Mital is the Director of UO’s Office of Sustainability, and ran the famous 2013 Urban Farm survey – the last publicly released data about why students come to UO.
He’s also the President of the Eugene Water and Electric Board. And he’s practicing transparency there too. Christian Wihtol has the story in the RG, here:
The Eugene Water & Electric Board made a “mistake” when it signed a long-term contract to buy power from the Seneca wood-burning electricity plant north of Eugene, and the utility has tried, unsuccessfully, to get out of the contract, EWEB’s president said Wednesday.
However, the utility has been unable to find a way out and is “stuck with” the “controversial” contract, said EWEB President Steve Mital in comments he posted on registerguard.com in a discussion with readers about EWEB’s expenses and its proposed electricity rate increase.
Signing the contract “was a mistake,” Mital wrote. “Management has looked into legal off-ramps. None can be found. We are stuck with it. I’d like to think that I would have voted against it had I been on the board … But that’s a bit of a cheap shot. It may have seemed like a good bet at the time.”
It is the sharpest public criticism an EWEB official has leveled against the secret contract that EWEB signed in 2010 to buy the Seneca plant’s power for 15 years.
In his comments, Mital also praised The Register-Guard for trying to force EWEB to disclose the utility’s contract with Seneca. …
Here’s hoping this guy’s political ambitions go beyond EWEB, because state government sure needs people like this.
Hmmm, sounds a lot like Oregon’s attempts to wiggle out of its PERS contracts. And it’s not just the hill apes, I remember Pernsteiner’s stuff ….
What will EWEB charge the new owners of the Hynix facility for water ? This town and media seem too distracted to even consider that. Thanks uomatters for making up for what lifestyle publications like Weekly, Emerald, and RG are no longer capable of . Also did uomatters change the ability to share posts here at Facebook. I seem to remember sharing them before and now I wonder if you have changed that (perhaps in response to threats the UO Foundation has made towards uomatters ) .
RG news editor Wihtol wrote this, I just cut and pasted. So they’re still pretty capable. And for the record, it’s been at least a year since the UO Foundation threatened me.
The R-G business reporters have written long and well about tax breaks given to businesses. I expect that will continue as the details emerge.
One of the individuals that was involved with this nightmare currently sits on the board. They are a former EWEB employee.
Hey Payroll Guy –
Don’t be shy, name names. It’s anonymous.
http://www.eweb.org/commissioners/helgeson
Well, what he said in the article was ““The fact that (the Seneca power contract) turned out to be a bad deal for EWEB when the floor fell out from beneath wholesale power markets has been common knowledge for years. Unfortunately, just how bad has to be kept secret.”
That’s not an endorsement for open public records. If they really wanted to open up the records, then why wouldn’t they just stop fighting the Red-Guard’s lawsuit? At best I think we see ineffective leadership.
Mital explains why EWEB can’t open up the records in the RG article. Next time, please read the article before posting a comment.
Mr. Mital first commented on the Seneca contract in response to questions posted by readers on the R-G website in response to a guest column Mr. Mital had written. It was a pretty lively discussion. You can read it here: http://registerguard.com/rg/opinion/33735434-78/on-rates-eweb-will-listen–but-must-change.html.csp
It’s shocking how shocking it was to see an elected official do his job interacting with citizens. Thanks to the Fourth Estate for facilitating. Now someone needs to convince Mital to run for state office.