Friday, March 29, 2024

PUD holds open house for proposed Wenatchee service center

Chelan office to get minor improvements this year

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CHELAN – On March 18, the Chelan County PUD began holding Open Houses throughout the county to hear the community’s say on the Service Center that was recently proposed.

The Service Center is designed to consolidate the PUD’s Wenatchee-area operations said PUD’s Shared Services Director Dan Frazier. After a few years of study, the results showed that consolidating Wenatchee operations is the best long term option. “Eventually, the consolidation kept making more and more sense. Financially, it is the best investment, because we invest in new buildings, but you get a lot of productivity because everyone is together in one building,” said Frazier. According to a press release from the PUD the center will also provide better customer services and meet industry safety standards.

The Lake Chelan Chamber of Commerce hosted the PUD’s Open House on March 21 for Lake Chelan area residents to stop by and provide their comments. “Almost everybody here just wanted to see what was going on,” explained Frazier. The main concern he heard from locals had to do with the PUD office in Chelan and whether that will be closing. “That was not part of the plan,” clarified Frazier. “In fact, we are making some minor improvements to the Chelan office this year,” he added. Others dropped by to show their support to the PUD. “The folks who came were excited it about it.”

In the Wenatchee open house for example, “people wanted to make sure that whatever goes on the current PUD site doesn’t compete with downtown,” stated Frazier. The City of Wenatchee, Port of Chelan County and the PUD have partnered up and hired a consulting firm to help with “visioning on that site.” According to Frazier, the firm has interviewed about 20 local business owners so they can get an idea of what is Wenatchee missing and what would complement what they are doing right now. Frazier mentioned that this is an ongoing process and the firm will continue doing research for another four to six months. Cashmere and Leavenworth residents like the idea of having the center closer, “instead of going all the way downtown.”

Questions about rates going up have also been raised. “Because of the financial analysis we did, we show that over 50 years period it actually stabilizes rates … it shouldn’t really cause an increase in the rates over a long period of time,” said Frazier. The estimated cost for the new center is of $135 million and PUD commissioners already have set aside $50 million for the project.

The last and final Open House will be held on Monday, March 25 at the Entiat Fire Hall in Entiat from 4-6 p.m. PUD also has a virtual open house at www.chelanpud.org/ServiceCenter.

PUD Commissioners will review all of the survey results, comments and questions from customer-owners in early April to decide the next steps.  
 

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