20130913Transcript Volume I.pdf

ORIGINAL
BEFORE THE IDAHO PUBL]C UTILITIES COMMISSION
CASE NO. SPL-W-13-01
BEFORE
COMMISSIONER PAUL KJELLANDER (Presiding'Y
COMM]SSIONER MACK REDFORD
'COMMISSIONER MARSHA SMITH :
Spirit Lake City Hal-l-
6042 West Mai-n StreetSpirit Lake, fdaho
September 4, 2073
VOLUMEI-Pagesl-48
IN THE MATTER OF THE APPLICATION
OF SPIRIT LAKE BAST WATER COMPANY
EOR AUTHORTTY TO INCREASE ITS
RATES AND CHARGES FOR WATER
SERVTCE
PLACE:
DATE:
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CSB REPORTING
Constance S. Bucy, CSR No. 187
23876 Applewood Way * Wilder, Idaho 83676
(208) 890-51e8
Email csb@heritagewifi. com
JAi4 i *l ;-:
APPEARANCES
For the Staff:NeiJ. Price, Esq.
Deputy Attorney General-
412 West Washington StreetBoise, Idaho 83120-A07 4
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APPEARANCES
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INDEX
WITNESS EXAM]NAT]ON BY PAGE
Jacob Leisle
( Public )
John Haus
(Publ-ic)
Jess Blocker
( Publ1c)
Ralph Shrigley
( Public)
Ron Anell-o
( Public)
Robert Costigan
( Public )
Jana Anell-o
( Public )
Statement
Commissioner SmithMr. Price
Statement
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Statement
Commissioner
Statement
Commissioner
Statement
Statement
Statement
Kj ellander
Kj ellander
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CSB REPORT]NG(208) 890-s198
SPIRIT LAKE IDAHO WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 4 2073 7:00 P. M
COMMfSSIONER KJELLANDER: Good evening,
ladies and gentlemen. This is the time and place for a
public hearing in Case No. SPL-W-13-01, also known as in
the matter of the application of Spirit Lake East Water
Company for authority to increase its rates and charges
for water service. The sol-e purpose of the hearlng this
evening is to take testimony from customers of Spirit
Lake East Water Company.
My name is Paul- KjelJ-ander. I'l-l- be the
Chairman of this evening's proceedings. To my right is
Commissioner Marsha Smith and to my left is Commj-ssioner
Mack Redford, and that happens to be a horn. If you
would please turn off your telephones and other
el-ectronic devices, that would be appreciated. As we
move forward thls evening, the process will- work as
foll-ows: We will have the Deputy Attorney Generaf cal-l
you up or we' l-l- actually cal-l- your name f rom the list.
We'11- have you sit in this makeshift witness stand. The
Deputy Attorney General will just ask you a couple of
questions to get you officially on the record, and we
also have a court reporter here who will be taking down
the transcript.
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The reason we have a court reporter is
that all- of our decisi-ons are directly appealable to the
State Supreme Court, so we have to have an official-
transcrJ-pt in the record in the event that these
proceedings need to go further. Itfs also an opportunity
for us as Commissioners when we get back to begin
deliberating on this case to look over your public
testimony and to actually have a true transcription to
assist us in our deliberative process, so with that said,
why don't we begin with the appearances of the parties.
Is there anyone here this evening
representing Spirit Lake East Water Company? No, okay.
How about for the Staff for the Idaho Pub1ic Util-ities
Commissi-on, I believe we have a Deputy Attorney
General.
General.
MR. PRICE: Neil Price, Deputy Attorney
I represent the Commission Staff.
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Thank you, Mr.
Price. Mr. Prj-ce, are there any issues that you might
want to bring us aware of as far as any late fi-Iings that
may be relevant to the case?
MR. PRICE: Yes, I would like to cal-l- to
the Commission's attention that the Company Spirit Lake
East Water Company has recently fil-ed a reply to Staff's
comments in the case and that reply was filed with the
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Commission yesterday, September 3rd. The Company has
agreed or accepted the comments from Commission Staff as
to the major issues involved in the case, including rate
design, monthly bi11ing, collection, rate base, rate of
return, and overalf revenue requirement.
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Okay, thank you,
Mr. Price, and, again, ds many of you may recall, there
was a workshop held, I believe, in June and that was an
opportunity for I hope many of you to get a l-ot of your
questions at least put out and some of them perhaps
answered. Tonight, again, though, the purpose is to
merely take your testimony to get it officially on the
record. If there are questlons that you might have of
Staff, please feel- free at any break this evening to ask
those questions.
Also, for those of you who are here
tonight but don't wish to actually testify during the
public hearing, we're golng to l-eave the comment, written
comment, period open until Eriday the 6th, so if you go
to the website, you can find a way to put comments in on
this specific case if there's something you would like to
add or if, again, you feel that you'd rather put it in
writing as opposed to present your public testimony this
evening.
I bel-ieve also that Gene Fadness may
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actually have some comment sheets at the table to my left
if you'd like to write those comments and l-eave them with
him. We'11 bring those back and get those officially
into the record as wel-lr so, again, ds we begin this
evenj-ng, what If 11 do is I'II caII your name. We'll- have
you take this seat. I'11- have Commissioner Redford swear
you i-n and then we'11 have the Deputy Attorney General
ask you a couple of questi-ons for the record and then
we'lI be ready to take your testimony, so with that, our
first individual tonight is Jacob Leisle.
MR. LEISLE: Leisl-e. It's German. Much
Iike l,our name, it's spelled a lltt]e bit funny.
JACOB LEISLE,
appearing as a public witness, having been duly sworn,
was examined and testif ied as f ol-lows:
EXAMINATION
BY MR. PR]CE:
O Thank you, si-r, wou1d you please state
your name and spell your last for the record?
A Jacob J. Leisle, and it's spelled
L-e-i-s-I-e.
O And are you a Spirit Lake East customer?
LEISLE
Publ-ic
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A Sure am.
O And what is your address?
A 35596 North Saint Joe Drive.
O Thank you, sir. You may proceed.
A The reason I came here, I went onl-ine
wel-l-, good evening, ladies and gentl-emen. f went on1ine
and somebody told me we were having a meeting about water
rates going up and when T l-ooked at this, it looks like
they're trying to double the rates, and I understand that
there is additional costs with Spirit Lake Water Company
which they need to raise their rates. I understand that.
I thought that was a little hlqh jump and I think we need
to rea11y l-ook at that, but the thing that really caught
my attention is I spent 39 years, tL months, and three
days in the Air Eorce, retired, I'm on a fixed income and
I knew that I had 9,000 gallons of water was my
all-otment. I put in a l-awn and a vegetable garden to
meet rny needs and the amount of water that f woul-d l-ove
to have.
When I got this l-etter saying now theyrre
going to try to change it to 6,000 gallons so they can
l-et's see, so they can entice us to conserve. We1I, does
that mean I have to reduce my vegetabl-e garden and reduce
the grass that I had planted? I think it's Un-American
to move the goalpost and that's what you did. I hear
LEISLE
Public
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you're trying to move the goalpost. Okay, thls is what
you're all-otted. Now that you're using that amount,
we're going to move the goalpost and then we're golng to
charge you for it. I disagree with that. I totally
don't think that we shoul-d be moving the goalpost from
9,000 ga1lons.
Now, if you have to raise the cost of
doing business because of the amount of water, the cost
of pumping that water, and if you're doing business, I
understand that, but I can't understand doubling it. I
can understand incremental- rates as costs go up, but to
double it, does this mean next year we're going to double
it again and the foll-owing year double it again? Thi-s
Commission here, I assume, is going to make a decision on
what it reaI1y costs and whatrs a reasonable amount of
money for somebody to earn and to make a profit which is
the American wdy, but not to gouge and to me, this l-ooks
like a gouge and f'm not happy with it.
COMMISSTONER KJELLANDER: Thank you.
Let's see if there are any questions. Are there
questions from members of the Commission?
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Just one.
THE WITNESS: Sure.
LEISLE
Public
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LEISLE (Com)
Publ-ic
EXAMINAT]ON
BY COMMISSIONER SMITH:
O How long have you been a customer of this
water company?
A We built our house in 2006.
O Okay, and do you remember the last time
you had a rate increase for your water?
A You' l-l- have to speak up a l-ittle.
O Do you recall the last time you had an
increase in your water rates?
A WeI1, I remember the last ti-me we had a
meeting and they were trying to doub1e it before or
increase it substantially and we had a l-ot of problems
with the water system. It was leaking everywhere and we
didn't have water pressure. It was undependable. In
fact, w€ actually l-ost water a few days ago for better
than a day, but it was a lot more and they came in and
repaired it and everything. They raised the rates, not
doubled the rates, they raised the rates, and we were
happy with the water as far as I'm concerned being
rel-iabl-e and c1ean, because we were having some problems
with it, and I understand the cost of business is going
up. A11 prices are going up, but to ask for a doubl-e
price, you know, double the price just seems like a
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LEISLE (X)
PubIic
Iittle outrageous to me. As an ol-d retired Colonel, I
think something is suspicious.
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Staff?
MR. PRICE: Just one question, Mr. Leisl-e?
THE WITNESS: Leisle, yes, "i" before I'e,
except in German.
CROSS_EXAMINATION
BY MR. PRICE:
a Do you have an idea of whether or not you
typlcally wouJ-d exceed 9,000 gaJ-Ions per month?
A WeIl, that's the whole thing. f'm an Army
of one out there, and I just put myself a lawn in. I
just finished planting it. I just put in the garden and
calcul-ating the amount of water I would need. I've
overused a l-ittl-e bit, because when you first plant
grass, you have to water it pretty good, but I also did
things to conserve water. I built some catch basins
where the water comes off my metal roof so the water goes
back into the aquifer. You know, f'm a good you know,
I'm trying to make sure the water goes back in. We're
sitting on an aquifer. Any water that goes on your
garden that goes through the dirt or anything that's
going in your septic tank when it gets purified goes back
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LETSLE (X)
Public
into the aquifer, so I know a lot of people say we1I,
we've got to conserve because of the aquifer, we're
sitting on the aquifer. That's where the water goes, so
I don't understand that. Maybe I'm not an engineer, but
it doesnrt make sense when we're, you know, actually
stewards of this Iand and I'm trying to make sure that
the water goes back into the aquifer that we don't use.
That's why I built the catch basins and the water comes
off my roof, comes off the pipe, goes into the catch
basins, and goes back into the aquifer. Now, f can get a
l-ot more water that comes off my roof when it rains than
I ever use on my grass.
So you have taken steps in the past to
conserve water?
A Oh, yes.
O And you'd agree that that's a good idea?
A It's a good idea, y€s, to conserve, you
know, but to say now all of a sudden we want you to
conseive the amount of water you're using now, we want
you to use l-ess, but you've already built your usage at
9,000 gal1ons, now you're going to have to back up and
take out some of that l-awn. Maybe you shoul-dn't plant as
big a garden or you're going to be charged more. f'm on
a fixed income. I'm a retired old Colonel and they're
not going to keep givlng me money every time they doubfe
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HAUS
Publ-ic
the water. I get some slight increases, but I'm not
going to get a double increase every time I get an
increase. The price of fuel in the last, letrs see, five
years has doub1ed.
MR. PRICE: Thank you, sir.
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Thank you, Mr.
Leisle.
THE WITNESS: Thank you for hearing me.
(The wltness l-eft the stand. )
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: We'd like to
cal-l John Haus.
JOHN HAUS,
appearing as a public witness, havi-ng been first duly
sworn, testified as follows:
EXAMINATION
BY MR. PRICE:
O Sir, could you please state your name and
speJ-I your last for the court reporter?
A John Haus, H-a-u-s.
O And what is your address?
A 34438 North Newman Drive, Spirit Lake.
O And are you a Spirit Lake East Water
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HAUS
Publ-ic
Company customer?
A Yes.
O Thank you. You may go ahead.
A The thing I'm looking at on this is the
rates now are fine. I've got no problem with them. When
you come out there and they say okay, now we want to go
up 106 percent and then on top of that you want to knock
down the amounts that we have al-l-otted to us before it
goes into a penalty by 33 percent, a lot of us, like the
previous speaker said, allotted for that amount in your
lawn and how you do your landscaping and this sort of
thing and now you've got to say oh, guess what, now it's
going to cost you a lot more.
We are in a depression. f don't know what
the news says or the administration says. We are in a
depression. Food is going sky high. Gas is going sky
high. Who knows, especJ-a11y with what's going on in the
Middle East now, where itrs going to go pricewise. The
last thing we need is to have another increase 1n a
utility. I mean, water is a basic thlng that you need
for life and you're going to increase it, and at what
point do people say you know what, I guess I canft water
my lawn. I canft do the garden. I can't maybe fiII a
small pool for the kids to play in. Water is as basic as
1t gets and you're going to cut it down to this much?
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HAUS
Publ-ic
If thatrs the case, then l-et's l-ook at it
a different way. In December, January, February f'm not
using too much water. I'm sure I use below the 6,000. I
want to get paid for not using. Say if I use 4,000, I
want to get paid for that 2,000 I don't use. That's only
fair. That's using t.he same logic as the Water Company
wants to use to raise the rates. Thatrs really
conserving. Who cares what time of the year it is,
conserve period.
Like was brought up by the previous
speaker, this water goes right back to the aquifer,
unlike in California where you get it from the Colorado
Rj-ver and it comes into Southern Cal- and it stays in
Southern Cal for the most part. This goes right back
into the aquifer. I just think it's really poor timing
to increase the rates now. f mean, there's some people
that have lost their jobs. Especially now with this
ObamaCare, a l-ot of people have gone down to part time.
They're not 40 hours anymore. They're 28 hours.
f t's going to cost more f or the j-r medj-cal-.
I mean, theyrre not making money now because theyrre in a
28-hour-a-week situation by no choice of their own and
now you say oh, guess what, your water rates are going to
go up. You've got to have water. You can't l-et your
grass go dead. That's a fire hazard, too, just poor
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CSB REPORTING(208) 890-5198
BLOCKER
PubIic
timing. We don't deserve this type of treatment.
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Thank you. Let
me see if there are any questions. Questions from the
Commission?
COMMISSIONER SMITH: No.
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: ETom the Staff?
MR. PRICE: No.
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Mr. Haus, thank
you.
MR. PRICE: Thank you, sir.
(The witness left the stand. )
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Let's cal-l- now
Jess Blocker.
JESS BLOCKER,
appearing as a public witness, havi-ng been first duly
sworn, testified as follows:
EXAMINATION
BY MR. PRICE:
O Good evenj-ng, sir. Could you please state
your name and spe1I your l-ast for the court reporter?
A Yes, Jess Bl-ocker, B-1-o-c-k-e-r.
O What is your address?
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BLOCKER
Publ-ic
A
I
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A
36025 North Saint Joe Drive.
And are you a Spirit Lake East customer?
re-5-
Thank you, sir. You may proceed.
Yes, first, I have no quarrel with the
original request from Spirit Lake East Water Company the
way 1t was designed. They doubled the rates. We need a
rate raise seriously out here, because the system is old
and it is in disrepair, but in the request and talking to
the Water Company fol-ks and the Staff, we didn't address
anything as far as upgrades. It was just maintenance of
the system and trying to get the Company to make money.
I thought basically what we did with the
Staff proposal was triple our rates, basically. I think
that's about where it feII out and still-, that seems
excessive, even though as bad as we need some upgrades
like fire hydrants. If we had fire hydrants, one, our
fire insurance would gone down, rates would qo down, but
so fa:: we haven't I havenrt seen any sign, any
indicatj-on of what other than contj-nue to operate that j-s
coming out of this rate increase proposal or request, and
one point, too, that as far as the allocation, most
people at least I knowr we, just the two of usr we do not
use 9,000 gallons a month, except in the summertime, but
in our covenants, one thing that's pointed out is that
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15 BLOCKER (Com)
Public
authorization for agricuJ-ture j-s in our covenants and
agriculture takes water, whether it be a lawn or horses
or whatever, but that is specified in our covenants, and
I've heard several times since this request process
started that this system was never designed to support
l-awns and garden, agricultural- pursuits. Like I say, I
thlnk we need an increase, but I think we need something
concrete and what's going to happen down the road and I
don't know whether thatrs under your control or not.
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Wel-1, thank you.
Let's see if there are any questions.
EXAMINATION
BY COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER:
O I just have one, and whatfs the size of
your l-ot?
A Eifteen acres.
0 Fifteen acres, and is all that under
irrigation?
A Oh, absolutely not.
O okay.
A 20,000 square feet, half acre.
COMMISSfONER KJELLANDER: Thank you. Are
there any questions?
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CSB REPORTING(208) 890-s198
much for your
COMM]SSIONER
COMMISS]ONER
COMMISSIONER
testimony.
COMMISSIONER
(The witness
COMMISSIONER
SMITH: No.
REDFORD: No.
KJELLANDER: Thank you very
REDEORD: Thank you, sir.
left the stand. )
KJELLANDER: Let's cal-l- now
Steve Plunkett.
MR. PLUNKETT: I don't have any comments
at thr-s time. Is this strictly a comment session or can
we ask questions?
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: When we take a
break, if you'd like, we'IJ- have Staff counsel and we've
al-so got a Staf f member in the back, tf you l-ook back
there, he'II raise his hand, it's Chris Hecht, it seems
l-ike we have a l-ot of German fol-ks tonight which is all
good, but yeah, you can ask him any questions that you
want and if he can't get you the answer, f'm sure that
he'll try to get you something between now and before the
case is decided.
MR. PLUNKETT: Just to clarify very
quickly, we were told about this at the l-ast moment, So
when we arrived today, my understanding was this was an
association meeting, but f'm assuming now that I'm wrong
about that. This has nothing do with the assocj-ation?
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CSB REPORT]NG
(208 ) B9o-s198
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: No, thls is the
Tdaho Publ-ic Utll-ities Commi-ssion.
MR. PLUNKETT: So the rate increase is
coming from your entity, not the associ-ation?
COMM]SSIONER KJELLANDER: The Tate
increase is being requested by the Company and then they
bring that to us because we're the regulators and we have
to be the arbitrator of facts, and so what we do is we
take testimony, we have Staff comment, and from that,
then, we review all the facts that are in the record and
come to a concl-usion as far as what type, if dfly, rate
increase there might be associ-ated with the initial
request. If you need more information on that, Gene
Fadness is al-so around, our public information officer,
and I know he'd be very happy to get you some additional-
backglound.
MR. PLUNKETT: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Ralph Shrigley.
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18 SHRIGLEY
Pubfic
RALPH SHRIGLEY,
appearing as a public witness, having been first duly
sworn, testified as follows:
EXAMINATION
BY MR. PRICE:
O Good evening, sj-r. Could you state your
name and spell your last for the record?
A Ralph Shrigley, S-h-r-i-g-I-e-y.
O And what is your address?
A 32134 North Hayden Drive, Spj-rit Lake.
O And are you a Spirit Lake East customer?
A Yes, sir.
O A11 right, you may proceed.
A Welcome. Thanks for coming all the way up
here to the ends of the earth, folks. We appreciate you
being here. Our Water Company has been in service
something over 40 years, installed in the late '70s, and
the first owner and I bel-ieve that. ownership went
through about 2000, the year 2007, if f'm not mistaken,
and I'l-f preface this. f made quite a study of the
financj-aI statements in previous years of the Water
Company's operations. As near as I could determine, the
previous owner used the Water Company as a tax write-off
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to be used, the depreciation in the Water Company to be
used, in consolidation with other businesses he was in to
offset profits of his main business which was property
development.
ffve lived here since about '95, but we
saw long periods of time on the part of that owner of
unresponsi-veness to the customers, extremely poor
maintenance, ignored DEQ, that's Department of
Envj-ronmental- Quality, inspections and recommendations on
some issues for more than 10 years of some of the same
items based on my review of the DEQ records.
Jump forward, here we are 40 plus years
later, and I might also add that in my review of the
early documents, hydrological studies, specifications of
the equipment that was used in the original construction
of the Company indicated that the expected }ife of many
of the components, specifically the water lines, was
expected to be 40 years at the time that it was put in
the ground. We're beyond 40 years now.
Our previous owner showed a propensity for
hiring attorneys and fighting the issues with debating
the issues with the PUC and the DEQ rather than taking
the same money and putting it toward the complaints that
we residents had raised and DEQ had raised time after
time, and as you're no doubt aware of the history, the
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Public
l-ast rate increase which was requested to be about a 100
percent rate from 72 to about 24, as I recalf, was
knocked down to a 50 percent increase, simply because of
the poor service. The rullng the PUC made was simply
because of the poor service and they also prohibited him
putting in an unapproved status where he coul-dn't
transfer ownership of the Company until- he took certain
remedial- action. He did that wj-th about $225,000 worth
of investment from my qulck glance at the financials.
Later he transferred it to the current owner.
Now, during that period of time f served
as the treasurer of an ad hoc group of residents here who
estabiished a nonprofit corporation wlth a view toward
taking over and operating the Water Company. We had a
meeting with management in which they declared their
willingness to do so because they fully admitted they had
no i-nterest in the Water Company. It had nothlng to
doing with their main purpose. We got to the polnt 1n
the negotiations and in the process where we were
negotiating over the wording of a non-disclosure
statement that we would sign before belng given access to
the financial statements.
Wh1le f am an old Colonel like my
predecessor here, I al-so worked in banking. My wife's a
CPA, so we were the designated people to take a look at
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that. Before we got to that point, the PUC rul-ed against
the entire rate j-ncrease and we went into a period of
where he was basically forced to remediate many of the
shortfal-l-s of the Water Company. During that time the
actual- operator of the Water Company, not the ownershi-p,
but the operator is the same operator we have now,
Waterworks Company, and the ad hoc company or corporation
we put together, we thought Waterworks did a great job.
We intended to hire them to continue the operation of the
water system because that's reaI1y their business. It's
not a hobby as it seemed to be to the previous owners.
Part of our calculations, and I'fI throw
this out to give a sense of comparison, we presumed that
if we took control of the Company, j-t became a user-owned
company, nonprofj-t company, because of the size of the
Company that we probably would no longer have been under
the supervision of the PUC. We woul-d have petitioned to
be dropped from PUC oversight, so we did a lot of
financial calculating to decide what kind of money we
woul-d need to put that Water Company on a sound financial
basis. We had no money, we had no reserves, flo investors
or anythinq.
We assumed -- we narrowed it down to the
poj-nt, and this is in 2007, I believe flo, 2009 or '10
about the time the Water Company changed hands, we
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SHR]GLEY
Public
assumed that we would have to charge $35-40 per user per
month, and also, even at that timer we determined that
$12.50 was a ridicul-ous1y low water rate based on the
compa::ison that we did of neighboring communities here in
Kootenai County and north of us as well, but we would
already be paylng 35 or $40.00 per month, perhaps more at
this tlme based on the condltion of the Water Company,
the breakdowns, this sort of thing.
Now, Ird like to from my view, I
actually ended up learning more about water companies
than I ever really wanted to. As far as f'm concerned,
it's something that comes out of a faucet, thank God. If
we didn't have water, our homes in Spirit Lake East, of
course, are almost worthless, and I think we need to look
for the future. In my vj-ew having studled this
particular Company in some depth, I think Lesl-ie Abrams,
the owner, is doing a great job, as is Waterworks, the
operator, and I give as an example the recent outage that
we had, and I spoke with her to l-earn the chronology and
I think she said it was late afternoon, whatever the date
was, 4:00 o'cl-ock or so p.m. when she got an al-arm saying
the water reservoir was low.
She immediately went out, checked
everything, cal-l-ed an el-ectrician in who diagnosed the
problem as the pump in the bottom of the well having
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23 SHRIGLEY
Publ-ic
burned out. She immediately got on the phone and by no
l-ater than 7:00 p.m. that same dry, she had a crane and a
work crew on site and they were pulling the casing up,
and you're probably well familiar with this, but the pump
is 600 or so feet down underground and all of the casing
which is a steel pipe about yay big around has to be
puIIed out one section at a time, dlsassembl-ed in order
to get to the pump and replace it.
I went to see her the next day around
10:00 a.m. They worked al-} night and they were putting
the casing having replaced the pump and the pump
motor, they were putting the casing back together and
were withj-n probably 200 feet of having the problem or
al-I the equipment back in and they were pumping water
again within l-ess than 24 hours of the original alarm.
This is something that was inconceivable under the
previous owner's management. fn fact, we had a two-week
water outage at one point, so I don't know how it would
have been possible to do this any quicker.
With the exceptj-on looking to the
future, the best way to prevent these kinds of outages is
since we for electrical- outages, there's already a
reliabl-e emergency generator on site, but we realIy need
a second wel-l- which permits if we have a 1ow level in the
reservoir, the operator can simply go in, activate the
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pump in the second wel-I, refill the reservoir while the
primary pump is being replaced or repaired. We have a
spare pump on hand which she tol-d me the one that was
there was on the books at costing $15r 000 and she told me
by the next morning she'd been onl-ine looking for a new
pump and it was golng to run about $25r 000, new pump
motor, excuse me. They don't give them away.
If we had the second weII, a switch coul-d
have been thrown and we coul-d have had water without an
interruption and she could have possibly chosen a less
expensive means of getting instead of paying overtime
at night of getting that pump pulled out and repaired. I
think that for this Water Company, first of all, they
certainly have the talent necessary to operate the
Company. We need them to be in a strong financial
positlon and not limp aIong, which based on the
financials, the one set of financials, that they've
submitted, that certainl-y is the case with an operating
Ioss.
We need a second wel-l-. As someone e1se,
as Jess Bl-ocker indicated, we'd like to look into fire
hydrants. We know because of the pipes that are
installed in this system that fire hydrants were never
part of the initial design; however, there are some mains
that run through the system that are in fact eight inches
CSB REPORTING(208) 890-s198
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CSB REPORTING(208) 890-s198
in diameter and Irm given to understand you can
accommodate a fire hydrantr so our fire department out
here in the boondocks is very well equipped and well
trained, but when they respond to a fire in Spirit Lake
East, they have to do so with water tenders.
When they pump all of the water out of the
tender, they have to then drive that miles, in some case
several mil-es, to the hiqh school which could be three
mil-es or more from some points j-n Spirit Lake East to the
first place where they can filt it up quickly, where the
water pipe diameter is large enough, and I would hope as
a minimum we could get two, three or four hydrants
dispersed throughout the Treeport and Spirit Lake East
area in order to speed up the turn-around of those
tankers, So I certainly think we should not quibble about
somethj-ng as precious and as inexpensi-ve as $12.50 a
month water.
If we look at our neighbors, they're
paying a lot more than 25 bucks right now per month for
the water, and another advantage of the monthly billing
that they're proposi-ng we go to is we do have people who
sometimes travel or sometj-mes their homes in Spirit Lake
East are seasonal homes and they come back after being
absent for months and find out that they owe hundreds of
doll-ars because we haven't been the meters get read
SHRIGLEY
Publ-ic
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since we get billed quarterly now rea11y about twice a
year, because even though it's quarterly, nobody wants to
dig under six feet of snow to find the water to dig that
out. If it were monthly, the likelihood of having these
unforeseen water breaks or undi-scovered water breaks
woul-d be far l-ess 1ike1y because we'd have much more
frequent meter reading, and it's probably no secret that
I strongly support the increase 1n the water rates as
requested and I hope that the management of the Company
continues to l-ook forward at improving the capabilities
of the Company. Thank you.
EXAMINAT]ON
BY COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER:
O I just have one question. Earlier we
heard about the potential- positive impact on j-nsurance
rates if there were hydrants i-nsta1Ied, and not looking
for a long answer, but I'm curious if you've l-ooked at
that at all if two, three, or four hydrants in the area
would have any impact on insurance rates in the
neighborhood.
A I did not get a definitlve answer from my
insurance company. I did talk to them about it, but
until I cou1d te1l them how far away the nearest fire
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hydrant was, they were unabl-e to come up with a definite
response to me. I woul-d have to believe that it would
have a favorable impact on home insurance rates, even if
it were simply a shorter distance to drlve the tender
before it were refilled.
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Okay, thank you.
Are there any other questions? Thank you for your
testimony.
COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Thank you very
much.
(The witness left the stand. )
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Mr. John Lee.
AUDIENCE: I didn't si-gn in to testify,
but I think f would like to testify.
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: We have Mr. John
Lee.
MR. LEE: I think I have more questions
than comments at this time.
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Okay. Let's
see, where is Gene Fadness? Is there anyone else on the
l- ist ?
MR. FADNESS: There's one more.
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: And this
gentleman would fike to sign in to testify.
MR. FADNESS: Okay.
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ANELLO
Public
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: You can give him
this one to sign in, that would be great.
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Let's call Ron
AneIlo.
RON ANELLO,
appearing as a public witness, having been first duly
sworn, testified as foffows:
EXAMINATTON
BY MR. PRICE:
0 Good evening, sir. Coul-d you please state
your name for the record and spel1 your last?
A Ron AneIIo, A-n-e-l-l--o.
O What is your address?
A 35415 North Saint Joe Drive.
O And are you a Spirit Lake East customer?
A Yes, I am.
0 Thank you. Please proceed.
A I'm just going to frve got some things
f need to wing, but as far as fire hydrants, I just want
you all to know if anybody will- fook it up and talk to
your insurance companies, if you're not within two or
three hundred feet from a fire hydrant, your rates are
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Public
not going to go down, ;ust so to make that clear, and
also, one of our fast speakers, I just want to sdy, the
main sharehol-der of Spirit Lake East Water, she fixed a
problem. I don't expect anything l-ess. I don't think
she did a great job. I did executive protection for
years. When we had a client that had a problem or a
death threat or whatever and we kept that client out of
harm's wdy, we didn't do a great job, we did our job.
When John Haus used to arrest people off
the streets 1n L.A. when he was a cop, he didn't do
great job, he dld the job that was expected of him,
I'm not willing to concede that she dj-d a great job
SO
because she fixed a problem. That's what she's supposed
to do and that's what we expect.
that clear.
just want to make
Now, my understanding first of all,
nobody has brought this up yet, but after we had our
first meeting, the news media did a big interview, a l-ot
with her, and a quote in that first newspaper article
from her was, and I quote, "I should have asked for 6
percent instead of a 106 percent raise," and that's the
way it was quoted. WeII, unl-ess that was a misquote, and
I cal1ed the newspaper to find out, just to let you know,
it wasn't, it sounds to me like she would be happy with
6 percent.
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Public
Now, Ifm not going to speak for everybody
else, but I'11- bet that everybody in this room wouldnrt
mind giving them a raise because they're due one, but
something that's reasonabl-e. I donrt want to rehash
everything that some of the other people said here, but
we've been here for six years. Five years ago we put in
an extra 4,000 feet of lawn, Jake put in 10,000. Some of
us have big gardens and some have bigger gardens. We did
that al-I based on a semi-fixed income because we could do
it. Now, by the wdy, another thing about putting larger
fire break lawn around your property is because if a fire
comes in, you're l-ess likely to lose your house.
A11 right, nowr so what you all are
suggesting because in the article I just read recently,
IPUC's suggestion, you want to roughly double our penalty
per ga11on, per 100 gallon, and you want to take away
31 000 gallons of water and then start giving us that
penalty at 6,000 instead of 9,000, so those of us, a lot
of us, llke I said, that are fixed or semi-fixed incomes,
all- tlrat l-awn is going to go brown or it's going to look
horribl-e, so now we don't have that fire break, so great,
letrs go ahead and pay the freight and lose the house.
I'm not willing to do that. That just seems real- wrong
to me that it should be asked to go over and above like
that.
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ANELLO
Public
I keep hearing about water conservation.
Now, again, this is coming from the IPUC, conserve. IPUC
is from Boise. You're basically in the desert. I was,
too, in California and that's al-l- I heard; cut a tree,
save a whale, conserve water. We're on the biggest
aquifer in the state, and it was already pointed out what
we use, a lot of it goes right down in the aquifer.
Conserving? That's conserving. By using, we're
conserving. Six months of the year nobody irrigates
anything because it's co1d, there's snow, there's rain.
We're conserving, so why are you asking us
to conserve? You're asking for more and it reaIIy sounds
l-ike look, let me just say this: When she bought the
Water Company, if she wasn't wise enough as a business
person or the rest of the investors to l-ook into this and
know there was going to be a problem and not right out of
the gate say we're going to need to jump it up, we're
going to need to do this, whether we need a second pump,
a second wel-l-, whatever it is, and to wait until now,
she's not a good business person.
f saw the government bail- out the banks,
bail out Chrysler, bail out al-l the car companies. I
feel- like this is down on a smaller basis, but you know
what, it's hitting home. Now, you want us to bail them
out. We're willing to give them something. Donrt get me
31
wrong, but we're willing werre not willing for a 100
percent increase. Wefre certainl-y not willing for you to
take away a big percentage of our water usage. I almost
want to say -- f'm going to Sdy, how dare you ask that,
that's wrong. This is the way itrs been and if j-t's been
wrong, then it needs to be rectified, but certainly not
overnight. Ask for a reasonable raise and you'11 get it,
and I'm sorry, I just have no trust for business people
who can't l-ook into a business before they buy it.
Getting into this leak system, this leak
problem, and I've heard about tL, somebody comes back
after a couple, few months, they owe $1r 000 because they
had a feak. Fire hydrants for burning houses, I want to
know, because I don't, how many of those drastic leaks
have we had. Do we really want to put up that kind of
money because we get an occasional l-eak? If that leak is
the fault of the Water Company, why should that person
pay for it? That doesn't seem appropriate to me as we1l,
and in the six years f've been here, we had one roof fire
that I put out, even though the fire department was
called at a nej-ghbor's house, minimal damage.
We had one house fire that they lost the
house, but I asked the fire department because my wife
and f were on site, they had plenty of water, they had
plenty of water trucks. They dldn't even have to use
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their second water truck. I can't even imagine what it
would cost to run pipes throughout Spirit Lake East and
put in fire hydrants just i-n case somebody's house
catches fire, and God forbid my house will catch on fire
tonight, watch, but that doesnrt matter, how often does
it happen? Is this really worth putt.ing this out for it?
I donrt believe so.
We've got two fire companies, Apple and
right here, with water trucks. HeIl, maybe we ought. to
buy a water truck at Spirit Lake East and have a backup
as well-. My wi-f e and I are on the road commj-ttee. Maybe
we shoul-d talk about that. Too many people are asking
for too much. Why don't we ;ust make it real easy. She
said she shou1d have asked for 6 percent. Why don't we
give her something fair above 6 percent and make this
thing start to work a little bit. I'm just realIy aghast
that we're being asked to do so much with such short
notice and just take care of their problems and our
problems overnight. We' re a smal-l- community. We can't
afford 1t. That's it.
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Thank you. Let
me see if there are any questions. Questions from the
Commission?
COMMISSIONER REDEORD: No questions.
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Thank you for
33
your testimony.
(The witness left the stand. )
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Letrs call
Robert Costigan.
ROBERT COSTIGAN,
appearing as a public witness, having been first duly
sworn, testified as follows:
EXAMINATION
BY MR, PRICE:
O Good evening, si-r. Can you please state
your name and spell your last for the record?
A Robert Costigan, C-o-s-t-i-g-a-n. I live
at 33588 North Kelso Drj-ve, Spirit Lake. f 've been here
20 years.
O And are you a Spirit Lake Water Company
customer?
A I am a member of the Spirit Lake Water
Company.
O Thank you, sir. Go ahead.
A I didn't come here tonight to educate this
board because I hope somebody on your Staff has been
reading the correspondence that I've sent to you. f'm
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COSTIGAN
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COST]GAN
Public
going back to 1980. In 1980, the first water right for
R.E. Hanson was capable of delivering 2,500 cubic feet to
every prospective resident of this build-up Spirit Lake
East plat. Now, over the years we have added on the
Treeport community, and as you remember, when the Spirit
Lake East Water Company applied for the municipal- water
district, that was approved.
I have contacted over 25 people, more
people probably than you've got at this meeting tonight,
to get their concerns about the water and understanding
water rights. A water right does not mean that you can
water your garden or you can use it on your car. It's
for household use, okay? When this was set up in 1980,
R.E. Hanson determined that 9r000 gallons, roughly 7,200
cubic feet of water, would be sufficient for the
household. That's not the American standard today.
The American standard today is about 350
gallons of water, which means we should be looking
probably at 1,500 cubic feet, 11,000 some ga11ons, for
today's use, not going out to water my grass, not going
out to cfean the cars. Now, I didn't find any one of
some 25 people that was adamantl-y opposed to an increase,
except one man, and Mark [inaudible] who owns the l-ocal-
grocery store said Bob, how would you feel if I raised
the price on hamburger and doubled it as proposed in this
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Public
proposal, and I said Mark, over the years if I want to
buy a pound of your ground round right now, it's $3.89.
20 years ago when I came up to Spirit Lake East and took
that beautiful- home that I occupy on Kel-so Drive, a pound
of hamburger, ground round, was a hel-l of a lot l-ess, SO
you have enough information, and the one question that
was asked at that first meeting in June that nobody on
your Staff answered, and f think somebody has to answer
it, capital return on equity. Thatrs what this whole
thing is based on.
I donf t believe anybody here doesn't
understand that if this water system fail-s, we don't have
R.E. Hanson Corporation standing behind it. We have a
company that probably does not have anywhere near the
financial backing that the Hanson Companies do have. I
looked at it when Hanson got rj-d of the Spirit Lake East
Water Company, I think he did one heII of an improvement
because it was a tremendous liability. He back in 1,916
aggregated five-and-three-quarter square mifes of
property. It never went through any public commission.
It went through three county commj-ssioners that signed
off on it.
you can't
the Spirit
If you go back into the public records,
find anything in the public records regarding
Lake East p1at. ft's one of very few
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important plats in the whol-e State of Idaho. Frankly, I
don't know why R.E. Hanson punished himself by taking on
the obligation to develop this beautiful- community that
he did develop, and unfortunately, he's no longer with us
so he can't see the benefit, but I can see the benefit
down the road. What I would like to see, I woul-d like to
see an adequate supply of water, 1,500 cubic feet, the
11,000 ga1lons, and then Ieave it up to the Commission,
which you're going to do anyhow, to determine what is an
equitable price for that.
Yes, my neighbor over in Spokane might be
paying 50 or 60 bucks. Back in Chufa Vista, California
when I was in the Navy down there, I was paying $85.00 a
month. Water was precious. It's precious here, too.
Back when we had problems here with R.E. Hanson and the
Company, president Bower asked me to do a hydrographic
study of the Spirt Lake East plat, which I did, and then
we started looking at Idaho Department of Water rights
and the big probfem here was we're not over the aquifer,
so if you put a wel-l down and many people here that have
the money that coul-d do it, they're not going to hlt
water maybe at 160 feet. They may not hit water until-
they get to China, so that j-s not an optionr so I feel-
very obligated to the Spirit Lake East Water Company. I
want to see those people succeed.
CSB
(208
REPORTING) 890-s198
COSTIGAN
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They put a new water meter in in front of
my house and it is one you can actually go out and read.
When I go over to pick up the mail about 11:00 o'clock, I
go over and I l1ft up the little catch there and I can
see how much water lrm using on my new water meter, and I
know on the average I'm going to be using 1,500 cubic
feet. We have one lady who lj-ves up on Coeur d'Alene
Drive, Mrs. Dontel-, she and her husband were here in 1980
when the last phase of the water line went in on Coeur
d'Al-ene Drive. Over 30 years of consecutive occupancy of
that home, guess what their water usage has been on a
month based on cubic feet, just a guess, 1,500 cubic
feet, so what I'm suggesting and I hope the Water Company
wil-l approve it, I'd like to see 1,500 cubic feet and if
it goes above, f'm asking for a 25 percent increase in my
water, theyrre asking for a 1,02 percent increase in their
fees. I don't know what it is, but you have enough water
companies that you're looking at, you should know what a
credible return on equity is, and if they have that
equity there, I think they got a gift.
Maybe it was not the best gift in the
world from R.E. Hanson, but j-t's a gift, and f would like
to go home tonight and know that lfm going to be turnj-ng
on the sprinkler out in my front lawn. Of course, it did
rain thls afternoon a l-ittle bit, not enough to kitl the
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dust, but I realIy appreciate what you're doing and I
read very carefully the l-ast report that came out from
the board back six years ago when we went t.hrough this
and I looked at it and there were a lot of cuts taken at
the Water Company because the lady who asked the basic
question in June, capital structure and return on equity.
I was the materials engineer for the City
of Spokane. I've gone through at least three major water
organi-zations, 12 mil1ion, B milIion, 5 mi11ion, and one
Sacred Heart reservoir, so I know what water costs, and I
hope that tonight we're golng to get some clarlfication.
Do f want to see a $25.00 a month water biII? WeII, I
pay 15 bucks for thls lousy haircut, I get that once a
month, so what am I looking dt, two haircuts? This
gentleman with his garden, I feel- for him, but the water
rights are not granted on the basis of what we are goi-ng
to do outside of the home, and if you do it, you just
have to appreci-ate you're golng to pay f or it.
Do you have any questions for me? Have
you actually read the stuff I've been sending to you?
Hopefully, somebody has
MR. PRICE:
every public comment.
THE WITNESS:
water/sewer people in Coeur
Absolutely, sir. We read
John Bal-dy
d'AIene said
who works for the
Bob, I don't
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CSB REPORTING(208) 890-5198
40 COST]GAN
Pubfic
care what they do. If they want to raise it to 25 bucks,
I'm al-l for it, okay. Right now Spirit Lake East Water
Company has my check for $400 because the problem that we
have is I want t.o see some kind of regular system where
t.hey can take that money, and the one way to do it, and I
proposed this to this committee, was to do a one-tj-me
prepayment for three months. Let them get enough bucks
j-n there that they have some cushion, and one way to do
it j-s if you go anyplace in the United States and you are
going to sign up for a water utiJ-ity, you may have to pay
a prepayment. We never paid a prepayment. It's always
been the monthly rate, that's what they charge, that's
what they got.
f'm done here.
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Thank you,
Robert. Are there any questions?
COMMISSIONER SMITH: No, we appreciate j-t
and just to tel-l- you that every public comment is
clrculated individually through every Commissioner, and
we thank you, sir.
THE WITNESS: Wel1, I think you've done
your job and I know your Staff is pretty good, but I wish
that one engineer, Galardo, woul-d give me back the water
rights because that is a unique paper. In that
particular water right, it said that that water right was
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47 ANELLO
Public
for the excl-usive use in Kootenai County and the Idaho
Department of Water Resourcesr engineer senior water
advisor told me there are no such exclusivities issued by
the Idaho Department of Water Resources.
MR. PRICE: Sir, I don't want to interrupt
you, but you gave him a piece of paper and you would like
it back,' is that what you're saying?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
MR. PRICE: Okay, I'11 make sure you get
it back.
THE WITNESS: Because it's unique.
MR. PRICE: Okay.
(The witness left the stand. )
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Jana Ane11o.
JANA ANELLO,
appearing as a public witness, having been first duly
sworn, testif ied as f ol-l-ows:
THE WITNESS: I just want to
EXAMINATION
BY MR. PRICE:
O A couple of questlons first. Your name,
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please, and spel1
A Jana, J-a-n-a, Anell-o, A-n-e-1-l_-o.
O And what is your address?
A 35415 Saint Joe Drive, Spirit Lake.
O Are you a Spirit Lake customer?
A Yes.
O Thank you, go ahead.
A Okay, I'd just like to say ftm a neighbor
of Spirit Lake who loves and takes care of her property.
It's ten-and-a-hal-f acres. ft's not a subdivision. ft's
not in a littl-e neighborhood. You know, it's a big piece
of property, and if I wanted to have grass on my entire
piece of property, I should be abfe to without belng
penalized. We do have a nice amount of grass. We
probably have 10r000 square feet and we t.ake good care of
it and it' s beautiful- and j-t' s green and I shouldn't be
punished for havi-ng a nice house and a nice yard.
There's a lot of yards in Splrit Lake that
are not nice at al-l and I'm sure they will be well bel-ow
whatever rates that you come up with and wow, that's
really great, you know, but one of the main things I
wanted to say was they keep talking about $12.00 a month,
$12.00 a haircut, whatever and not a big deal-, but I'm
not talking about $12.00 a month. At the end of every
summer, I end up with approximately as much as a $300
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CSB REPORTING(208) 890-s198
A1AJ ANELLO
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billr so we're not talking $12.00. That sounds really
cute, $12.00, $24.00. Werre talking going from 300 to
possibly $600 and we are on a very fixed income, and with
jobs the way they are up here, you know, I work for the
state and we didn't get a raise this year with the state.
They gave them a small- bonus because they couldn't afford
a raise, so if they can't afford a darn raise, the rest
of us can't afford a raise in our payments and stuff, but
anyhow, again, like I said, we have a beautiful yard and
we take care of it and we want to continue taking care of
it, and I did just add a garden to it, a smal-l garden, a
small nice greenhouse and, you know, we like to take care
of the community and we pi-ck up the trash, so we're that
kind of a person and we want to continue with that.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: You seem l-ike a very
rational- person who understands everything has a cost,
including 10, 000 square f eet of l-awn.
THE WITNESS: Yeah, I know, it does, it
does, but another thing on that water bill, it doesn't
say ga1Ions. Why do they do it in I just tried to
read it, it was 385,000 something
COMMISSIONER SMITH: Ccf ' s.
THE WITNESS: Yeah, so I don't know what
I'm doing, so I don't even l-ook at it to see how I was
doing as far as going over, and I do live here. I do
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CSB REPORTING(208) 890-s198
44 ANELLO
Public
live in northern Idaho and put up with l-ots of snow and
l-ots of cold so that during the sunrmer I should be abl-e
to get back some of that water I havenft used and I think
somebody else mentioned that. fn the summer I shou1d be
abl-e to enjoy the water because in however many months,
it's way more than most people in the country, you know,
because we don't use water all year like other places,
probably Boise and whatnot.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: So just something to
think about and I will- try to put a question mark on the
end of it so it's legitimate, but the water companies, a
Iot of their costs are fixed. It wouldn't matter if you
used one ga11on or 10,000, they have to put in new pipes
and they have to put in meters. Their investment is
there regardless.
THE WITNESS: And a smart business person
should have known that when they bought the company and
shoul-d have planned over the l-ast six years that I've
been here and maybe sIowIy incrementally raj-sed rates,
not just suddenly said come along and bail- me out.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: I think you have
an excel-l-ent point there, but I was going on the I don't
use much in the winter, so I shoul-d get more in the
summer
THE WITNESS: Absolutely.
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COMMISSIONER SMITH: -- the investment is
every month.
THE WITNESS: Not by my books. I'm goi-ng
to ge1- paid yearly. I get a certain salary all year,
same with water usage. Oh, well, thank you.
MR. PRICE: I don't have a question, just
a cornment, regarding reading your bilt, thatrs one of
Staff's proposals is to make your bill a Ij-ttle bit
easier to read and will- comply with some of our customer
service requj-rements so that you will be able to tel-l- how
much you're using and be able to translate that a l-ittle
bit better, so we do recognize that and Staff has made
that recommendation.
THE WITNESS: Okay, and, again, I do agree
with whoever said, you know, f only use 2,000 one month,
give me my other seven or however much it is and I'Il use
it l-ater.
COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Thank you very
much.
THB WITNESS: Thank you.
(The witness left the stand. )
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: That exhausts
the list that we have. Is there anyone el-se that would
like to testify this evening?
MR. PLUNKETT: Off the record may I make a
45
brlef comment?
COMMISSIONER KJELLANDER: Why don't we
wait until we close down and then we'l1 be off the
record. At this time point, then, we have, again, as I
mentj-oned, exhausted our list of those who wanted to
testify tonj-ght, So that concludes this component of our
process, the public hearing process. Just as a reminder,
we'11- have until Friday the 6th, two days , if you have
any other written comments that you would l-ike to submit
to be a part of the official record, we'11- be accepting
them.
As I mentioned al-so earl-ier, there i-s
form that Mr. Fadness from the Public Utilities
Commj-ssion Staff has there if you would like to fill
out tonight. If not, you can go to our website and
submit comments through there as wel-lr so with that,
then, I certainfy appreciate your testimony this evening.
Thank you very much for coming and being part of the
process, and one of the things that we as Commissioners
do when we go out to public hearings, there are a lot of
cases we go to where maybe one or two people show up, and
so we certainl-y do appreclate the fact that you take time
out of your busy schedul-es to come in j-n numbers like
this and participate and help us in the course of making
the decision that we have to maker So, again, thank you
it
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for your
render a
published
participation and we wiIl do
decision in a timely fashion
and avail-able as soon as is
Thank you again and we
(The Hearing adjourned
our best to try
and have that
reasonable.
are adjourned.
at 8:07 p.m.)
to
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AUTHENT]CATION
This is to certify that the foregoing
proceedings held in the matter of the application of
Spirit Lake East Water Company for authority to increase
its rates and charges for water service, commencing at
7:00 p.m., oD Wednesday, September 4, 20!3, dt the Spirit
Lake City HalI, 6042 West Main Street, Spirit Lake,
Idaho, is a true and correct transcript of said
proceedings and the original thereof for the file of the
Commi-ssion.
CONSTANCE S. BUCY
Certified Shorthand Reporter
4B AUTHENT]CATION