The Daily Alaska empire., 1946-03-30
LIGHT COMPANY WILL TAKE RATE
 CASE TO COURT
AEL&P Will Ask Injunction to Restrain Enforcement
 of New Rates

Electric Light Company, tOday mace the following statement to The
 Empire:
 "The company cannot accept the rate schedule adopted by the coun- cil at last nights meeting, and 1t is necessary that we file suit in
 court in order to get the whole mat ter adjusted. The rates are entirely too low to permit a reasonable re- turn on the investment of the
 stockholders, which has been built up over period of 50 years. In fact, they have been placed so low as to be confiscatory, and on basis which will greatly impair the com pany's ability to render the kind of service we have always smain- tained. and in which we have talk
 en so much pride because of the satisfaction VIC have given consum- CTS.
 Black and Veatch appraised the value of the company's whole sys-
 tenn both inside and outside the city of Juneau, including our water
 right at $1,008, ,445. Taking MT
 Stuart's computation of the pro-
 portion of the value of the system
 outside Juneau leaves the Juneau value, plus the water right. at be- tween $700,000 and s8Co,000.
 $5O.000 Value Placed The city's assessment for the
 purpose of taxation of the physical property within the city of Juneau alone is $421 900. and we pay taxes
 on that amount, yet the council has now placed total value on that
 same property in Juneau with the
 water right thrown in of only 1 $250 ,000.
 "If Black and Vcatch's values on the water right are accepted at
 $2000O0, which is less than half | the real value given by engineer
 Henry Gray, then we have the value of the company's entire prop
 erty in Juneau, including land,
 buildings, pipe lines, machinery, power house plant and entire trans
 mission lines reduced to $50.000. The schedules based on this value are entirely too low to per- init any fair return to the com pany, and much too low to permit the continuance of the kind of ser-
 vice we have been giving the public for 50 years. no matter how hard we may try or how well we may be able to manage under the circum- stances.
 Feels Value Unreasonable This statement is authorized by the stockholders, who were willing to go just as far as possible i'll meeting the demands of the pres ent council, for we do not relish law suits and controversies. How ever, we feel that the values fixed by the council and mayor, and the rates scheduled on those values are so out of all reason that we have no alternative, much as we regret it's necessity.
 The company has requested it's attorneys to immediately prepare suit to be filed in the District Court for the purpose of enjoining lthe enforcement of the new rates until a full and fair hearing can 'ke had before the court"
 Editors Note: The procedure fol- lowed in such cases is for the pub- llic utility to file suit in the Dis trict Court to enjoin enforcement of the new rates. Then the com
 pany files bond in court condi- toned that if the rates should be finally upheld in the courts, 1t will refund to the consumers the di-tr- ence between the old and new rates In the meantime, and pending the final outcome of court procedure the old rates remain in effect. This
 is the procedure followed in such
 cases before rate making bodies. anc
 it Is the procedure which was fol- lowed in the Seward rate case anc
 in the Juneau rate case in 1923) |