The Coconino sun., 1926-04-30
COUNCIL REQUESTS STATE
CORPORATION COMMISSION
TO POSTPONE ACTION ON
LOCAL LIGHT CONDITIONS

City council on Tuesday night at an
open meeting before which appeared
George T. Harrington, manager of
the Flagstaff, Winslow and Holbrook
Light and power companies and Ben
Ferguson of Phoenix, rate expert
and former member of the state cor
poration commission, instructed City
Clerk Clarence t. Pulliam to write to
the state corporation commission
asking for 30-day postponement of
action on the complaint recently made
by council against the service and
rates in Flagstaff.
Mr.. Harrington assured council that
the plant is now in satisfactory work
ing order and is confident that the
good service rendered for the past two
weeks will continue and that the 30
day test will result in councils re-
scinding the complaint and withdraw
ing the request for Investigation.
The months of Interrupted and un-
certain service due to the installation
OF new and added machinery are at
an end, Mr.. Harrington said. my fur
ther reorganization in the mechanical
end of the plant will be done on one
section of the machinery while the
load is cared for by the other section.
There still is work to be done in the
overhauling of the generators and the
boiler capacity is to be added to, to
take care of any potential demand
during the next five years. Any over
load during the summer months will
easily be taken care of, as the plant
is now able to carry twice its former
load, Mr.. Harrington said.
In the matter of rates, easily un-
derstood figures were presented by
Mr.. Ferguson which proved conclus-
lively that Flagstaff is enjoying, un-
der the demand system Of determin-
ing rates, a very reasonable charge
for light, power and heat. A plant
of this size is allowed a 10 per cent
net profit, he said and Investigation
shows, by very conservative esti-
mate, that the earnings barely reach
per cent. Contrary to current con-
lecture the new ownership of this
plant has not injected the element of
watered stock into the company fl
nances, and findings were made from
old valuations taken several years
ago which might be appreciably high
er if new valuations based on present
costs were taken.
Mr.. Herrington's explanation of the
sliding scale of the demand system of
arriving at rates for various sized
houses based on the base rate of 10
cents for the first block was interest
ing and was shown to work out equal
ly to the advantage of the small and
the large consumer, indeed better
than where a lower base rate and
larger block system is used
Long and painstaking endeavors
have been made to locate the causes
of radio interferences that may have
been blamed on the light plant. The
rainy weather disclosed several un-
suspected sources of trouble-one
especially high resistance ground and
some imperfect transformer connec-
tions. A blazing pine tree on Milton
road was reported to the fire depart
ment and investigation showed that
a large wire had burned its way all
most through the tree, causing bad
ground. Many sources of trouble are
so obscure that they are very hard
to trace and are found by the elimina-
tion system only. On Monday night,
about seven o'clock, the big brother
of all the trouble makers was found
hiding on the switchboard and his re-
moval instantly relieved radio sets Of
the low buzzing which had for so long
accompanied and, at times, completely