3 challenge Hanke for utility board job

When asked to judge Clark Public Utilities as a provider of power and water, customers annually rank the agency the highest in service among midsize utilities in the Western U.S.

This year, Clark County voters are being asked to make another judgment, this time on a ballot rather than a customer survey: Who will help guide the well-regarded, if low-profile, utility over the next six years?

In the Aug. 5 primary election, four candidates are competing to represent District 3, encompassing an area that includes downtown Vancouver, on the utility’s three-member Board of Commissioners. Byron Hanke, the incumbent, seeks a third six-year term. He faces challengers Jane Van Dyke, Michael Piper and Bill Hughes.

It’s a nonpartisan office involving an industry with legal, financial and technical facets to spare, so a roiling cauldron of sectarian politics it is not. Nevertheless, the person voters select will help decide the customer-owned utility’s annual budgets, set electric and water rates, and supervise the utility’s CEO — all for an agency that provides electricity to more than 185,000 customers and that supplies water to more than 31,000 homes and businesses in the region.

Only registered voters in District 3 will cast ballots in the August primary. The top two vote-getters will advance to the Nov. 4 general election, when all voters in Clark County may cast ballots in the utility race.

Through questionnaires and phone interviews with The Columbian, the candidates discussed everything from why they think they’re the person for the job to how they voted on Initiative 937, the state law requiring large utilities to get 15 percent of their power from renewable sources by the year 2020.

Hughes, a World War II veteran and former business owner and manager, isn’t running for lofty reasons. “I’m looking for a job, let’s be frank,” he said. A utility commissioner’s pay is “a lot better than my Social Security.”

Commissioners serve in paid, part-time positions where they are compensated no more than $43,380 per year. They also receive insurance benefits that the utility provides its employees, including medical, dental and vision coverage.

‘Rock the boat’

When Hanke was elected to the District 3 position in 2002, he succeeded Van Dyke, who’d decided against running for re-election after serving the utility for 18 years.

Now, Van Dyke has returned to challenge Hanke, whose previous professional work includes serving as executive director of the Port of Vancouver and holding administrative positions at the utility. Van Dyke is “a formidable challenger,” Hanke said, but he possesses the more up-to-date experience. “She would have a lot of catching up to do.”

That’s hardly the case, Van Dyke countered. She’s been a leader of nonprofit organizations for nearly 20 years, including currently as executive director of the Columbia Slough Watershed Council. Not only does she grasp current utility issues, Van Dyke said, but she helped initiate the customer-service and environmental-restoration programs for which the utility is now so well-regarded. “Mr. Hanke has not really made a difference at the utility,” she said.

Piper, executive director of the Arc of Southwest Washington, also touts his previous experience in the utility industry. That includes his work to promote conservation as a consultant to the Bonneville Power Administration. Clark Public Utilities purchases about 57 percent of the power it provides from BPA, which markets electricity generated by hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River and its tributaries.

Although the utility enjoys good grades for customer service, Piper said, its leadership isn’t looking far enough ahead. He said he’d “rock the boat a little,” including emphasizing the need to reduce carbon emissions, in light of the challenges of global climate change, by boosting conservation and increasing the use of renewables. And the utility should pursue policies to help decentralize the production of power, Piper said, enabling the generation of electricity through solar power on a neighborhood scale.

“You get a more reliable grid that way,” he said.

Climate change is “real and it’s happening,” said Van Dyke, “and we certainly (need to) act and make decisions.” She noted that a recent audit of the utility’s performance under I-937 shows that it’s meeting or exceeding the law’s conservation and renewable-energy requirements. She said the utility should encourage solar installations and help more people weatherize their homes to increase energy conservation.

Hanke said he’s “not sure” climate change is “relevant to the day-to-day activities of what commissioners do” and that “none of us know for sure what the science is, exactly, but it is a factor” that must be dealt with. The utility “is right on top of it,” he said, including embracing wind power and working to develop “a solar program for not only residential use but maybe more importantly for industrial and commercial use.”

I-937 discussed

All four candidates say they voted “yes” on I-937, passed by voters statewide in 2006.

The law requires large utilities to obtain power from renewable sources but does not define hydroelectric power — which accounts for nearly three-fourths of state electricity generation — as a renewable source of energy.

The law is a driver of the utility’s long-term planning. Critics say it should be changed to count hydropower as an eligible source of renewable energy. Backers say such a change would undermine the law’s purpose in diversifying the state’s portfolio of renewables.

Van Dyke said “the point of the initiative is to further conservation and further renewables, and it needs to basically be the way it is to do that.”

Hanke said he’d “like to see the law changed to include hydropower” although he understands why it was written to exclude hydropower. “If we relied entirely on that we wouldn’t have to do anything else,” he said.

Piper said he opposes attempts to rewrite the law to include hydropower because it would give utilities “an excuse not to pursue” other sources of renewable energy.

Hughes said if I-937 was on the ballot today he’d change his mind and vote “no.” He said backers of the initiative did a “pretty good job selling it” in 2006. “It takes a lot to sell me when I’m a conservative and voted for a liberal bill,” he said.

THE CANDIDATES

Byron Hanke

Age: 80.

Residence: Vancouver.

Education: Degree in business administration from the University of Washington.

Occupation: Incumbent Clark Public Utilities commissioner.

Past elected positions: Utility commissioner for 12 years.

Endorsements: IBEW Local 48; IBEW Local 125; Vancouver Firefighters Local 452; 11 Vancouver First Citizen Award recipients.

Campaign funds raised: $9,000.

Campaign website: www.byronhanke.com.

Jane Van Dyke

Age: 62.

Residence: Vancouver.

Education: JD-Lewis and Clark-Northwestern School of Law; BA-University of California.

Occupation: Executive director, Columbia Slough Watershed Council.

Past elected positions: Clark Public Utilities commissioner for 18 years.

Endorsements: Scott Brattebo; Julia Anderson; Mark Carter, Anne McEnerny-Ogle; David McDonald.

Campaign funds raised: $5,300.

Campaign website: janevandyke.com.

Michael Piper

Age: 64.

Residence: Vancouver.

Education: Degree in political science from University of Oregon; attended graduate-level executive management program at Evans School of Public Affairs at University of Washington.

Occupation: Executive director of the Arc of Southwest Washington.

Past elected positions: None.

Endorsements: Sierra Club.

Campaign funds raised: None.

Campaign website: www.piperforpud.com.

Bill Hughes

Age: 86.

Residence: Vancouver.

Education: Two years of college, studying business and pre-law at the Vanport Extension Center.

Occupation: Former manager for M. Seller & Co., a wholesaler of housewares; former owner of Pronto Pig Inc., a freight hauler.

Past elected positions: ESD board; freeholder.

Endorsements: None.

Campaign funds raised: None.

Campaign website: None.