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April 19, 2001
HSU
investigation underway
A top fund-raising official
at Humboldt State University suddenly resigned last month and
an investigation has been launched by university police into
possible criminal activities.
John Sterns, executive director
of university advancement since 1998, had resigned his post effective
March 30. But March 20 campus police were called to stand by
while Sterns cleared out his office.
"Information came to our
attention regarding some activities that may be criminal in nature
and we initiated an investigation," said HSU Police Chief
Bob Foster.
While not commenting on the
Sterns case directly, Foster said an investigation of this nature
involves "looking for a paper trail to support any allegations
of wrongdoing" and enlisting the help of specialists such
as accountants and computer software experts. Foster confirmed
that he has been consulting with the county district attorney's
office as well.
Sterns was in charge of alumni
relations, fund-raising and media relations. He also was the
university administrator for KHSU, the campus-run public radio
station, the HSU Natural History Museum in Arcata and the HSU
First Street Gallery in Eureka.
Elizabeth Hans has been appointed
interim director of university advancement. Recruitment for a
permanent director is underway.
Sterns was scheduled to start
a similar fund-raising position for the Crocker Art Museum in
Sacrament April 1, but a spokesperson said he is not employed
by the museum "and is not expected."
Sterns could not be reached
for comment.
TV-turnoff
week celebration
Humboldt Teaching Media Literacy
has announced that April 23-29 is TV-Turnoff Week.
Americans watch, on average,
four hours of television a day. That means they are spending
half as much time in front of the tube as at work -- a full two
months year. HTML advocates sensible use of media. Julie Moranda,
HTML chairperson, said that taking a week-long break will help
people to realize what effect TV is having on their life.
HTML will hold a TV-Turnoff
party at 3-2-1 Coffee in Eureka April 25. See this week's Calendar
for details.
Woody and
the Mothership
Activist/actor Woody Harrelson
rolls into Arcata next weekend as part of a West Coast journey
he calls, "On the Road and Off the Grid."
Harrelson is bicycling from
Seattle to Santa Barbara with a group of friends, stopping at
college campuses along the way spreading his message of "Simple
Organic Living" -- SOL, for short. His stop in Arcata includes
a speech on Saturday, April 26, at Humboldt State University's
Arts and Music Festival and Renewable Energy Fair.
"The time is now to halt
the destruction of our rain forest by industry and the poisoning
of our bodies by pesticides. We need to change the devastating
impact our species is having on this planet and realize the impact
current corporate culture is having on us. We can wrench ourselves
from the corporate grid," Harrelson said in a tour press
release.
During the tour Harrelson and
company are being followed by a bus he purchased and dubbed "The
Mothership." The futuristic vehicle is outfitted with a
kitchen with solar-powered appliances and a greenhouse that produces
organic foods. The bus runs on bio-fuel made from vegetable and
hemp seed oil. It will stop to fill up at HSU's CCAT House where
residents recycle waste fryer oil into fuel. (See "Life
at the CCAT house" April 5.)
"I don't think of myself
as a political activist, but an economic activist," said
Harrelson. "Did you know 95 percent of the world's paper
was made from hemp? That everything made from a hydrocarbon can
be made from a carbohydrate? So, why are we making plastic from
petroleum?"
Among those on the road with
Harrelson is documentary filmmaker Ron Mann, whose previous films
include Comic Book Confidential, Twist and Grass.
Mann has been following the tour with camera in hand since its
early planning stages around Harrelson's kitchen table.
"On the Road and Off the
Grid" is produced by the Spitfire Foundation, an organization
created in part by Zack De la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine.
Previous Spitfire speaking tours have included Amy Ray of the
Indigo Girls, Michael Franti, Jello Biafra and Julia Butterfly
Hill.
Eel River
makes national news
Not only are the fish that swim
in the Eel River's waters threatened -- the river itself is endangered,
according to Washington D.C.-based environmental group American
Rivers.
The Eel received the dubious
honor last week of being named as the No. 3 most threatened river
in the country. American Rivers, like North Coast river advocates,
places the blame squarely on the Potter Valley Project, which
diverts water from the Eel to the Russian River for domestic
and agricultural uses.
The listing is useful to river
advocates because it draws national attention to the ailing waterbody
at a crucial time. A decision on whether to reduce the amount
of water taken from the Eel is being considered by the federal
government.
The Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission and the California Department of Fish and Game have
backed a 15 percent reduction in water diversion, but the National
Marine Fisheries Service has yet to sign off on the proposal.
NMFS had previously stated that 15 percent would be insufficient
to protect threatened salmonid fish species in the river.
The Potter Valley Project, built
in 1910, is ostensibly a hydroelectric power plant but produces
a marginal amount of power -- enough to supply just 9,000 homes.
Considered even more endangered
than the Eel were the Missouri River, which flows from Montana
and North Dakota to Missouri, and the Canning River in Alaska.
Teacher
resource center open
The Humboldt County Office of
Education has opened a new Teacher Resource Center next to its
headquarters in Eureka. The center contains more than 3,100 teacher
resources, such as curriculum kits and visual aids. It also houses
more than 130 units of audiovisual equipment, 8,900 videos and
26,750 books.
An open house is scheduled for
April 23. See this week's calendar for details.
HOPE Coalition
expands
"Our intent is to involve
all the progressive groups in the county and have them link together
to better accomplish their goals," said Mayer Segal of Humboldt
Organized for People and the Environment, or HOPE.
In the past the coalition, operated
by volunteers, kept a low profile. Segal said plans call for
membership dues to help build a financial base from which the
coalition can operate more aggressively.
Possible goals include a physical
location and a paid staff, all with the end result of being able
to bring groups with similar goals together to further a progressive
vision for the county, Segal said.
Even groups with potential for
conflict -- like labor organizations seeking to retain jobs and
environmentalists who want to limit resource extraction -- "realize
they have more in common than not" when they make contact,
he said.
Those interested in helping
the coalition reorganize are meeting April 22 from 3-5 p.m. at
the Arcata Service Center, 501 Ninth St. Bring a potluck dish
and ideas.
Redwood:
the national tree
The Arbor Day Foundation is
searching for America's favorite tree -- and you can help.
The foundation will be collecting
votes for the National Tree until April 26. The tree chosen should
be "the best symbol for America," according to a foundation
statement.
Humboldt County's own sequoia
-- the large, stately softwood sans taproot -- has been one of
the top five contenders so far.
To vote, visit www.arborday.org/voteAlt.cfm.
-- reported by Arno Holschuh,
Bob Doran, Judy Hodgson
Whatever
happened to Green Mountain Energy?
Whatever happened to Green Mountain
Energy Co.? When California deregulated its electric system in
1998 it kicked open the door to competition for residential service
and about 2 percent of the state's electric customers opted to
switch to one of several direct-access companies that set up
shop. Many who switched -- especially in Humboldt County -- chose
Vermont-based Green Mountain, an eco-friendly company that offered
toy earth balls and packs of wildflower seeds as promotional
items.
But if you are among 55,000
California customers who switched to Green Mountain, you received
news in January that the company was dumping your account back
to PG&E in the wake of the energy crisis. Green Mountain
claims it was forced to quit because the state's power market
infrastructure collapsed -- and that it is now prohibited by
new laws from re-entering the market.
According to Rick Counihan,
Green Mountain's vice president and general manager in charge
of the California office, the company got out of the energy business
in California because of the failure of the state's Power Exchange
(PX).
What exactly was the Power Exchange?
"It was a nongovernmental
agency created by the state to be like the stock market, where
people bought and sold electricity," explained Guy Phillips,
chief consultant to Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Fred Keeley, in
an interview from Sacramento.
"If you were a generator,
you'd call up and say, `I've got this many kilowatt hours I want
to sell at 2 o'clock tomorrow afternoon and here's the price
I want' and the PX's job was to find a buyer, a marketer for
that electricity."
When the California PX went
out of business in late January, it left companies like Green
Mountain in limbo. The PX not only served as a source of electricity,
it provided energy companies with an approximate price for electricity
in the state. Both the prices Green Mountain paid for wholesale
energy and demanded for the retail energy it sold were based
on the PX
"We were sitting there
with 52,000 customers and wholesale contracts with our suppliers
both indexed to something that no longer existed," said
Counihan. "That's what pushed us over the edge and made
us `revert' our customers. The PX wasn't posting a price anymore."
Phillips, who was once a Green
Mountain customer himself, tells the story a bit differently.
He says the company left the business because it was no longer
able to compete.
"You and I signed up with
Green Mountain for two reasons -- one, because we wanted to support
green energy, and two, because they were offering a price competitive
with PG&E. Until January of this year when the rates were
raised, PG&E's electric rate was 5.7 cents. That's the price
Green Mountain had to compete with to win you away from PG&E.
Well, prices in the PX haven't been at 5.7 cents for over a year.
The thing that put them out of business was a wholesale market
that was out of whack."
The PX was replaced by a computerized
system called the automatic power exchange (APX).
"It does not work nearly
as well," said Phillips, "and it does not produce the
main thing that the PX provided which was a day ahead, two days
ahead or week ahead marketplace instead of a spot market. Today
we're paying the highest price at the spot."
In February, in an attempt to
add some stability -- and to deal with the energy shortage that
led to rolling blackouts -- the state entered the energy market,
and, according to Counihan, created a new problem for the direct-access
companies.
Last week former Green Mountain
customers found a copy of the company newsletter, Small Planet
News, in their mailboxes. A piece written by Counihan read,
"California customers, we need your help!" and included
details about a little known clause in a recent piece of legislation
that suspended consumers' right to choose an alternative electric
service provider.
"AB1X, which was passed
by the Legislature in February and signed by the governor, allowed
the Department of Water Resources to buy power on behalf of Californians,
which according to the papers, they've been doing at a rate of
$50 million a day. Stuck in the middle of that legislation is
a clause that says the PUC can suspend customer choice for retail
end-use customers for as long as the state buys power. It hasn't
been widely reported."
Counihan contends that if power
prices dropped to the point where Green Mountain wanted to re-enter
the market, they couldn't.
"That's not true,"
said Phillips who helped draft AB1X. He claims the clause in
question is a temporary measure designed to protect California
taxpayers. The problem the state is facing now is that Department
of Water Resources is entering into long-term contracts at a
high rate.
"That's the consequence
of going into a market when it's high and saying, `I want to
buy a lot.' You have to pay a lot. Frankly I've been distressed
by the size and price of these contracts, but that's what the
state has had to do.
"The section in AB1X was
consciously written to keep people from gaming the state by buying
electricity when it's cheap and then dumping the state when it's
not cheap anymore. It was done so that if people are to enjoy
the benefits of buying from the state, they will have to be with
us in the bad times too."
Is the state excluding the alternative
energy companies because it is now in the power business?
Counihan thinks so.
"Depending on how you pitch
it, the fact that the state sees itself as a major buyer of power
and a supplier to residential customers either means they're
monopolists and they don't want competition, or they are concerned
that if they buy a lot of long-term power contracts and five
years from now new power plants come on line and the price of
power drops, they'll be sitting there holding high-priced contracts
while customers defect and go to another alternative provider,
leaving the state holding the bag," he said.
"Down the road sometime
everyone has their fingers crossed hoping that the price drop
from 25 cents to something like 6 cents or 7 cents where they
used to be," said Phillips. "Actually a year ago they
were 3 cents or 4 cents. When they do get there, DWR will be
taken out of the power-buying business, because the state is
only in the power-buying business because it's so expensive no
one else can afford to do it. When prices come down DWR won't
be buying power any more.
"We have two pieces of
legislation we're working on to fix the direct-access problem
so that some time in the future, when there is a direct access
market, guys like Green Mountain will be able to play."
Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Marina Del
Rey and chair of the Senate Energy Commission, drafted SB27X
that deals specifically with the clause. Another bill, AB21X,
addresses the same issue.
"We're going to move one
of them in the next two weeks," said Phillips. "We're
in the middle of the fray right now deciding which one is going
to move."
Even Counihan admits that the
Legislature has "thornier problems to deal with." For
example, how do we get out of this mess?
"We have to fix the market,"
said Phillips. "We have to fix it in order for the utilities
to get back on their feet, in order for the direct-access providers
to get back into the business. And we have to fix it so the state
can get out of the power business."
How do you fix it?
"That's what the Legislature
is currently working on," said Phillips.
And when things settle down
will the consumer still have a choice?
"That is in fact the topic
we were discussing here today. People here are trying to figure
that out."
-- reported by Bob Doran
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