 2009
* 4:59 a.m.
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citizenactivist writes:
Boy....That was like pulling teeth. I agree...the POWERS THAT BE, that were responsible for this socialist, backroom approach to what should be open city government involving a public utility need to be put out on the street.
Paul Houser $265K stolen from the ratepayers? Any chance of getting you to fall on your sword?
Right._Green Earl
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