PUD responds to customer's request

Puget Island resident Skip Nortrup returned to the Wahkiakum County PUD Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday to express his continued frustration with a recent installation of electric service at his home.

He was also frustrated with how the story was reported as a misunderstanding in The Wahkiakum Eagle on July 21.

“I did not misunderstand anything he told me,” Nortrup said of General Manager David Tramblie. Nortrup revisited the circumstances that brought him there before stating, “Everything he said is not true.”

“What do you want us to do about it?” Commissioner Robert Jungers asked after pointing out that the PUD had not written the article.

“I would like to own my own power pole so I can do what I want to do with it,” Nortrup said. “I paid for it. He’s telling me I can’t even put my light on it. He let me put my light on it, but I still want to run wires off of it to go down to run another light down to a lower point. I can’t do anything on it. All I can do is what he tells me I can do with it.”

“When did you change it to where you are going to replace that pole for me? Here it says I have to replace that pole anyway,” he said, referring to the PUD’s Electric General Terms and Conditions. “Why would I not want to own it? I mean if you haven’t changed your standards.”

Jungers asked if the PUD could accommodate Nortrup’s desire to own the pole.

“I think we can work something out,” Tramblie said.

Scott Wilson, a senior account executive and economist for BPA, stopped by to give a general update on Bonneville and to talk about a coming rate hike and more.

Auditor Erin Wilson warned that some customers had accessed third party sites when