Mistakes delay 3rd PSC meeting

Friday, Aug. 9, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A third foul-up in the last five weeks has forced the state Public Service Commission to change its schedule again.

The commission had planned to act on a telephone rate case today involving Nevada Bell. But the vote now must be delayed until Monday because of a potential violation of the open meeting law.

The public notices of the meeting were correctly posted for 10 a.m. Friday. But then they had to be transferred to another computer for mailing out to 145 consumers and others. In the transfer and reformatting, the time on the agenda was changed to a 10 p.m. starting time.

PSC Chairman John Mendoza said Thursday, "All of us on the commission are concerned when these things happen. The latest one particularly caught us by surprise."

This problem was blamed on a secretary. And last month the commission had to cancel its July 22 meeting only hours before it was to begin because its meeting agenda was not posted in the Carson City office as required by law. That was also called human error.

In early July, a scheduled meeting of the PSC was called off because newly hired executive secretary Clay Holstine was on vacation and there was no assistant present to attest to the actions taken by the commissioners.

Mendoza called the events "distressing" but said they have not inconvenienced anybody. "There is no legal impact and the public has been adequately protected," Mendoza said.

The commission will meet today and go through the proposed settlement of the Nevada Bell Case. And it will be able to question the parties involved about the terms of the settlement.

But it must delay a vote until Monday. "All parties can participate and can answer questions from the commission (today)," Mendoza said. "It may even save us time."

The agency, he said, needs to get new computer software so that all public notices go out on one system rather than two.

Nevada Bell sought to increase rates to homeowners by $4 a month and to drop business rates by $10 a month. After negotiations, an agreement was reached to allow rates to residential customers go up by 75 cents a month and basic service for business drop by $10. And there will be a one-time rebate of about $48 to all customers.