Glendale is just like San Bernardino

Ron Kaye’s July 21 column, “Restructuring the GWP,” serves as another supportive voice for the city’s bad policy presented under the guise of being balanced.

Electricity rates should have gone down nearly every year for the past four years, but they went down only the year before the last election. Glendale’s electric power comes from purchased electricity and from its own gas-powered generators. According to the city’s financial reports, GWP customers cut electric usage by nearly 10% so the GWP was less dependent on wholesale purchases from the grid. That translates into lower costs. Additionally, the market spot prices on gas dropped by 75% and so electricity rates should have been reduced proportionate to the reductions of generating power. Comparing rates to another poorly run public utility does not enlighten the public and borders on the illogical.

With regard to transfers, the state constitution (Prop. 26) now prohibits public utilities from adding hidden taxes to the cost of electricity. That’s what the transfers, in effect, do.

Kaye’s column started off as if it were about to do a prudent analysis of Glendale policies by pointing to the fiscal incompetence of other cities, and ended justifying what the city of Glendale has been doing all along, a near carbon copy of San Bernardino.

Herbert Molano
Tujunga