Westminster Is Latest to Receive Edison Refund

Westminster is the latest Orange County government to receive a refund from Southern California Edison, which erroneously billed the city for electric service to street lights outside its borders, officials say.

The October rebate of more than $3,000 to Westminster follows a $14,000 refund to Garden Grove and an $18,000 credit to the California Department of Transportation. The billing mistakes--which included charging cities for street lights in neighboring cities or assessing them at incorrect rates--were discovered by two Garden Grove activists.

Westminster engineering technician Gerard Charles said the city received its refund after making a spot check of bills. Now, he plans to check the billing rate and wattage in the bulbs of each of the city’s 7,000 street lights.

The city of Orange also has assigned a temporarily disabled police officer the occasional duty of street light review, partly because of his experience in investigations, said Police Chief John R. Robertson.

Westminster and Orange officials decided to review their electric bills after the Garden Grove activists approached them a few months ago with information on possible billing errors for street and traffic lights.

In Garden Grove, legwork by Jack Schild and Ray Littrell led city officials to submit a claim to Edison for $83,498.59 in alleged overcharges dating back to 1963. They also found alleged irregularities in street lights billed to Caltrans, which oversees the Garden Grove Freeway.

While reviewing Garden Grove’s street lights, the two men also uncovered what appeared to be billing errors in the neighboring cities of Orange and Westminster, said Schild, a 63-year-old retired Westinghouse Electric Corp. plant manager. The two men began their street light review in Garden Grove out of interest in government efficiency.

“You can’t straighten out the world, but we’re just trying to help the city of Orange” and Westminster, Schild said. “In our estimation, they have some major problems.”

Edison officials downplay the billing errors in Garden Grove, saying most of the problems are with traffic signals incorrectly billed at a higher general services rate. The electric company has stopped billing Garden Grove until the dispute--including the issue of any future refunds--can be resolved through a complete remapping of the city’s street and traffic lights.

Even before the two activists approached them, Edison officials already had been reviewing the mapping and billing for street lights and traffic lights in the 181 cities in its service area, said Terry Kerr, the electric company’s region manager. The review started after 1991, when Edison switched from a hand-mapping system to a computerized one.

“We’re not doing this because Ray and Jack brought up the irregularities of Garden Grove,” he said. “We were already doing this before they started. They just pushed Garden Grove to the top because of their persistence.”

Edison officials, who have been meeting with city staffers in Orange and Westminster, will be happy to continue, he said.

“We don’t want our cities to pay for more than they rightfully should,” Kerr said. “We’re always ready and willing to review any bill for accuracy and rate correctness and refund any amount that is appropriate.”

In Orange, Schild and Littrell approached Robertson with billing information on that city. Littrell, a former Garden Grove city councilman, knew Robertson, the former police chief in Garden Grove.

“We have found some things that we certainly want explanations on,” Robertson said.

For instance, he said, the city apparently is being charged for street lights “several miles from our border. When this came to my attention, I thought, ‘Gee, we should look at this.’ ”

Robertson stressed that he is not conducting a criminal investigation. He simply suggested to Orange City Manager David L. Rudat that an injured patrol officer, who is stuck behind a desk, could include street light checking among his temporary duties.

The officer, Jack Nanigian, is “one of those tenacious individuals” who would be good at unraveling the complexities of bills and meters, Robertson said.

Nanigian, who started reviewing electric bills two weeks ago, declined to comment until he has gathered more information.

In Westminster, spot checks of street lights and traffic lights have turned up a few billing errors, such as charges for lights not within the city limits, said Charles, the city’s engineering technician. Charles, who just received updated maps from Edison, will check every street light, with the help of other city employees or volunteers, he said.

“Just to double-check Edison,” he said. “Not because we don’t trust anybody. The bottom line is it saves taxpayers money. That’s what we’re after.”