Image courtesy of Flickr user davidprather07

Mohave County will host the next in the on-going series of Arizona Corporation Commission workshops on the line-extension policy.  The commission and its staff will meet with community residents in Kingman on Thursday, June 24 at 6:00pm at the Mohave County Administration Building Auditorium (700 W. Beale Street).

Local Kingman-Golden Valley Association Executive Lola Franklin already testified with some of her members at a May meeting in Parker when the commission came to La Paz County.   “Last month we did not know that the Corporation Commission would be coming to Mohave County,” Franklin explains. “But the loss of utility-provided electric line extensions has been a huge issue in the rural areas of Arizona, and I anticipate that the meeting in Kingman will generate a large number of REALTORS®, industry affiliates and some of our members’ clients.”

At the May workshop, audience members provided moving testimony about the financial hardships that were being suffered by residents attempting to access new electric service.  The combined effect of losing line extensions and no cap restricting what Arizona utility companies can charge for new service hook-ups has resulted in costs ranging from a few thousand  to tens of thousands of dollars to hook up to the grid, with no relation to a price formula or actual distance.  The Grand Canyon Chapter of the National Sierra Club has again gone on public record with the ACC in opposition to any modification being made to the commission’s original 2007 decision eliminating utility extensions – a policy which had been an Arizona fixture for some 50 years.

The commission’s next stop will be in the community of Snowflake on July 1. For more information on this industry priority, please contact me at 602-248-7787 or meghaenduger@aaronline.com.