Grade: A

Well, yes, we should be involved. You know, I learned about CENSE and the whole Energize Eastside [project] when I was on the Planning Commission, and I started trying to figure out how much influence we could have as a city, and discovered: none! Virtually none, at that time, and even nowadays. It’s very little influence, even with the way we changed the permitting process. That really bothered me, especially with the potential safety issues involved with co-locating the power line with the gas lines.

As far as specific ideas about energy planning, I’ve never really thought about that for Newcastle because we’re not really a place where there was a need to plan for energy. But when I first started learning about the Energize Eastside [project], I automatically kicked in thinking – what are the alternatives? Like a cogeneration plant or something, and not necessarily bringing in more lines. I’ve read and heard about your ideas and other people’s ideas on battery storage. I think it’d be a great idea. If there was an opportunity in Newcastle, where we could implement some sort of planning that would help the system, if we have the space for it and all that, I fully support it.

I don’t know a whole lot about energy, especially with the planning of it at that large of a scale. I am involved with building apartment buildings right now. I used to be involved with building Costco’s all over North America. There was a certain amount of energy planning that we did, but it was mainly related to trying to create a net zero building. With Costco it’s not really that feasible. But with the roof area that they have and having [photovoltaic] cells, that goes a long way. But we’re constantly talking about that with the work I do with new apartment buildings that we build and trying to reach net zero. But that’s on a small scale, not a regional/city scale. And so I’ve never really thought much beyond that.

You read about some town in Australia with the Tesla cells, and whenever I see stuff like that, I think why can’t you do that here and have localized cells where you can have either some sort of gas power generated plant, or solar works around here. Wind I’m not sure would work around here, but something. I see what goes on in Eastern Washington with all those wind turbines and [I have] kind of mixed emotions about that. I grew up and spent a lot of time in Eastern Washington before those wind turbines, and I kind of appreciated the views back then before those got cluttered up. But yeah, I don’t have a whole lot more to say about planning ideas.

(see full question)

Utilities like Seattle City Light, Tacoma Power, and Snohomish County PUD are all forecasting flat or declining consumption of electricity for at least the next decade. These forecasts and Washington’s mandate to transition to a cleaner energy grid have implications for power planning. How might they influence your input to policies implemented at the city level?

Grade: B

I’m thinking about a lot of things here. We have infrastructure that is still above grade and I’d love to see that be put below-grade, but that’s a whole different issue.

These projections of reduced energy use – I’m sure it’s through energy-saving devices and LEDs and all that stuff. I’d love to see us go in a direction where these utilities make less of an impact on our environment around us.

Being in the business of building, I’m always seeing the power lines above grade and just thinking, it would be nice someday for everything to be compacted into a nice corridor where it’s easy to service and out of our way and just not clutter.

It would be great if I can get good, reliable power to my house. That’s a whole other story.

As far as policies, I’d be very much in favor of finding ways to reduce and make the infrastructure more efficient. And if we have any influence on that, whether it comes to a franchise agreement or something, I would support that. There’s no need to have – I don’t call it archaic – but it’s becoming a system that is so old, and I know there’s new technologies out there, new ways of doing things.

And I know it costs a lot to know to retrofit or upgrade or make a system more efficient, but I would support any policies that would do that.

Grade: A

This is something I’ve given a lot of thought to.

In Bellevue, when [PSE] got conditional-use permits on two [transmission] lines, and I went right online to read those. I read the first part of the hearing examiner’s comments to testimony that he took, and I was just baffled that they took testimony from an expert who said that the potential for catastrophic failure/rupture/explosion was just so small that it could just be ignored.

To me, that just doesn’t make good sense (no pun intended). And then when I looked at the actual conditions of the approval, I did a word search for things like fire, explosion, rupture – all those things – and there is nothing in those to address any type of emergency management if any of those types of things were to happen. I did read, I think, where they talked about how the Olympic pipeline company needs to reduce the pressure in the pipelines when construction is going on. I don’t know if that reduces the amount of volume. I wasn’t aware of 13 million [gallons per day]. I knew it was a lot, but if they reduce the pressure, do they also reduce the volume, and what would happen if there was a rupture? What’s the plan? That’s always bothered me.

When one of these permits that Puget Sound Energy has, when it comes to a hearing examiner in Newcastle, I want to be there to ask the question. Why can’t you have some sort of emergency plan as a condition of approval in case there is a rupture or something so you don’t have fuel flowing downhill, because we’re such a hilly community. You don’t have flaming fuel going down into May Creek or something like that or fuel going down the street and lighting cars on fire and houses on fire. That’s what scares me, just the lack of – I don’t know if it’s best management practice – but it’s a plan to recognize there is a potential and have a plan to address it when it happens, and not wait for the fire department to respond and you realize they can’t do anything about it.

So I mean, that’s a commitment I’m willing to make: I will be there to testify to that hearing examiner saying, “Hey, you’ve got to have something in place, and it can’t be what Bellevue accepted, because to me, that’s just not enough.”

Grade: A

You know, I don’t know what the disadvantages/advantages would be financially or anything like that. But I think that having the ability to have a little more control over what you can do in your district is a huge advantage and probably trumps a lot of other things that having a private utility could bring.

When I first heard the idea of creating a PUD in our area, I thought I’d jump on board with that and help out with that effort because I support it. I’ve had to deal with several PUDs and they’re great to deal with. They seem to be a lot more interested in their customers than what I’ve experienced with Puget Sound Energy. PSE has their people out there, you know, their public relations people and they’re all nice and everything, but I am not convinced that they’re really that concerned about the customers. Ever since Energize Eastside came to the forefront, I always see them as the ten-thousand-pound gorilla in the area and they’re just going to get what they want, no matter what anybody says. With a PUD it’s probably going to be more like a thousand-pound gorilla and they’re a little easier to tame.

But yes, I would support it, and I would actively go out there, and if it’s a referendum, and if I’m allowed to, I’ll go out and get signatures, and I would promote it. Because I think that having that level of transparency is very important.