The Communication Committee will oversee the website, Neighborhood List and the Pemberton Journal.

We will continue to maintain a larger support group — Security Program Working Group — but the day to day work will be done by the Security Committee.

The Security Program Working Group will have another meeting in February as part of the twice yearly out reach program.

Fund raising for the Security Program will resume in February also.

The churches, the poor, the solar folks and people served by Austin Energy who live outside of the City were very organized and well represented. I was the only one who spoke about the impact on the middle class. AE claims that the average household uses 1,000 kWh month, but that is very misleading because our usage is so heavily skewed to the hot Summer Billing Months when the rates are highest. I ran some numbers, based on an assumed 2,000 kWh use in the 4 Summer Billing Months and 500 kWh in the 8 Winter Billing Months, and the increase came out to about 22 percent on residential customers. That’s a lot of $$.

The good news is that no one at the hearing spoke in favor of what AE is proposing. I almost felt sorry for the AE staff who sat there, silent and glum faced. But then someone pointed out that 136 people at AE make over $100,000/year. Not bad for a public power company owned by the City of Austin. They are very worried that they could someday lose their monopoly status, and Austin residents would have a choice of several power providers, as do the residents of Houston, Dallas and other parts of Texas.

I want to thank those of you who wrote to the City Council opposing this rate proposal.
While I am quite sure AE will have to go back to the drawing board, this issue it not going away, and if residential customers don’t speak up and have a seat at the table we will be disproportionately affected when new rates are approved.
Please feel free to contact me at faulkhome@aol.com if you would like additional information.

I suspect this discussion will have more than a few chapters before any final decisions are made.

Please feel free to comment here. Thanks.

As a citizen of Austin I believe it is unfair to raise electricity rates from the residential customer class and our neighborhood churches by over 20%, as currently proposed by Austin Energy, while giving special low rates to over a dozen large commercial and industrial customers.

Also, Austin Energy should not have refused to open itself up to retail rate competition, which is available in Houston, Dallas and other part of Texas.

I urge the members of the Counsel to vote no when this rate issue comes before them, and I hope to be able to attend the public hearing scheduled at 4pm on January 12th at City Hall.”

Sincerely,

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