USWESTRC.docx

1 BOISE, IDAHO, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1996, 1:30 P. M.
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4 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Good afternoon, ladies
5 and gentlemen. This is the time and place set for our
6 prehearing conference in Case No. USW-S-96-5 in the
7 matter of the application of U S WEST Communications,
8 Inc. for authority to increase its rates and charges for
9 regulated Title 61 services.
10 Let's start by taking appearances of the
11 parties. Can we begin with the Applicant.
12 MS. HOBSON: Mary S. Hobson from the Boise
13 law firm of Elam and Burke for U S WEST Communications.
14 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you, Mary.
15 Mr. Williams.
16 MR. WILLIAMS: Ronald L. Williams on behalf
17 of the Idaho Cable Telecommunications Association.
18 COMMISSIONER SMITH: All right.
19 MR. WARD: Conley Ward of the firm Givens,
20 Pursley and Huntley for the Idaho Telephone Association.
21 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Ward.
22 Mr. Miller.
23 MR. MILLER: Thank you, Madam Chairman.
24 Dean J. Miller on behalf of MCI Telecommunications
25 Corporation.
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1 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Our mike seems to be
2 very alive today.
3 MR. KORN: My name is Jerry Korn. I'm the
4 attorney appearing on behalf of the Idaho Citizens
5 Coalition.
6 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Korn.
7 Is that spelled with a "K"?
8 MR. KORN: It is.
9 MR. PHILLIPS: Wendell Phillips
10 representing the Idaho Consumer Affairs. Thank you.
11 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Welcome,
12 Mr. Phillips.
13 MR. HARWOOD: Greg Harwood of the firm
14 Davis Wright Tremaine on behalf of AT&T.
15 MR. HOWELL: And Don Howell and Susan
16 Hamlin, Deputy Attorney Generals, on behalf of the
17 Commission Staff.
18 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Okay, I guess I'd like
19 the record to reflect that we have interventions from
20 Century, Potlatch and Troy Telephone, Northwest Payphone,
21 A.A.R.P., GTE, and the Idaho Consumer Affairs for which
22 there appears to be no one appearing.
23 Wendell?
24 MR. PHILLIPS: I represent Idaho Consumer
25 Affairs.
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1 COMMISSIONER SMITH: You're here. I'm
2 sorry, I stuck your name under the Idaho Citizens
3 Coalition.
4 MR. PHILLIPS: I haven't changed yet.
5 COMMISSIONER SMITH: My mistake. Thank you
6 for clearing that up.
7 I guess Ms. Hobson or Mr. Howell, are there
8 preliminary matters that bring us together in this
9 prehearing conference?
10 MR. HOWELL: The Staff doesn't have any.
11 MS. HOBSON: Not that I'm aware of.
12 COMMISSIONER SMITH: We just did this for
13 fun?
14 MR. HOWELL: Madam Chairman, obviously, the
15 purpose of this prehearing conference was to see if the
16 parties could arrive at a schedule and present it to
17 you. In addition, earlier this week the Staff and the
18 Company have entered into a protective agreement
19 regarding the handling of materials which are alleged or
20 classified as trade secrets, confidential or
21 proprietary. It would be the Staff's intent to
22 distribute that protective agreement to the other parties
23 here in an effort to facilitate the exchange of
24 information in the case, and that's basically what the
25 Staff would have.
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1 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Okay. Any other
2 issues other parties wish to bring up? Well, it sounds
3 like in that case that it would be wise for the
4 Commissioners to excuse themselves and we'll be off the
5 record until we're called. Thank you.
6 (Off the record discussion.)
7 COMMISSIONER SMITH: We'll reconvene our
8 prehearing conference. When we recessed, the parties
9 were thinking about a schedule. Do you have a designated
10 spokesperson? The Hobson/Howell team.
11 MR. HOWELL: Madam Chairman, the parties
12 have had an opportunity to discuss the scheduling here.
13 As you can imagine with a case of this importance and
14 significance, we have struggled mightily, but we have
15 come up at least with a schedule. The schedule more or
16 less is as indicated there on the board behind the
17 reporter.
18 The initial date would be a Staff and
19 intervenor discovery cutoff date for the production of
20 responses to any of the parties of October the 14th. The
21 parties today committed to attempting a 14-day turnaround
22 for discovery requests and the Staff will make its audit
23 requests available to the parties no later than next
24 Monday or Tuesday.
25 Following down the schedule, then,
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1 November 19th would be the intervenors and Staff direct
2 prefiled testimony deadline; Company rebuttal of
3 December the 10th; intervenor and Staff surrebuttal or
4 rebuttal of December the 23rd.
5 Now, given the framing of the case, the
6 parties have agreed on a second discovery period to allow
7 the Company, if necessary, to ask discovery questions
8 and, again on the chart, December the 30th would be the
9 date that they would provide discovery requests to
10 parties in hand with parties responding to that discovery
11 request no later than January 7th in hand, and the
12 parties had tentatively proposed a hearing schedule for
13 January, the week of January 13th and possibly reserving
14 Monday and Tuesday of the following week for additional
15 overrun days. That is the schedule currently.
16 The parties also had a discussion about the
17 possibility of filing posthearing briefs; however, the
18 filing of posthearing briefs and the schedule for those
19 posthearing briefs is dependent upon the Commission then
20 entering into the 60 additional days for good cause on
21 the record if posthearing briefs were going to be filed.
22 The parties had discussed and basically
23 agreed on if we were going to file posthearing briefs
24 that the initial round of briefs filed simultaneously
25 would be due February the 26th with response briefs due
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1 March 12th, and I will, I guess, leave to Ms. Hobson her
2 condition or caveat on the filing of posthearing briefs.
3 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Ms. Hobson.
4 MS. HOBSON: Thank you. At this point I am
5 not prepared this afternoon to waive on the record for
6 U S WEST the possibility of the procedural protection of
7 not going into the extra 60 days. I have committed to
8 those assembled that I will get a written response on the
9 Company's position with regard to that question,
10 hopefully by the end of the week, certainly by the first
11 part of next week, so we will know whether U S WEST is in
12 a position to stipulate.
13 It is, I think, worth pointing out that the
14 other parties could request the Commission to make that
15 finding over the objection of U S WEST if that's the way
16 it turns out or, of course, the Commission could under
17 its own authority make that finding, but I was simply
18 unprepared to waive that this afternoon and so I've asked
19 for this indulgence.
20 COMMISSIONER SMITH: I just have one
21 question because I'm sure it was discussed and I guess I
22 would appreciate the reassurance that this is the best
23 that could be done, is there no way to schedule this
24 hearing in December? Mr. Howell.
25 MR. HOWELL: Madam Chairman, on behalf of
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1 the Staff, given even the extensive discovery that the
2 Staff has engaged in up to this point, we would not be
3 prepared to go to hearing in December. I can tell you
4 that I believe -- I don't want to speak for the other
5 parties since they're here, but this was as good a
6 schedule as we could come up with or at least the Staff
7 could come up with.
8 MS. HOBSON: Madam Chairman, we had
9 discussed setting the November 19th Staff and intervenor
10 first round of testimony on an earlier date and that was
11 adamantly opposed by Mr. Miller who had to leave and I
12 believe by Mr. Williams.
13 MR. WILLIAMS: That's correct.
14 MS. HOBSON: So with that being the case, I
15 think the rest of the dates more or less fell out from
16 that.
17 MR. WILLIAMS: Madam Chairman.
18 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Mr. Williams.
19 MR. WILLIAMS: I am not sure I agree with
20 the conclusion of that comment, but it was a correct
21 statement that I believe it was Mr. Miller and myself as
22 well as others acknowledging that at this point the
23 intervenors needed that much time and I think Staff also
24 indicated a desire to have until the 19th to conduct
25 discovery as well as prefiled testimony, but I think that
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1 we had also worked back and inserted many other dates as
2 well as the hearing date when we had that discussion as
3 well.
4 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Okay.
5 MS. HOBSON: I didn't mean to imply that we
6 hadn't done that.
7 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Just one more
8 question, then. Was it discussed or would there be any
9 efficiency to be gained by hearing the Company case
10 earlier and separate from the Staff/intervenor and
11 rebuttal cases; in other words, splitting it into, like,
12 two phases?
13 Any thoughts on that, Mr. Howell?
14 MR. HOWELL: It's fair to say that the
15 Staff had at one time considered that opportunity;
16 however, given the early scheduling of the dates and the
17 prefile that's already been established, we do not see
18 any gain in efficiency in bifurcating the hearing. We
19 had in those cases in the past involving telephone rate
20 cases where we had bifurcated the hearing, we had
21 bifurcated it in terms of revenue requirement and rate
22 design. Obviously, in this particular case we don't have
23 an extensive rate design phase.
24 I think bifurcating the hearing would
25 probably just crowd our already ambitious schedule, plus
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1 it would require that our out-of-town consultant make two
2 trips to Boise and although that isn't a major factor
3 with the holdback in question, there's a question about
4 the efficiency.
5 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you. Anyone
6 else have other comments? All right, well, we appreciate
7 the work of the parties.
8 Do either of the Commissioners have
9 comments?
10 COMMISSIONER HANSEN: No.
11 COMMISSIONER NELSON: No, thank you.
12 MR. HOWELL: Madam Chairman.
13 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Mr. Howell.
14 MR. HOWELL: I did probably neglect to
15 mention one thing, that the parties more or less left it
16 to the Commission's discretion to determine the date and
17 the location of the public hearings in this matter,
18 although we had considered the possibility of one evening
19 here in Boise during the week of the hearings as well as
20 probably some public hearings in the Rexburg, Idaho Falls
21 area.
22 COMMISSIONER SMITH: In January, no doubt.
23 MR. HOWELL: Yeah, in January. We tried to
24 restrict it to a divided four-lane highway access, so we
25 were thinking.
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1 COMMISSIONER SMITH: The Commission will
2 keep in mind that it is important to have the views of
3 the public and we will schedule an appropriate number of
4 public hearings for our convenience, hopefully.
5 With that, we appreciate the efforts of the
6 parties and we will consider your proposed schedule and
7 issue a procedural order outlining the dates that we'll
8 proceed by and look forward to the response of U S WEST.
9 MS. HOBSON: Thank you.
10 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thank you all for
11 being here and we are adjourned.
12 (The Hearing adjourned at 2:50 p.m.)
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1 AUTHENTICATION
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4 This is to certify that the foregoing
5 proceedings held in the matter of the application of
6 U S WEST Communications, Inc. for authority to increase
7 its rates and charges for regulated Title 61 services,
8 commencing at 1:30 p.m., on Wednesday, September 18,
9 1996, at the Commission Hearing Room, 472 West
10 Washington, Boise, Idaho, is a true and correct
11 transcript of said proceedings and the original thereof
12 for the file of the Commission.
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CONSTANCE S. BUCY
17 Certified Shorthand Reporter #187
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