Note: The counts from eyewitnesses range from 130 to 400. We have altered our headline to 200+ as that is about as close as any.
Approximately 200 people showed up for a hearing conducted by the Indiana Utilities Regulatory Commission hearing regarding the proposed “dense pack” project that Vectren has proposed for 2 of its turbines at the A. B. Brown powerplant in Posey County. Roughly 150 of the attendees were regular customers with the balance being made up of media and elected officials.
Evansville City Councilman John Friend who lead a petition drive to oppose rate increases spoke early in the meeting regarding the differences in rates in Vectren territories, the moving target of the EPA restrictions, and even about a potential way to equalize rates. State Representative Gail Riecken a long time critic of Vectren also took the microphone on behalf of her constituents.
Citizen speakers included scientists, landlords, ministers, volunteers, and plain old ratepayers. One gentleman has requested that all future meetings of the IURC that concern Evansville should be moved to Evansville.
IS IT TRUE regarding this meeting will be posted at 1 minute past midnight!
This is a developing story so check back for updates.
Wow, on one of the crappiest weather nights we have had this year, for that many people to come out for this meeting speaks volumes about how fed up people are with these high electrical and gas rates.
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Yes the attendance was encouraging.
And there should still be time to get a letter off to the IURC if you were unable to attend tonight’s meeting. Not a lot of time though, so hurry!
Why do we pay, per capita and on average, higher utility rates than muninicipalities 5 Times our size, in a region who’s average household income is less than 2/3 that of residents of those larger cities. I’m obviously no math whiz, but it doesn’t take one to know what it is you’ve stepped in when you step in it. Yet WE WONDER WHY WE CAN’T DRAW NEW BUSINESSES?!?! HELLLOOOO…..? It even has a NAME: VECTREN…..
I agree whole heartedly. I am glad we have people we have elected (at least two of them!)stand up for the community. Now if our newly elected mayor will will make that his mission we might get some relief. If he wants to bring in jobs, make himself a hero, and enjoy a second term it would be awesome! Pretty obvious the outgoing administration wasn’t interested, of course vectren had them in their pocket. Maybe we are seeing the beginning of change!
I wonder who counted the house? The C&P has attendance at 130. either number is greater than I would have bet on turning out so good job E’ville
You can’t count on the Courier & Press count. When the County Commissioners held a standing-room-only, spilled-out-into-the-hallway hearing on county health insurance rate hike, the Courier & Press placed the crowd count at “a handful.” Basically, the C&P reporters arrive late and report little.
We have had counts reported from the low of 130 in the CP to a high of 400 by someone who was there and should have known. It was probably closer to 200 and we are changing our headline to reflect that.
ALL public meetings and public hearings need to have a sign-in sheet whereby everyone who attends is identified. The County Commissioners do this. The airport board does this. Other public boards do this. Then there is no question of who and how many attended.
I have been to more than 20 such meetings and have never signed any sheet.
I have never been to a County Commissioners meeting where a sign-in sheet has not been circulated through the entire audience.
Yes, but many choose not to sign it so the count would be low. City Council has nothing that I have ever seen unless you speak. Neither has any way to count numbers that spill into the hall.
I have never had a problem counting attendance at meetings that are housed in a hearing room with seats, including a count of those who drift in and out of the chambers. My counts usually are within 2 – 5% correct. Of course, you have to be there to count heads, don’t you? And it helps to not be too distracted or overly excited about the psycho-socio need to see seeg and be seen (a typical distraction in Evansville).
As to the city council taking attendance? Just one more reason why consolidation should’ve been planned on the constitutional county government model rather than the non-constitutional city model.
Photographs do not lie. How hard is it to take a few photos while you are there?
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This is in response to:
“Pressanykey on November 29, 2011 at 11:21 am
Photographs do not lie. How hard is it to take a few photos while you are there?”
Vampires don’t show up in pictures. If you took pictures, you wouldn’t see all the political blood suckers that were in attendance.
Or have someone check the security camera video for you and take a head count. I mean after they finish sweeping up all the tear-dampened tissues.
The Courier Count was correct. Somebody has fuzzy math.
I don’t think it was math as much as exuberance. It reminds me of things like political rallies where the numbers are estimated based on the desires of the estimator.
Bingo
C&P does a lot of things in a fuzzy manner.
Maybe they weighed them all and divided by a normal weight. It didn’t look like many of those people with sob stories had been missing any meals.
The new Dense Pack Technology extends the life of the turbines by about 33%. The turbines typically undergo an overhaul every 5-8 years. These overhauls typically cost between $10-$40 MILLION dollars. General Electric (Maker of turbines in question and the engineers of the new technology) claim that this new technology will extend the life of this turbine past 10+ years!!!
Let’s do the math…a steam turbine has an average cost of about $2-5 million dollars a year to repair. If you reduce that number by approximately 33% (1/3 longer life) that’s a savings of between 1/2million to almost $2million a year. Since there are 2 turbines, we are now talking $1-4 MILLION a year in reduced operational costs.
NONE of this has been reported. NONE of this is a consideration. All of the savings go directly to Vectrens Operational Budget and will be masked and gerrymander in a way that Vectren will conceal these savings!
If you would like to read more about the Dense Pack Technology and validate for yourself…please read this material:
http://site.ge-energy.com/prod_serv/products/tech_docs/en/downloads/ger4199.pdf
http://www.ge-energy.com/content/multimedia/_files/downloads/article-GE%201000%20MW%20USC%20paper%20with%20edits%202-1-10.pdf
Great post. Thank you.
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