Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt adds
staff moves to Vancouvercenter

Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt is adding two attorneys to its Vancouver office and moving its offices to 6,104 square feet on the sixth floor of the north tower of the Vancouvercenter.

The new move and expansion follows the hiring of Don Russo as an associate in March.

Carol McCaulley, who specializes in employment and labor law, had been an associate with Blair, Schaefer, Hutchison & Wolfe, before being hired by the Schwabe firm. McCaulley holds a masters degree from Washington State University and earned her law degree from the Northwestern School of Law at Lewis and Clark College.

Carol McCaulley
 
Kelly Walsh, who had been a deputy district attorney in Deschutes County for the past five years, has been hired to provide commercial, civil litigation and construction counsel. Walsh, a graduate of Montana State University, earned her law degree from Willamette University College of Law.

Kelly Walsh      

Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt has offices in Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Bend, Salem and Washington, D.C.

Retail electric rates go up, but
residential users won't feel a thing

Clark Public Utilities increased its retail rates, effective October 1, to cover a $16 million shortfall anticipated during the next 12 months, mostly brought on by higher natural gas prices, which affect about half the utility's power supply.

The residential rate increase, about seven percent, is canceled by a Bonneville Power Administration residential exchange rebate program. Unless BPA reneges on the application of its program with Clark, residential customers will continue to buy electricity at the existing rate, at least for the next year.

The monthly rate for residential customers is predicated on a $6.40 basic charge, plus an energy charge of 7.36 cents per kilowatt-hour. The per kilowatt-hour rate includes a pass-through of nearly six tenths of a cent from BPA.

Industrial and commercial customers, whose rates are figured differently and which are much lower than residential customer rates, will increase by about 2.1 percent, effective October 1.

New industrial and commercial rates are 4 cents per kilowatt-hour, April through August, and 4.51 cents per kilowatt-hour, September through March. Industrial customers are also subject to other changes, including demand charges.

The rate increases are based on the cost of service among customer classes and are determined so that one class of customer does not subsidize another.

Utility commissioner Byron Hanke said the increase is the first in two and a half years, and is necessary because of high prices for natural gas that’s used to generate electricity at the River Road Generating Plant, which provides nearly half of the utility’s power supply.

 “When completed in 1997, River Road produced electricity at a lower cost than BPA, but that’s changed as gas prices have soared,” Hanke said. “We’re currently buying all the BPA power we can and rely on River Road to meet the rest of our needs.”

Clark Public Utilities serves about 170,000 customers and is growing a current annual rate of about 2.61 percent.