Heppner Gazette Times, September 14, 1944 5
compensation i coipissioN NOTICE An error appears in the first line
Dated and first published this 14th r , . , r." . j. ,
d- o s-ptember, 1944. of the P P f L advertisement immediately
XSsSJSSwSl Ae 28th below. The figure should read $70,000,000.
NOTICE OF SEASONAL within the meaning of Section 126- "ofif-season'' (in calendar weeks)
DETERMINATION ' 707 O. C. L. A. Any interested par- of each seasonal employer in Mor-
Notice is hereby given that the ty may request a hearing beiore the row County is as stated be'.o.v:
employer listed below has been de- Commission within ten days after - Reed Lumber Co., 47-10.
termined to be a seasonal empliyt" 'rnal publication of this notice. The OREGON UNEMPLOYMENT
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WL IN NEBRASKA ?
Nebraska has been held up to you as the shining example of a
state-wide Super-PUD exactly such a Super-PUD as the
organizers of Referendum 25 are now promoting in the state
of Washington and are planning in Oregon.
The Nebraska PUD is the biggest and oldest in the country.
It is a $48,000,000 experiment. Let's see from its own reports
how much it has actually accomplished !
It has a practical monopoly in 64 counties. It furnishes elec
tricity to 95,000 customers. It is free from control by any
governmental body, State or Federal. It issues its bonds without
a vote of the people and the people who buy electricity from
it had no vote or choice when the PUD decided to take over
their local power service.
It has absolute authority to fix its own electric rates. It buys
power at wholesale from a government-financed "Hydro Pool"
at only two-tenths of a cent per kilowatt-hour more than public
agencies pay for Grand Coulee-Bonneville power. And it is
immune from three-fourths of the taxes paid by Pacific Power
& Light Company.
Nobody can say the Nebraska PUD is hampered by any
restrictions. That is what makes it the perfect pattern for the
Super-PUD that would be introduced to the Northwest under
Referendum 25 in Washington.
NOW, AFTER 5 YEARS, LET'S LOOK ATTHE RESULTS!
Everybody is interested in rates. If a PUD cannot deliver lower
rates, with all of its tax subsidies and special privileges, there
is every reason to vote against it.
In Nebraska, the Super-PUD is charging an average of four
cents per KWH for residential and rural electricity just
TWICE AS MUCH as PP&L customers pay four cents
against two cents!
And then when you deduct the taxes paid by PP&L and by
the Nebraska PUD, so 'as to get at the actual net rates, the
difference is even greater 3.8 cents per KWH in Nebraska
and only 1.68 cents on the PP&L system.
AND, SPEAKING OF TAXES
The Nebraska PUD took in more than $7,000,00 of revenue
last year, and paid only $352,000 "in lieu of taxes." PP&L, doing
about the same volume of business with the same amount of
property, paid nearly four times as much $1,313,000 in taxes!
The ordinary taxpayer, of course, made up the loss in Nebraska.
The fact is that if the Nebraska PUD didn't get a free ride
on the backs of the taxpayers it would have to scratch gravel
to meet the interest on its bonds.
THESE ARE FACTS NOT CAMPAIGN PROMISES
These facts are taken from a 101-page sales-talk recently pub
lished by the Nebraska Supcr-PUD to promote the sale of a new
issue of $41,533,000 of so-called "revenue" bonds the same kind
of bonds that would be issued by PUDs in Washington under
Referendum 25.
What kind of bonds are they? Nebraska people, the same as
Washington and Oregon people, have been promised by PUD
promoters that they are a special new kind of bonds that can't
ever cost anybody anything. TAar is political bunk.
But when the PUDs settle down to real business in the bond
market, you find them pointing out in black type that the PUD
pledges all of its revenues as security for the interest and prin
cipal of these "free-for-nothing" bonds. If these payments arc
not met on the dot, the bondholders are handed the right to step
in and take over the PUD property.
As Amos reminded Andy, "The big print gives it to you and
the little print takes it away !"
WHAT ABOUT LABOR?
The Nebraska Super-PUD says to its bond-buyers in this reveal
ing 101-page document:
"The District has taken the position, in accordance with the express
policy of most other public agencies, that as a public agency it
could not and would not execute customary agreements with
organized labor The District has no contracts outstanding with
any organized labor union."
This is a Super-PUD's private labor platform after it gets
control of the situation. It is not the kind of talk you hear from
any PUD speechmaker before election.
WHO PROMOTED NEBRASKA'S PUD?
Behind the scenes of all the big-money PUD promotions and
bond issues, whether in Nebraska or Washington or Oregon,
you find some of the same financial middlemen and professional
"negotiators" going from one state to another and "advising"
the local boys how to revise state laws, how to stage election
campaigns, how to issue bonds, how to suck the eggs and hide
the shells.
The bigger the bond issues th.6 higher the middlemen's com
missions and the louder they cheer for PUDs. After the cleanup
in Nebraska, which yielded the promoters more than three
quarters of a million dollars, they moved in on Washington and
Oregon where the PUD laws and Referendum 25 were made
to order for them.
It is a far cry from the original principle of public powerto
the new public power racket in the form of Super-PUDs " ,;c
ownership, if it means anything, ought to mean public 1
of public money and a public hand on the management. It
doesn't mean that under these new schemes.
The great majority of believers in so-called "public power"
are people who do not even suspect that Get-Rich-Quick
Wallingfords are pulling the PUD election-strings along with
the faithful and familiar PUD evangelists
To every conscientious citlren we believe these PROVABLE
FACTS about the oldest and largest PUD experiment in the
country the Nebraska Super-PUD will be welcome. They
are facts that would never be learned by citizens o all the com
munities we serve unless we published them.
Pacific Power & Light Company