Kyle Roadman, EPUD General Manager
Media Coverage:
- Springfield Utility Board cannot claim competitor’s territory, new ruling says [KLCC]
- Court Rejects Eminent Domain as Way for Muni to Acquire EPUD Facilities [NewsData/Clearing Up]
- Emerald People’s Utility District wins fight to protect its territory and customers [Highway 58 Herald]
- Springfield Utility Board attempts hostile takeover of EPUD territory, again [Cottage Grove Sentinel OpEd]
- KNND Radio Interview on Lawsuit (Begins at 7:35) [KNND 1440 AM]
Hello Emerald Customer-Owners,
I have some news to share on the legal front. This week we issued a press release (shown below) in response to a ruling in Lane County District Court. Although we came out on the winning side, this entire issue has been a wasteful and unwelcome distraction over the past year. This is particularly true at a time when we’ve been trying to focus on improving service reliability and safety for our customers.
First, a bit of background behind the legal case. As a publicly-owned electric utility in the State of Oregon, we operate with a defined, exclusive service territory. It’s inefficient for multiple utilities to build out infrastructure in the same location, so the Public Utility Commission (PUC) sets boundaries in which we’re all allowed to operate. Emerald’s boundaries have been largely the same since we began operation in 1983.
Fast forward to the early 2000s. Our neighbors at the City of Springfield expanded their municipal boundary into an area served by Emerald in east Springfield. Then, the Springfield Utility Board (SUB) attempted to take over this territory of ours through legal means. Years went by, hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on attorney fees, and ultimately the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that SUB had no legal right to eject Emerald from our own territory.
This decision came down in 2005. We expected that would be the end of it. Unfortunately for our customers, and those of SUB, it wasn’t.
In April of last year, we received notice that SUB was at it again. This time, they passed a resolution to simply condemn our assets (poles, transformers, etc.) in the same area of East Springfield. We contested this vigorously in court filings throughout 2022 and during an in-person hearing back in December.
On Friday, January 20, Lane County District Court Judge Erin A. Fennerty ruled in our favor, dismissing SUB’s attempt to condemn our assets and take our service territory. This represents the latest in a series of victories we’ve achieved over SUB in this matter. Frankly, it’s now time for this to stop.
Please know we will do whatever it takes to defend our customers on this front. Now that SUB has lost once again, I hope they finally accept the court’s decision and put an end to this wasteful episode. I have to think they have better ways to spend their time and money. We certainly do.
Please stay safe,
Here’s our press release on this matter:
Contact:
Kyle Roadman
Emerald PUD General Manager
541-746-1583
kyle@epud.org
January 23, 2023
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Emerald People’s Utility District wins fight to protect its territory and customers
Springfield, Oregon – Emerald People’s Utility District (Emerald) was notified on Friday, January 20th that Lane County District Court Judge Erin A. Fennerty granted its request to dismiss a condemnation action brought by the Springfield Utility Board (SUB). The decision affirms Emerald’s legal right to serve every customer within its exclusive service territory.
“SUB has raised electric rates nine times in nine years in response to increasing costs and stagnant growth. Nonetheless, they chose a lengthy and expensive court battle attempting to poach Emerald’s territory and customers instead of investing their ratepayers’ money on safety, reliability, and modernizing their infrastructure,” said Emerald PUD General Manager Kyle Roadman.
“This isn’t the first time SUB has tried this,” Roadman added. “SUB’s first attempt to illegally seize Emerald’s territory was rejected by the Oregon Supreme Court almost 20 years ago and we are gratified that a judge has once again sided with us. Let’s hope this is the last time we have to take on this fight.”
In April 2022, the City of Springfield, acting through SUB, passed a resolution to condemn electrical infrastructure owned and operated by Emerald to serve its customers in the east Springfield area. This marked the second time that SUB had tried to take this territory and the related public property already dedicated to a public use.
Created by a vote of the people in 1978, Emerald is dedicated to serving residents, farms, businesses, schools and churches located in a 572-square-mile “donut” surrounding the Eugene-Springfield metropolitan area. In the early 2000s, the City of Springfield annexed land within a rural area served by Emerald. SUB then moved to eject the utility from serving this part of east Springfield. Emerald vowed to protect its territory and customers and the battle made it all the way to the Oregon Supreme Court, which ruled that SUB and the City of Springfield had no legal right to eject Emerald from its exclusive service territory.
With the court case now resolved, Roadman said Emerald looks forward to once again dedicating 100% of its resources and focus to serving its customers and the local community. The utility has made significant investments over the past few years, including committing $35 million to reliability upgrades, aggressively trimming trees to reduce outages and fire risk, installing advanced metering that allows customers to manage their usage, as well as providing scholarships to local students interested in pursuing careers in the utility industry.
“This has been an unwelcome and unnecessary distraction from the great work we do,” Roadman said. “SUB has forced both sides to waste hundreds of thousands of customer dollars on this fight. It’s not right.”
Emerald People’s Utility District is one of six public utility districts in Oregon, and serves more than 22,000 accounts in Lane County.