Hydro Public Meeting

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Tuesday, 17 June 2014 05:30

VP Customer Service for Hydro One Oded Hubert, Director of Business Development for Hydro One Bill Meeker, Mayor Pat Sobeski, Legal Council Mark Rodger

A small group turned up Monday evening to hear the details of the Woodstock Hydro sale

WOODSTOCK - Even if council decided not to sell now, this would be a continuing issue.

That from Legal Council for the City in the negotiations with Hydro One and Partner at Borden Ladner Gervais, Mark Rodger in regards to the sale of Woodstock Hydro to Hydro One and the changes coming to the energy sector.

At a public meeting held Monday night, Rodger fielded questions about the secrecy around the deal to which he says corporate transactions are always done in confidence.

"In the process, in this case the other side, Hydro One, we disclosed all kinds of confidential information. Everything from employee records to environmental issues to financial statements and so on. As you can imagine there has been a lot of negotiation back and forth and commercial parties wouldn't want to air that in the public."

He says this is by no means a unique situation to Woodstock, but a process that has been followed in all Hydro dealings or any other commercial transactions.

Rodger says the group of current transactions which include Norfolk, Haldimand, Brant and now Woodstock, are realizing prices in the marketplace that are the highest ever seen. He also says the job protection, rate freeze and reduction make the package very attractive.

As part of the deal council made with Hydro One, a new operations and field business centre will be constructed in Woodstock.

That was just one of the details given to public Monday.

Mayor Pat Sobeski says an on-going advisory committee will be created to help smooth the transition and provide a forum to resolve local concerns on electricity issues.

"So it provides a sense of accountability and guidance and advise to Hydro One as to indeed how they are doing. Are they meeting the metrics that the citizens are hoping for so it's a two way street of communication that I think will be beneficial to both parties."

Sobeski says another part of the agreement was that Hydro One would have to meet or exceed levels currently provided to Woodstock and if they fail, they would have to pay a $200,000 penalty.

Sobeski requested that the slides from his presentation be added to the City's website during the work day Tuesday.

Meanwhile Vice President of Customer Service for Hydro One, Oded Hurbert told the audience "we've learned a lesson."

That was in relation to rates and billing issues.

Hubert says the company implemented a new billing system in May of 2013 and for 95 percent of their customers the system worked really well, but 5 percent experienced problems.

"The problems were in two pieces really. Part of this was failure to issue bills or in many cases, persistent estimated bills. We have been working very hard to resolve these issues because it affected 5 percent of our customers and we're about half way through resolving the problems. We intend to be there within the next two/three months."

Hubert say with an Ontario Energy Board ruling six months away, that gives ample time to correct any issues. He says he can assure customer service will be restored to an appropriate level.