The three-page document urges the Public Service Commission (PSC) to declare the 2003 holiday snowstorm a "major event," a designation that will free the utility from paying customers thousands of dollars for the winter outage.
Yet an audio tape of the watchdog group's last meeting shows members barely discussed the issue. Committee members, who are appointed by the governor to represent consumers in rate cases and other utility matters, said the written recommendation supporting Utah Power was filed by staff members without their knowledge.
"I was surprised because that's not the direction I thought we were going in," said committee member Betsy Wolf.
Added committee member Kent Bateman: "I don't necessarily disagree [with the staff's recommendation], and I'm not sure we needed to vote on it anyway."
On most high-profile issues, the committee will vote publicly on the stand it wants to take in representing consumers, and then turn the matter over to its staff to handle the details. In this instance, though, the staff filed the documents believing they knew what direction the committee members wanted to go.
"The action we took was based upon discussions [with the committee] over an extended period of time," said Dan Gimble, chief of the technical staff for the consumer services committee. "We wouldn't have made that filing if we did not believe we had a clear understanding" of what the committee wanted.
After the report was filed, committee chairman Dee Jay Hammon told The Salt Lake Tribune that Utah Power could successfully argue the storm meets the legal definition of a major event, "one that was beyond its control."
He added that the best the committee could do now is ensure the company follows through on its commitments to continue upgrading and improving its distribution system.
Committee members remain concerned that Utah Power did not properly maintain its electrical distribution system and said so in a 12-page report filed in conjunction with the staff's recommendation. That report spells out what steps need to be taken to ensure another large storm does not cause the same problems in the future.
"We never voted [to support Utah Power] but the outcome may have been the same if we had taken a vote," said Hammon. "And I would argue now that we are stuck with that [major event] recommendation."
The suggestion that the PSC rule in Utah Power's favor represents an abrupt turnaround for the committee, which was shaken in early March when Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. fired longtime director Roger Ball, sending a message the governor wanted the committee to be less confrontational in dealing with the state's utilities. Ball was replaced by Leslie Reberg, a former telephone company lobbyist and Huntsman's choice for the job.
Reberg said she had nothing to do with the Utah Power case, an assertion backed by Hammon.
Like Wolf, Ball said that until he was fired the committee was inclined to make the utility pay Utahns who were inconvenienced by the outage.
Under the utility's service guarantee program, customers may receive $50 if electricity is not restored within 24 hours, and $25 for each additional 12 hours they go without power. For some consumers affected by the 2003 outage, that could mean payments of as much as $250.
The outage stemmed from a severe winter storm that struck Dec. 26, 2003, and continued through Jan. 3, 2004. Wet, heavy snow caused tree limbs to break and fall into power lines throughout much of Utah Power's service territory. More than 80,000 Utahns along the Wasatch Front lost electric service, many for extended periods of time. In addition, approximately 2,700 customers were without power for several days.
Utah Power voluntarily gave $1.8 million in credits to 13,871 Utahns, who had to replace spoiled food and suffered other financial losses because of the outage.
"Our customer guarantee program was a company-sponsored initiative and explicitly never intended to be invoked as a result of a major storm," Utah Power spokesman Dave Eskelsen said.
Nevertheless, the ultimate decision on whether the utility needs to pay consumers under its guarantee program now rests in the hands of the PSC.
Consumer advocate Clare Geddes is critical of the committee's handling of the major event declaration filing with the PSC
"It sounds to me like the committee abdicated its duty to its staff," Geddes said. "I'm not sure what upsets me more, that they didn't know about the filing, or that it doesn't bother them that they didn't know."
steve@sltrib.com
