Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Preserve Our Parkway has put out the word and garnered more than 600 signatures on a petition to keep lines out of Underwood Creek area.
- GOVERNMENT
- Jim Price
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Wednesday, November 21, 2012
The public had a large say in informing the city on a course in the long-simmering debate over the route of a new power line through west Wauwatosa. The public input steered the Common Council and City Attorney Alan Kesner to draft an ordinance opposing overhead lines on any route, and to ask the Wisconsin Public Service Commission in hearings to select a specific all-underground route from Walnut Road and North 120th Street to the County Grounds. Now, it is the general public's turn again. The PSC will convene public hearings on the transmission line routes, and how they are to be installed, at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. Tuesday in Council Chambers at City Hall. One group of citizens has been marshalling forces toward this day for months. Preserve…
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Gale Klappa's support for Wauwatosa's preference could be key to getting the PSC to nod to the city's wishes for no more overhead transmission lines.
- GOVERNMENT
- Jim Price
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Thursday, October 11, 2012
Less than a week before the city is scheduled to begin presenting testimony before the Public Service Commission on a perferred route for a power line through west Wauwatosa, it has in hand the potent supporting document it has been hoping for. Gale Klappa, the CEO of We Energies, co-signed a letter with Mayor Kathy Ehley and Common Council President Dennis McBride concurring in an all-underground route from West 120th Street to the County Grounds. Klappa's support is seen as a powerful message to the PSC and possibly critical to persuading the commissioners to choose the city's preferred but more expensive route over one proposed by American Transmission Co., which will construct the line. In June, City Attorney Alan Kesner recommended …
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
After months of debate, issue is still contentious and council cannot come out with a unanimous voice, settling for an 11-4 decision.
- GOVERNMENT
- Jim Price
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Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Wauwatosa will join Milwaukee County and other parties in recommending an underground route that would run in part down residential Walnut Road for one of two new power lines to supply growing County Grounds institutions. On an 11-4, vote Tuesday night, the Common Council approved the selection as the preferred route to be presented to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC), which has final say on where the new routes will go and how they will be installed – above or below ground. The lines will be built by American Transmission Co. (ATC) for We Energies, supplier of the power. ATC, as the applicant, has already begun testimony before the PSC. Wauwatosa and other "intervenors" opposed to the installations being proposed by ATC will …
Monday, August 20, 2012
The utility CEO signed a letter supporting underground alternatives for a power line in a different location. But Wauwatosa must first choose its own preferred route before it can hope for backing from utility company, city attorney says.
If Wauwatosa can somehow come to grips with controversy and pick a preferred underground route from the west for a new power line to the County Grounds, it could win an important endorsement. It might be the most important endorsement it could possibly get — from We Energies, the utility that would sell the power carried on that line. We Energies CEO Gale Klappa signed a joint letter Aug. 2 with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Ald. Michael Murphy in support of underground alternatives only for a second power line from the south through a Milwaukee neighborhood. The letter made no mention of any preference for any route for the western approach through Wauwatosa, underground or overhead. But that could be because Wauwatosa has not yet made …
Monday, July 16, 2012
A 60-day delay in the state hearing process means that Wauwatosa has a little more breathing room to find a consensus decision on final route.
No decision on a recommended route for a new power line in west Wauwatosa will be taken Tuesday night, the city attorney said Monday. An unexpected 60-day delay in the hearing process before the Wisconsin Public Service Commission means that the city has until October to decide how to respond to the contentious issue, said City Attorney Alan Kesner. Kesner and some aldermen had been pushing for a consensus recommendation on a route down Walnut Road, opposed by most residents of that neighborhood. But the delay has given the city more time to consult with engineers about possible alternative routes or modifications to that route, Kesner said. With that, Tuesday night's hearing before a meeting of the Common Council's Committee of the Whole…
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Water rates have been hiked only slightly since 2006, and the utility is now operating at a loss, supervisor says.
It has nothing to do with the current drought, and nothing to do with global warming. A likely 11.41 percent increase in your water bill – $9.05 per quarter, or just over $36 a year for the average household – has everything to do with the rather arcane way water utilities are allowed to regulate their rates. Water utilities in Wisconsin have to go to the state-level Public Service Commission to get approval for anything more than a marginal increase in rates, a process called the "conventional rate case application." Municipalities tend to do that only when they start to lose money on water service, which typically happens about every five years or so. The Wauwatosa Water Utility last applied for such an increase from the PSC in 2006, and…
Monday, July 9, 2012
Discussion and any action on Walnut Road route through western Wauwatosa now expected to take place July 17 prior to regular Common Council meeting.
A discussion of the route of one of two new power lines in west Tosa – possibly the last public discussion – has been delayed a week, city officials said Monday. After a recommendation from the Community Development Committee was put off at its last meeting, on June 26, it was expected to revisited and likely acted on at the committee's next meeting, at 8 p.m. Tuesday. But Ald. Jeff Roznowski, the committee chairman, said Monday that the power line discussion had been taken off this week's agenda and would be dealt with the following Tuesday, July 17, before the regular meeting of the full council. The debate is now planned for a meeting of the Committee of the Whole at 6 p.m. the following week, prior to the regular 7:30 p.m. meeting of …
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Engineers tell the city that what appears to be the direct and logical path along Watertown Plank Road is in fact prohibitively expensive.
There’s an adage that with enough time and money, we could engineer anything. The classic example is, “We could build an elevator to the moon” — if it weren’t impossibly expensive. But why can’t American Transmission Co. run a power line along what most people think is the most direct and sensible route from the source of power to the place it’s needed? Apparently, it’s impossibly expensive. In the ongoing debate over how to bring a new power line from the grid to the west onto the County Grounds, one route has stood out from the beginning, to nearly everyone involved, as the best and most obvious choice. The additional power, one of two new 138,000-volt lines, could come straight down Watertown Plank Road. The grid power lines — 10 heavy …
Monday, February 27, 2012
Preserve Our Parkway plans to submit at least three route alternatives.
A contentious proposal for high-voltage power lines has been filed with the Public Service Commission, setting in motion a nearly year-long review that will culminate with a decision on where and how the 138,000-volt power lines will be sited, a spokesperson with American Transmission Co. said. The project has stirred controversy not over the need for additional power but over how two 2-mile stretches of high-voltage lines will track through Wauwatosa and a portion of the city of Milwaukee to serve the growing institutions on the County Grounds. ATC will propose four route options and seeks PSC approval for two – one from the west and one from the south. The high-voltage lines will lead to a new WE Energies substation proposed for North …
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Committee passes resolution opposing electrical transmission lines on Underwood Creek Parkway or through Fisher Woods neighborhood.
- GOVERNMENT
- Jim Price
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Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Citizens filled the Wauwatosa Common Council chambers to capacity Tuesday night, waited patiently until 9 p.m. for their chance to speak, and then collectively delivered a passionate argument against either of two proposed routes for new power lines through the city. Aldermen listened for an hour-and-a-half as one after another, residents stepped forward to decry the impact on parks and neighborhoods both routes would wreak on property values and quality of life. After its members weighed in, the Community Development Committee voted 6-1 in favor of a resolution from Ald. Dennis McBride officially opposing putting power lines along either route proposed by American Transmission Co. Ald. Jacqueline Jay, whose 3rd District does not include …
Christine McLaughlin
8:16 pm on Monday, November 26, 2012
When did economic development become the only good anyone's allowed to consider? Parklands and parkways have value to the property holders around them, but they are important to all the people who enjoy them for all time, who exercise and stroll and dream there, not to mention wildlife and green things. All these values are interconnected. more ›