Time to celebrate our recently announced water rate increases. Break out the best gray water champagne!
I tried to obtain information from the Nevada Public Utilities Commission about the 2001 sale of the local water system by NVEnergy’s predecessor, Sierra Pacific Power. I received everything but what I asked for.
When I pushed to get the price us peons paid, I was refused the info and referred to the Truckee Meadows Water Authority.
I’ve been waiting for weeks for a response from TMWA, so I guess I’ll just go with the flow.
On March 19, I sent this to TMWA’s PR department: “Your website says condo owners do not need the insurance marketed under TMWA’s name. I have received mailers from the insurer subsequent to that announcement which make no mention of the condo exception.
“As a result, I fear owners in my complex as well as many others have purchased this redundant cost. I’ve done what I can with the e-addresses of my neighbors I have. But you are far more well-equipped.
“Have you received other complaints? Will you contact the insurer and tell them to distribute clarifications to all recipients of the sales pitch? Is TMWA willing to post this issue on its website?”
Last week, I got a mailer from another insurer (not bearing TMWA’s logo), but this one at least noted that condo owners should talk to their homeowners’ association first.
At deadline, I looked at TMWA.com and searched “street to home pipes” and “pipeline insurance” but apparently there is now nothing on the site about who pays for street-to-home water line breaks, how to insure against it and especially noting that many condominium owners don’t need it.
Problem solved? I don’t think so. Perhaps we have a case of ignoring the problem and maybe it will go away.
I want to know if an outfit named Service Line Warranties of America is still selling this useless “insurance.” How many TMWA customers have inquired? How many condo owners have needlessly purchased it? Can they get refunds?
Guess I’ll send TMWA a copy of this column and see if they know how to read.
HISTORICAL SHUFFLE. In 1980-82, when I was fighting SIerra Pacific and trying to get the state consumer advocate’s office passed into law, I worked with the best utility economist in the United States, Dr. David Schwartz.
I asked him to review the possibility of making SPP a ratepayer-owned utility, thus avoiding Wall Street profitmongers (like Warren Buffet, who owns it now). Dr. Schwartz reported that the company’s huge embedded costs, including much unnecessary construction, made such a takeover impossible.
However, the water company was a possibility. Fast-forward to 2001. SPP dumped the junky old water utility onto the public.
According to documents supplied by current consumer advocate Ernest Figueroa in Attorney General Aaron Ford’s office, us peons paid $350 million for assets with a net book value of $265 million. (PUC Docket No. 01-1044 , 19 April, 2001; page one)
Net book value number represents the total capital investment minus depreciation.
Looks like we bought some over-watered stock, cowboys and cowgals.
Has TMWA done a decent job? Ask any Lemmon Valley property owner.
INSULT TO INJURY DEPT. TMWA recently announced a 12 percent overall rate increase which will be phased in starting June 1. It will add another six bucks a month for the average household by 2026.
TRANSITIONS. A memorial service for community activist and businesswoman Verita Black Prothro, 59, will be held at 11:00 a.m. this Friday, April 19, at Mountain View Mortuary, 425 Stoker Ave., Reno 89503.
Another farewell will take place on Saturday, April 20, as Nevada says adios to public servant Kurt Englehart, 38, a constituent service aide to Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto, D-Nev. It starts at 12 noon at the Reno Grand Sierra Resort’s Carson Ballroom. For more info, call (202) 224-3542 or go the kurtenglehart.com/
He was killed in a hit-and-run collision near the Reno-Sparks Convention Center. The 18 year-old perp has been arrested and charged.
AUTO SIGHTS. I recently traveled behind a compact car with a frayed bumper sticker which read “I (heart graphic) the Constitution.”
OK. But the red heart was so eroded that it was unrecognizable, just scrap paper.
Thus arose irony, as Father Time and Mother Nature changed the message to “I shred the Constitution.”
ADIOS, DOUG THORNLEY. The Reno city manager is quitting to back to practicing juice…er, I mean, law. So much the better. This way he can muscle motel owners and other small folk for the likes of the J Resort without conflict of interest.
FUZZY FOX DEPT. Sinclair Broadcasting owns TV-4, TV-11 and TV-21 in these parts among 200 others nationwide. They have been doing a good job cashing in on moonhowler mania Fox News-style by interlarding propaganda into their newscasts. I’ve been writing about it since it started.
Lately, they’ve been running stories, especially on “Full Measure,” former CNN anchor Sharyl Attkisson’s show, which borrows a page from the National Rifle Association.
You’ve seen the commercials which assert that them their dirty commie liberals and their DC lackeys are coming to take your truck and force you to drive some wussy little electric thingy.
That’s an outrage. If they take your truck, where can you hang your machine gun from the back window?
ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN DEPT. I called the Nevada Dept. of Transportation over a year ago but nothing’s changed. Where Reno’s N. Virginia Street merges with US 395 North, two lanes face each other. The oncoming lane has two signs warning “wrong way.” But one is placed smack in front of the outgoing merge lane.
A newbie driver could easily assume s/he was driving into oncoming traffic.
I guess the only answer is prayer — until somebody dies. Then, NDOT or its cohorts will do something.
Vaxx up, stay safe, pray for Ukraine and almost 100 other currently war-torn lands.
Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Quarantino Barbáno is a 55-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com/ Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us
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