{"id":10958,"date":"2014-11-03T15:13:15","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T20:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/?p=10958"},"modified":"2014-11-04T18:18:15","modified_gmt":"2014-11-04T23:18:15","slug":"utilities-steering-committee-meeting-live-1132014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/11\/03\/utilities-steering-committee-meeting-live-1132014\/","title":{"rendered":"Utilities Steering Committee Meeting \u2013 LIVE! (11\/3\/2014)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note<\/strong>: This article is now complete.<\/em><\/p>\n

We’re racing the clock to get to Danville City Hall for the second meeting of the Utilities Steering Committee. Refresh the page often for the latest happening, photos and commentary! The meeting starts at 4PM.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We’re here as the meeting starts. All here today except Mike Nicholas.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nJason Grey, interim director of Danville Utilities, answers questions raised during the first meeting. In the last five years, electric sales are flat. No significant gains or losses. Fewer metered customers but more electric use.<\/p>\n

We have more people in the audience today. Buddy Rawley is the only other City Council member here.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Today’s agenda is explaining how some of Danville Utilities profits go to the city’s general fund. We’ll also talk about the 2010 deal with American Municipal Power to stabilize power costs.<\/p>\n

Phillip Smith is asking good questions. Nobody seems to understand the cause of the high congestion charges on the power grid. The answer is because the grid was almost overloaded and PJM (the company that runs the regional transmission grid) was running out of electricity to provide due to high demand on the “polar vortex” days.<\/p>\n

The city gets between 10 to 15 percent of electric sales into the general fund. The concept is that Danville Utilities “pays” its taxes that would normally be paid by a utility company, and dividends that would go to shareholders. Here’s the facts that hurt. If Danville Utilities’ revenue to the city disappeared, the property tax rate would go from $0.73 to $1.18 per $100 of assessed value. Ouch.<\/p>\n

Phillip Smith Gets It. He said if an investor-owned utility bought Danville Utilities, they’re not going to have the local office, the local engineering, the local bill paying. That’s a big economic effect.<\/p>\n

Danville Utilities also pays in a share of the other city departments that they use like Human Resources, Central Collections and City Attorney. That’s another $2 million and here goes another 9.5\u00a2 increase in the property taxes.<\/p>\n

Phillip Smith Gets It again by saying more local jobs would be lost if that happened. Joe King said that the utility’s part of the “shared cost” was more of a subsidy than what they “really used”.<\/p>\n

The electric fund had also invested $4M into economic development grants and that’s quite a murky line item.<\/p>\n

Phillip Smith wisely points out that money should have come from some other source beside the electric fund. There was a slightly heated back and forth as council members pushed back some. Have I mentioned that Phillip Smith Gets It?<\/p>\n

There’s no way that money could have went to Job Busts… could it?<\/p>\n

Jason Gray now talks about the power cost stabilization agreement. Fred Shanks wonders why council wasn’t notified about the utility fund deficit as it was accruing. Gray’s answer is pretty much because we didn’t say anything back then. So that happened…<\/p>\n

I’m going to repeat what I said about the first meeting. Today’s meeting is an educational presentation that every Utility Commission member should have gotten. My point is reinforced by commission members Jim Turpin and Bob Schasse asking questions about today’s presentation during the public comment section. I asked those two about that, and Schasse agreed. Jim Turpin took off quickly. I guess he still doesn’t like me for coming out against the city retiree bonus issue.<\/p>\n

Brett Vassey from the Virginia Manufacturer’s Association is mildly threatening when he says that industrial customers are paying high rates and are already paying high machinery and tools taxes. He also mentioned something questioning the legality of some fund transfers. He seems like a real fun guy if he didn’t come of to the microphone and sound like a junior mobster. You get a nice set of industrial customers here… it would be a shame if they were to leave town, you know? A shame.<\/p>\n

This from the city… <\/p>\n

MEETING CORRECTION: Please note that Brett Vassey, president and CEO of the Virginia Manufacturers Association, incorrectly stated at the meeting that industries in the city pay one of the highest machinery and tools tax rates in the state at 72 cents. He acknowledged the error when contacted today. In fact, Danville\u2019s machinery and tools tax is among the lowest. Danville\u2019s effective initial rate is 30 cents. In comparison, the mean (average) effective initial rate for all cities is $1.35. The median effective initial rate for all cities is $1.06. For counties, the mean is $1.07, and the median is 90 cents. For towns, the mean is 44 cents; and the median, 36 cents, but note that town rates are in addition to rates imposed by their host counties. The Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service provides a breakdown for all cities and counties. Here is the link to its 2013 report. http:\/\/www.coopercenter.org\/sites\/default\/files\/econ\/TaxRates\/taxrates2013\/tr1013.pdf<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We’re done here. I”d be perfectly happy with Phillip Smith running Danville Utilities and making all the decisions needed. He knows what’s going on and what the problems are.<\/p>\n

More coming up on SouthsideCentral!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: This article is now complete.<\/p>\n

We’re racing the clock to get to Danville City Hall for the second meeting of the Utilities Steering Committee. Refresh the page often for the latest happening, photos and commentary! The meeting starts at 4PM.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[58,13,20,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-danville","category-livecentral","category-newscentral","category-opinioncentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-2QK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10709,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/10\/20\/utilities-steering-committee-meeting-live\/","url_meta":{"origin":10958,"position":0},"title":"Utilities Steering Committee Meeting – LIVE!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"October 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"We're LIVE! at Danville City Hall for the first meeting of the Steering Committee for the Electric Services Assessment. This committee is to \"determine how best to cost-effectively serve current and future needs of Danville Utilities electric customers and the City of Danville and maintain progress in transforming the area\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11200,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/11\/17\/utilities-steering-committee-meeting-live-11172014\/","url_meta":{"origin":10958,"position":1},"title":"Utilities Steering Committee Meeting \u2013 LIVE! (11\/17\/2014)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"November 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"SouthsideCentral will be LIVE! at Danville City Hall for the third Utilities Steering Committee meeting today at 4 PM. We've had coverage of Meeting #1 and Meeting #2 as we covered them LIVE! Today's meeting will feature a presentation from American Municipal Power. Be sure to refresh the page for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/PIb4vSC.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/PIb4vSC.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/PIb4vSC.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/PIb4vSC.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12201,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/03\/16\/utilities-steering-committee-live-31615\/","url_meta":{"origin":10958,"position":2},"title":"Utilities Steering Committee – LIVE! (3\/16\/15)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"March 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"We're LIVE! at Danville's City Hall for today's Utilities Steering Commission meeting. We've got some photos from the meeting here, but we're going to do separate articles on the results since we have 11 pages of results from the brainstorming. We'll keep this article published since it's already been indexed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/RCMEUG5.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/RCMEUG5.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/RCMEUG5.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/RCMEUG5.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12246,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/03\/20\/danville-utilities-strengths-weaknesses\/","url_meta":{"origin":10958,"position":3},"title":"Danville Utilities: Strengths & Weaknesses","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"March 20, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"On Monday, Danville's Utilities Steering Committee held a meeting where they completed lists of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Weaknesses. 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Here's the link to our LIVE! coverage of Monday's meeting (although there's mainly photos from the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "BusinessCentral"","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/GsOvCcj.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/GsOvCcj.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/GsOvCcj.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12252,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/03\/21\/danville-utilities-opportunities-threats\/","url_meta":{"origin":10958,"position":4},"title":"Danville Utilities: Opportunities & Threats","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"March 21, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"In our last article, we showed you what the Danville Utilities Steering committee came up with regarding strengths and weaknesses of the business. Now, we'll finish up this meeting by looking at their boards of Opportunities and Threats. By the way, if you were looking for other local media coverage\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "BusinessCentral"","block_context":{"text":"BusinessCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/businesscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/Zs4jDKv.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/Zs4jDKv.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/Zs4jDKv.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11921,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/02\/02\/danville-utilities-steering-committee-live-222015\/","url_meta":{"origin":10958,"position":5},"title":"Danville Utilities Steering Committee – LIVE! (2\/2\/2015)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"February 2, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Here we go again. SouthsideCentral is LIVE! at today's 4PM meeting. We've completed the article now, so enjoy the happenings, photos and commentary. Our LIVE! coverage will begin around 3:55PM. We're underway. Fred Shanks s not here for this meeting. Tim Blodgett for Hometown Connections is speaking. 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