Powering up for lean times

Jennifer Kho and Mathis Winkler

NEWPORT-MESA -- Residents and businesses alike are steeling themselves

for electricity bills that will soar to unprecedented heights after

California’s Public Utilities Commission unanimously approved rate

increases of up to 46% Tuesday.

Commissioners went for the largest power price hikes in the state’s

history to avoid blackouts, save California’s two biggest utilities from

bankruptcy, and encourage residents and businesses to conserve energy.

The rate increases are effective immediately.

“Everybody will be affected,” said John Burkhard, president of the

Mesa North Community Assn. But he added that consumers would probably

adjust to the new prices.

“It’s just like the price of gasoline,” he said. “People moaned when

it was 40 cents and when it was 60 cents. Now it’s between $1.50 and $2,

and we moan, but we keep drinking it.”

The average monthly power bill in the Mesa North neighborhood is about

$62 and could reach nearly $100, Burkhard said.

Ed Fawcett, president and chief executive of the Costa Mesa Chamber of

Commerce, said manufacturers probably will be the businesses hardest hit

by the hikes.

But “many businesses will just pass it along in their prices,” he

said. “Every taxpayer and every consumer is going to pay for it,

somewhere down the line.”

Many Costa Mesa businesses have already started conservation programs,

Fawcett said, including Metro Car Wash, which has left its signs off for

months. Several car dealerships on Harbor Boulevard have turned off some

of their signs and lot lights.

In Newport Beach, representatives for a number of large companies,

such as Conexant Systems Inc. and Edwards Theatre Circuit Inc., said it

was too early to tell how the latest twist in the state’s continuing

energy crisis will affect them.

But others said the higher electricity prices will definitely pose

problems.

“We will have to make it work,” said Debra Legan, a spokeswoman for

Hoag Hospital, adding that the new price hikes will bump the hospital’s

electricity bill from $1.1 million to $3.1 million.

While energy conservation in the area of patient care remains limited,

hospital officials are trying to cut power consumption by shutting off

computers overnight and turning off lights in office areas, Legan said.

Costa Mesa officials also are working to figure out how to prepare for

the expected electricity bill increase.

Costa Mesa spent $1.4 million last year on its electricity bills, with

$661,000 spent on street lights, said Marc Pucket, director of finance

for the city. He added that city officials had anticipated a 25% increase

in this year’s budget. A 46% increase would raise the city’s bills by

$644,000, Pucket said.

City officials said they’d present a list of energy conservation

measures to City Council members in May.

But “obviously, we cannot offset an increase in the 40% to 46% range

through conservation,” said Costa Mesa City Manager Allan Roeder, adding

that electricity use could be reduced by 16% to 18%.

The situation looked similar for Newport-Mesa Unified School District.

Mike Fine, the district’s assistant superintendent for business

services, said he expects to see about $1 million added to the district’s

$1.97-million bill.

“It’s a huge sum,” Fine said, adding that district officials will have

to consider ways to find the extra money.

“It doesn’t mean that we will stop with other” programs, he said. “But

it means that we may have to do less of something else. No question about

it.”

Fine added that more aggressive energy conservation programs probably

will be introduced.

Irvine Co. officials said they already have begun to conserve energy.

While stores at Fashion Island pay their own electricity bills,

company officials had placed motion sensors on lights in common areas,

among other things, said Jennifer Smith, a company spokeswoman.

Tenants in the company’s high-rise office buildings will not be

affected by the rate increases because the company entered a fixed-rate

contract with an electricity wholesaler in 1998, Smith said. The

agreement runs through 2003.

Newport Beach officials said they could not say what future

electricity bills would look like. Last year, Newport Beach’s bill ran to

almost $2.5 million.

Richard Luehrs, the president and chief executive of the Newport

Harbor Area Chamber of Commerce said California’s energy crisis had put

consumers “between a rock and a hard spot.

“We either increase prices or suffer blackouts,” he said, adding that

a loss in sales and the need to keep paying employees during blackouts

would probably cost businesses more than higher electricity rates.

“Our first priority is to avoid blackouts,” he said.

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