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Home My WebLink About20040803Letter from Mrs. Maras.pdfJuly 29, 2004 ;C 1"-l.r 0C Yt. Ii r-"it. t. 1'1 L::~r'1 -=-- Mr. Doug Cooley Idaho Public Utilities Commission P. O. Box 83720 Boise, Idaho 83720 ?fJf)t Af f'" _li.r.~. 0Lt.;;'l M~ \J #irJ U~.i.J iLi lie! (;jbLIC UTiLITIES Cut1NISSION Re:Case No. GNR-04- Dear Mr. Cooley: We were completely disappointed when we read your memo of 7/26/2004 regarding the survey summary of Soldiers Meadow residents. We would like to speak with your supervisor or another Public Utilities Commission representative with some authority and open-mindedness. We feel that your ability to present the situation at Forest and Soldiers Meadow is inadequate. Have you forgotten our many conversations during the two years from 2001 to 2003? Your neat little summary in the first paragraph of your memo has omitted many of the pertinent facts of the situation. We even had conversations with you in 2000 before the . petition for service was circulated. From the very beginning in July of 200 1, we were told that the petition for phone service to Forest and Soldiers Meadow would be considered as "All or None." To us this means thatwe will receive phones at Soldiers Meadow and Forest or no one would receive phones. We repeatedly heard this statement from you for over 2 years. Weare not aware of the issues of an extension tariff or an exchange area. We only had your information to rely on. And that information was totally inadequate to us as consumers (THE PUBLIC). Also, you omitted in your first paragraph that the PUC allowed Qwest to change their tariff from a 1/2 mile credit per customer (which is what was used to extend to Forest at no cost and the Soldiers Meadow residents could have easily been included) to only 600 per customer now. At the same time that this change was allowed, why wasn the service area boundary changed to include Soldiers Meadow, approximately 2 miles from the boundary line? We were here asking for service. Why weren t we included? The answer we feel is that your information to us was lacking and inadequate. On at least 2 occasions, we asked if we should request a public hearing at that time to discuss the situation. But we were repeatedly told that it wasn t necessary and that they were working on it. Our petition for service to Soldiers Meadow should have been considered in its entirety at the same time as the extension to Forest. The PUC allowed Qwest to only extend to Forest and not to change the service boundary and then to proceed to change their tariff. At the estimated cost of$5.00 to $10.00 per foot to extend the line, in today s market that 1/2 mile credit given to the Forest extension is worth $13 200 to $26 400. How could you (PUC) and Qwest give that away last year to Forest and expect the Soldiers Meadow residents to believe that a $1 600 credit allowance is appropriate this year? Mr. Cooley July 29 2004 Page 2 Also, the PUC allowed Qwest to bring limited service to Forest, inadequate to serve the Soldiers Meadow residents. Were they so certain that they would never have to serve at Soldiers Meadow? How did they determine this? Did they receive a guarantee that the service area boundary would never be changed? Could the Soldiers Meadow residents have requested a public hearing to change the service area boundary before the service was brought to Forest? There are too many discrepancies and questionable changes which have occurred over the years. Now Qwest and the PUC would ex~ct the Soldiers Meadow residents to pay for the upgrade to serve them, which is unnecessary added expense. You also discreetly allege some disinterest in service by stating that you sent out 50 surveys and only have 22 returned as of7/26/04. We clearly advised you that the estimated number of interested parties was nearer to 30. And we feel it is unfair and clearly unjust to make us pay to extend the service due to the facts stated above. Extending phones to Forest because it was in the exchange area established prior to 1913 and not initiating the boundary change to include Soldiers Meadow at the same time is . negligence and an injustice. We would like to have a confirmed date for the public hearing in Lewiston. Tentatively, in June, we selected August 24 2004. Please advise us when the hearing will be held. Thank you. Sincerely, t'~aLta--Jv/ ,1;.1 , / / ~CJ ------..-..."..""............... Vivian & Vlado Maras P. O. Box 280 Winchester, ill 83555 (208) 791-3570 / Commissioners Kjellander, Smith, Hansencc: