PORT ANGELES — The City Council tonight is expected to give final approval to a set of increases to utility bills that include the first raise to the electricity base rate since 1993.
The 2011 base charge for residential electricity users would rise about 18 percent — from $11 to $13 per month — if the ordinance is approved.
Also scheduled to be implemented tonight as the council gives second and final reading to the ordinance is a new rate schedule for electricity use during heavy load hours.
Such hours run from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday, according to the ordinance.
The council meeting begins at 6 p.m. in the council chambers at City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St.
The council on Oct. 5 and 19 held public hearings on the proposed electricity rate increases in the ordinance, which also proposes wastewater and transfer station rate hikes.
The wastewater fee increase — to $14.95 per month (a $2.65 increase) — will help to pay for the city’s approximately $40 million project to reduce its sewage overflows from up to 100 per year to no more than four, as required by the state Department of Ecology.
The city’s electricity supplier, Bonneville Power Administration, raised its wholesale rates to local providers nearly 5 percent on Oct. 1.
Another wholesale purchaser of Bonneville’s, the Clallam County Public Utility District, last week approved raising its customer electricity rates 8 percent effective Dec. 1.
The city increases are scheduled to take effect Jan. 3.
Clallam PUD provides power outside the city of Port Angeles.
The full schedule of proposed Port Angeles rate increases, part of the agenda package for tonight’s City Council meeting, can be downloaded at http://tinyurl.com/paagenda.
