News

Five to Four

by Josh Feit

I predict a majority of city council members will vote against Mayor Nickels' City Light superintendent nominee, Gary Zarker, at the Thursday, March 6, energy committee meeting. It won't even be close.

Some will argue that an anti-Zarker vote is payback from a council tired of being bullied by the mayor. There's some truth to that. Nickels, who's had his way with the council for a year, made such a show about reconfirming Zarker that it rubbed council the wrong way. So council, it seems, decided to push back.

Ultimately, though, an anti-Zarker vote isn't just payback. It's wise in its own right: A thorough October 2002 audit urged council to hold senior City Light management responsible for the utility's financial mess.

Equally important: Zarker wasn't straightforward with council members at his February 20 reconfirmation hearing. Asked by Council Member Nick Licata if it was a good idea for City Light to reject a "loss limit" strategy, a strategy recommended in an August 2000 audit, Zarker maintained the utility hadn't rejected the idea.

(Loss limit strategies involve deciding in advance the highest price a utility is willing to pay for power--knowing that before prices drop, the market might keep freaking out and subject the utility to even higher prices; i.e., exactly what happened to Seattle City Light.)

While City Light's failure to impose loss limits raises legitimate questions (and while City Light argues that loss limits wouldn't have helped much), it's not the heart of the matter. It's more troubling that Zarker gave an inaccurate account about loss limits to council.

Here's an excerpt of the Licata-Zarker exchange.

Licata: "You specifically rejected the use of loss limits."

Zarker: "No, I don't think that's the case."

Licata: "In the fall of 2000, after the recommendation had been made for loss limits, City Light's position was that at that time they weren't needed."

Zarker: "I don't agree with your assertion that we don't think loss limits were necessary. We do. We have thought that from the beginning."

Really? A Stranger public records request shows that Seattle City Light's official Novem-ber 2000 response regarding the audit's loss limit recommendation stated, "At present we do not believe formal limits are necessary."

The typically mild-mannered Licata is steamed about Zarker's misstatement. "The problem is," Licata uncharacteristically fumes, "[Zarker] refuses to admit mistakes. I knew the [loss limits] answer in advance, and I wanted to see if he would go on record and admit it.

"He's so bureaucratically adept that he's not even aware he's giving an inaccurate account," Licata says.

Ultimately, City Light spokespeople pass responsibility to council, telling me that loss limits would have required council approval for a built-in rate increase. (Um, Seattle City Light hasn't seemed shy about asking council for--and getting--four rate increases recently: a 60 percent jump.) And the fact remains that--while Zarker's main task was to gain the council's trust--council members understood Zarker was being flip with the facts.

josh@thestranger.com