In the shadow of major problems at Seattle City Light (massive rate increases, massive debt), Mayor Greg Nickels used the February 3 State of the City address to hype City Light chief Gary Zarker, lauding the utility superintendent as the "right person to lead." ["Mayor Nickels' Obsession," Five to Four, Josh Feit, Feb 6.]
Well, earlier that same day, the Seattle City Council got a little dose of Zarker's leadership. On Monday morning, council members met with three representatives from a company called R. W. Beck--a consulting firm that Zarker's City Light is paying $110,000 to... uh... well, I'm not exactly sure what they've been contracted to do.
At the briefing, the R. W. Beck "Core Team," which included someone with expertise in "diverse stakeholder consensus processes" and someone whose specialty is the "bridge between content and process," handed out some mystifying four-page color brochures featuring bright blue arrows, colored boxes, and flow charts with aphorisms that appeared to be culled from the Raelians' website: "Expertise + Process = Stakeholder Consensus," "Progress Checks: Feedback, Shuttle Diplomacy, On-track Project, Communication," "Pathways to the Future."
To find out exactly what R. W. Beck was getting paid $110,000 to do, I called R. W. Beck Senior Director Angelo Muzzin. Muzzin told me I'd have to call City Light. "[They] can best fill you in on what they're trying to accomplish," Muzzin said.
So, I called City Light spokesperson Bob Royer. Royer told me R. W. Beck was hired "to discuss risk management issues... various risk techniques used in various industries. There are implications that are in play for some of these risk strategies. It's a discussion with risk experts about various tools and various effects. It's a very smart thing to do."
It wasn't exactly clear what Royer meant, but if I understood him at all, it still wasn't clear to me why judging risks in the energy market wasn't something Seattle City Light and the city council's energy committee (chaired by council member Heidi Wills) should be expected to figure out for themselves.
So, I called Wills. "[City Light] hired R. W. Beck to help with this extremely important body of work since risk management has changed so much recently," Wills said. "The council needs to be brought up to speed with the basics of risk management. We need a basic foundation of understanding as we give policy direction to the utility."
Let me get this straight: Seattle City Light is paying R. W. Beck $110,000 so R. W. Beck can direct the council on how to direct Seattle City Light?
When an agency that is $1.6 billion in debt hires a New Age consultant (their logo is "think. challenge. change."), I'm not left with too much confidence in Zarker's leadership. With high-priced gibberish like this, I don't know why the mayor is confident in Zarker's leadership either. Talk about risk management.
(If you would like to take a peek at City Light's freaky--and freakishly expensive--brochure, go to our website at http://www.thestranger.com/ 2003-02-13/five.html. If you can figure it out, feel free to drop me a note.)
