The Daily Alaska empire., 1946-03-01
LIGHT COMPLAINTS
 REPORTS TO CITY COME UNDER FIRE
Stuart Fictitious preliated Values al
 Rate Hearing

Last evenings second meeting of the Juneau Common Council sit- ting as a regulating board upon the rates of the Alaska Electric Light and Power Company was but a pale shadow of Mondays open ing meet.
 Last nights hearing developed into little more than bookkeeping session, spiced with comments by City Utilities Engineer Walter T, Stuart that finally brought the light company attorney H. L. Faulk- ner to his feet to object to the Stuart interjections.
 Faulkner suggested that the Citys witness stick to the facts" and save his opinions till after cross examination which may put a diff ferent light on the subject matter of Stuart's interjections.
 The session last evening was completely devoted to the further testimony by Engineer Stuart, &C., companying and explaining submis- sions of valuations. for rate pur- poses. which he has put upon the AEL&P holdings.
 Valuations
 Submitted last night by Stuart were his valuations upon: Buildings transmission lines, transformers, Ju- neau distribution system. machinery and equipment including substa- tions, power house machinery, met CTS, etc.
 Stuart pointed his comments principally at what he considered fictitious depreciated values re- ported by the AEL&P to the City in it's annual utility reports. Dis- crepancies between depreciated cap ital values reported to the City and those submitted by the company to the Bureau of Internal Revenue for tax purposes, were he indicated, due to the company's neglecting to report the City depreciation ex- tending back, on some items, as far as 42 years.
 Stuart said that depreciated val nations he has set, are in most cases similar to those reported by the company to the Internal Revenue bureau as shown by the company's journal.
 Reports submitted to tie City, he said, generally show considerably higher capital valuations, with a singularly small number of retired items.
 Douglas System
 He listed as instances of book keeping to be condemned the carry ing of the Juneau-Douglas trans mission line, built to serve Douglas, no longer used except for a small portion incorporated into the Ju- neau distribution system and the cost of which has been already more than fully returned to the company; also the Juneau-Douglas telephone line, similarly charged to the cost of supplying electric ser vice within the City of Juneau.
 The fact than an item still has value has no effect on the rate base, once the company has receiv- ed full return of it's cost, he stress ed.
 Similarly, the cost of meters for the entire AEL&P system is report ed by the company as capital cost of it's service to Juneau; whereas, on the proportion of revenues from the whole system compared to rev. enues received from within Juneau only. but 85 percent of the meter cost should be figured in comput- ing Juneau rates.
 In all, Stuart contended, the company's capital investment less depreciation as he has computed It is approximately $150.00O less than the company submitted to the City in its last report, covering the year 1944-yet, his own figures are very near to those submitted by the company to the Revenue bur- eau.
 (Note: Since all valuations submit- ted by Stuart are still subject to compromise. no attempt is made to report them at this time0
 Last evenings session was ad- journed till next Monday evening at 8 o'clock, when Stuart will con- tinue his submission.
 Tonight, the Council sits in reg ular business session, the first regu- lar March meeting-with the ap- praisal report by Kansas City En- gineers Black and Veatch on util- ity properties here. and the Black and veatch bill, the main items of business.