PRESERVING ITS OPTIONS SANTA CLARITA KEEPS DOOR OPEN TO FORMING OWN UTILITY.Byline: Heather MacDonald Staff Writer SANTA CLARITA Santa Clarita, city (1990 pop. 110,642), Los Angeles co., S Calif., suburb 30 mi (48 km) NW of downtown Los Angeles, on the Santa Clara River; inc. 1987. Situated in the Santa Clara valley and nearby canyons, Santa Clarita includes the former towns of Canyon Country, - The City Council has laid the groundwork for a municipally owned utility that could shield local businesses and residents from future price increases and power shortages. The unanimous vote came at the recommendation of the city's Energy Advisory Committee, which urged the council members to reserve the city's legal right to form a publicly owned Publicly owned can refer to:
``This doesn't lock the council into anything, but there are concerns that the state Legislature A state legislature may refer to a legislative branch or body of a political subdivision in a federal system. The following legislatures exist in the following political subdivisions: Although temperatures have soared in recent weeks, healthy power reserves prevented rolling blackouts like the ones that hit earlier this spring. Predictions of at least 30 hours of blackouts in June and July failed to materialize, as supply met demand consistently through the cooler-than-average summer. A bill currently pending in the state Legislature would streamline the legal process involved in creating municipally owned utilities - but would not exempt them from paying off the billions of dollars in debt that the state racked up during the energy crisis, according to Terri Maus, the city's director of field services and the staff liaison from the committee. ``It is an attempt to avoid that and protect the city, in the event that the City Council decides to municipalize mu·nic·i·pal·ize tr.v. mu·nic·i·pal·ized, mu·nic·i·pal·iz·ing, mu·nic·i·pal·iz·es 1. To place under municipal ownership. 2. To make into a municipality. the electric utility,'' Maus said. ``We don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. if it's a silver bullet.'' Earlier this year, the deregulation Deregulation The reduction or elimination of government power in a particular industry, usually enacted to create more competition within the industry. Notes: Traditional areas that have been deregulated are the telephone and airline industries. of the state's utilities caused electricity prices to skyrocket as demand consistently outstripped supply. The rising wholesale cost of electricity, coupled with retail price caps imposed by the California Public Utilities Commission The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC; also often commonly referred to as simply the PUC) [1] is a state Public Utilities Commission which regulates privately-owned utilities in the state of California, including electric power, , forced Pacific Gas and Electric into bankruptcy while Southern California Edison went deep into debt. State officials have been weighing a bailout plan for Edison. Extensive technical and economic analysis would be required before a municipal utility could be put in place, a staff report found. Those studies could cost up to $500,000, according to Maus. City officials are also concerned that legislation will be reintroduced or added to legislation currently pending. The legislative session will end Sept. 14. |
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