Sparks haven’t flown in Clark Public Utilities campaign

Clark Public Utilities commissioner Nancy Barnes and challenger Mike Lyons have so far waged a low-key campaign for a high-stakes position.

The utility’s three elected commissioners oversee an entity that provides the sole source of electricity for 183,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers and water for another 30,000 customers.

The position pays $1,800 a month plus benefits and a $104 per-diem when conducting business.

Nancy Barnes

Age: 58

Residence: Vancouver

Experience: Running for fourth six-year term on the commission

Mike Lyons

Age: 62

Residence: Vancouver

Experience: Retired Vancouver firefighter. Commissioner for Clark County Fire District 5 since April 2000.

Barnes, who works with her family’s payroll service and has a long history of activism with school and citizen groups, is seeking her fourth six-year term. Lyons, a retired firefighter who serves as an elected commissioner for Fire District 5, outpolled three other challengers to Barnes in the August primary.

Barnes earned 36.4 percent, while Lyons picked up 24.8 percent of 27,033 votes cast in the primary.

Lyons is highlighting the commissioners’ recent decision to boost residential electricity rates by 5.7 percent. Although Lyons said he agrees with the commissioners’ decision to operate on a tight budget — rather than building up a large cash reserve — he argues that Clark should find a way to hold rates in line. Because 70 percent of its current $388.6 million electric system budget goes directly into acquiring energy, Lyons suggests extracting more cheap federal hydropower from the Bonneville Power Administration.

“I’d like to increase the amount of BPA power that we are supplied,” he said.

The utility gets about 70 percent of its energy from BPA, with the rest coming from its gas-fired River Road Generating Plant or the open market. Previously, the utility received virtually all of its power from Bonneville. It opened River Road in 1997, with the idea of diversifying its power supply.

“I think Mr. Lyons is anxious to look backward,” Barnes said.

She noted that Bonneville is scrambling to spread around the output of the federal hydropower system, which is hamstrung by requirements to spill water for migrating salmon and to integrate intermittent energy sources such as wind power.

“Bonneville is out of power,” she said. “We all wish we could get more power from BPA, but it’s not going to happen. They are simply out of power.”

Doug Johnson, a Bonneville spokesman in Portland, confirmed as much: “It would not be possible for Clark to get more power from BPA,” he said.

Instead, Clark must navigate an increasingly complex energy market to keep the lights on.

Barnes said she works hard to come prepared with questions and insight for the utility’s professional staff. Barnes said she’s made a point of taking leadership positions with regional and national public power associations, and the flexibility of her family’s payroll business enables her to prioritize utility business first.

Barnes defends rate hike

She defends the three commissioners’ unanimous decision to raise rates last month, just the third rate hike since the power crisis of 2000-01.

“In fact, that is about a 17 percent increase in nine years,” she said. “That doesn’t even keep up with inflation. In real dollars, you’re paying less for your electricity today than you were nine years ago.”

Lyons contends that the utility should continue to press for changes in the voter-approved law requiring an increasing investment in renewable forms of energy other than existing hydropower.

The utility has pressed the issue repeatedly with state lawmakers, but, as General Manager Wayne Nelson put it, Clark has pulled out of fighting mode and into compliance mode.

Lyons said he isn’t ready to give up.

“I would like to lobby the Washington state Legislature to change it and include hydro as a renewable,” Lyons said.