Meanwhile, up high in the Austin Energy power structure, plots to slip a deregulation plan by Austin residents and the City Council are being hatched. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but not much of one, says Paul Robbins, who is perhaps the utility’s most dedicated watchdog. Robbins sounded the alarm to the council and the press last week after learning from an inside utility source that the utility had formed a five-member team to study the transition to competition. (The team will be led by System Operations Manager John Baker, and will include Roger Duncan, Finance Vice President Elaine Kuhlman, Assistant City Attorney Bob Kahn, and Fuels Marketing Manager Mike McCluskey.) Though several council members were surprised to learn of the plan from Robbins instead of from City Manager Jesus Garza or Austin Energy General Manager Charles Manning, council aides say council members weren’t exactly miffed about it, just curious.
The stakes will be high for Garza, Manning (who, after nine months as interim GM, was named permanent head of the utility last week), and the rest of the gang, as the deregulation train moves forward. Deregulation is an important, high profile consumer issue — a fact that should ensure that more than just the usual policy wonks and gadflies will be checking the progress and direction of the city-owned utility.
Ed Clark, Austin Energy’s director of communication, said the creation of the team is simply “putting together different types of expertise that will manage some additional strategic planning because deregulation has passed … We are not making any decisions relative to deregulation. All this is is planning and research.” And he stressed that the team is by no means trying to pull a fast one on the council. “Every single significant step we take or contemplate, we coordinate with city manager and the council. We’ve got a whole new culture over here today. There’s no excuse for surprising the council.”
As an advocate hired by the city to represent consumer interests, attorney Scott McCullough is watching the developments at Austin Energy with great interest: “There do appear to be a lot of interesting things going on over there,” he said. “I’m just beginning to see the top part of the water … it only has the appearance of stillness.”
McCullough said he heard about the strategic planning team through the grapevine, and that he plans to keep an eye on its comings and goings. “I think that our utility always bears watching, especially in times like this,” said McCullough, who has a history of protesting secrecy at Austin Energy. He resigned as consumer advocate last year when he wasn’t informed about the utility’s reorganization (he was eventually rehired). Austin Energy officials, he says, “have to remember that this is a publicly owned utility, and these questions need to be aired in public a lot more than with private utilities.”
Robbins says the creation of the team amounts to the establishing of a policy direction — one toward introducing competition — without the approval of the council. As evidence, Robbins says, “Two of five members [Duncan and Baker] said already that they were going to deregulate. … Deregulation is being launched without council approval to launch.”
Though the bill passed by the Legislature would allow city-owned utilities to opt in or out of competition for their service areas, the conventional wisdom is that the deregulation wave will eventually overtake us all. Still, deregulation critic Robbins protests that plenty of trends in the energy industry, such as the shift away from natural gas and toward nuclear power, have not turned out as anticipated: “Just because tides happen don’t mean they’re right,” said Robbins.
This Week in Council: Still no council meetings. Those council members who haven’t skipped town — or in Bill Spelman’s case, the country — are plotting new policy and budget priorities, which will be revealed in coming months as the annual budget process begins.
For those who can’t get enough of the ongoing day labor saga, there’s a meeting at 5:30pm today, Thursday, June 17, at One Town Lake Center. Council Member Gus Garcia, Assistant City Manager Marcia Conner, day labor representatives, and Dr. Rogelio Casca Neri, new consul general from Mexico, will be in attendance. The meeting is open to the public.
This article appears in June 18 • 1999 and June 18 • 1999 (Cover).