PUD commission handles varied issues

Wahkiakum PUD General Manager Dave Tramblie gave a report of recent activity, and the board discussed policies at Tuesday morning’s PUD Board of Commissioners meeting.

According to Tramblie, a sailboat that ran into a power line on Birnie Slough caused a countywide outage last Friday. Failed insulators had to be replaced after another outage.

Employees finally got to the heart of a recurring problem in the Elochoman Valley-Beaver Creek area when they discovered that some of their lines had been vandalized. The sheriff’s office was notified and the matter is under investigation.

After attending a two day school to learn about software for meters, Tramblie suggested it might behoove the PUD to hire someone to do the audits in the future.

“I think it would be in our best interest to hire someone to do these audits for us just to make sure that what we’ve done is accurate, what we have is accurate,” Tramblie said. “It’s a good check. A company has indicated that they are more than willing to have our people follow them around. They can help us with our practices. These are the things we are doing right, these are the things that we probably want to change. I think there is enough money in the budget to cover this.”

One item up for discussion was in regard to a customer who had made an error while making a payment using online banking and had to wait three weeks for the board to reconvene in order to receive a refund. It was not a hardship for the customer, but the commissioners discussed how to handle it in the future, as it may be a hardship for someone else.

The board talked about rebates for commercial and residential light replacement and parameters for shut off notices. They also discussed options for Westend customers who would no longer have the option of making their payments at the Rosburg Store, as it has closed its doors.

There was a round of applause for Commissioner Dennis Reid’s election to Washington Public Utility Districts Association leadership for 2014-2015.

Travel was approved for Jim Jespersen to attend training in Everett.

The next PUD Board of Commissioners meeting is scheduled for May 20 at 8:30 a.m. in the PUD meeting room.