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PSC Workshop Aims to Get Commissioners 'Up to Speed'

Sept. 21, 2006 – The Public Services Commission kicked off its three-day workshop at the Westin Resort and Villas on St. John Thursday with an overview of the nuts and bolts of serving on the commission.
"It's to bring all the commissioners, especially the new ones, up to speed on all the dockets," chairman Alecia M. Wells said.
She also said that she hoped that by the end of the weekend, the commissioners would have some idea of the laws it needs to ask the Legislature to pass.
Wells said the workshop was an opportunity for the commissioners to get to know each other, the staff and the legal counsel so when they meet they'll all be on the same page.
She said it was the first time in a long time that the commission had a full complement of members.
In addition to Wells, members Raymond Williams, Sirri Hamad, Thomas Jackson, Joseph Boschulte, Verne David, and Donald Cole attended.
St. Thomas attorney Frederick G. Watts, who has provided legal services for the PSC, advised them to be careful when dealing with employees of the utilities they oversee.
He said that while they should visit the utility so they can learn about the issues, they should take another commission member with them so there's no suggestion that they're doing something wrong.
Watts told them that since they lived in a small community, it was hard to avoid social encounters with utility staff members, but they shouldn't discuss matters before the PSC.
"In a place like this, you run into each other all over the place," Watts said.
Watts said that they'll be responsible for deciding whether to allow a utility to turn off service when a customer gets a "humungous" bill.
"It sounds simple until somebody gets a $15,000 water bill for two months," he said.
And he said that a federal law has mandated that local power companies buy power from businesses using methods other than oil, a situation called co-generation. Watts said that the V.I. Water and Power Authority has dragged its feet on this matter.
"There is a resistance to it. In a small place like this people want to control the patronage involved with jobs," Watts said.
Watts suggested lobbying the Legislature to pass a law that called for cost sharing when an entity not under PSC regulation asks for an investigation. He said that a full-scale rate investigation can run $500,000 or more, which will be paid by the regulated utility.
Watts also warned them of the voluminous amounts of paperwork they'll be faced with in order to prepare for meetings.
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