Talk:Public utility district
 | The contents of the Public utility district page were merged into District on 29 October 2018 and it now redirects there. For the contribution history and old versions of the merged article please see its history. |
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[edit]I can't find any references to any legal distinction between a municipal and public utility district. I did see one company that was offering consulting services to help establish both types of utility districts. I strongly suspect that in some US states that there may be a legal difference, but that for the purposes of Wikipedia that effectively the two are essentially the same. I think we should edit the article to reflect this or find some way to differentiate between MUDs and PUDs. MCalamari 17:57, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
[In the state of Washington MUDs or "Muni's" are run by the City Councils of the cities they service either run the utility by an appointed board or by a general manager that is held accountable to the City Council directly. PUDs have separately elected officials who are most often elected in a similiar fashion as Port Commissioners or County Commissioners which all have 3 separate districts that they must first be in the top two in the primary election and then must win county-wide in the general election in November. They have also the ability to create a different set of districts for themselves than the other two if they choose to do so. County Commissioners are partisan races, Port and PUD races are nonpartisan. Port and County Commissioners serve 4 year terms, PUD Commissioners serve 6 year terms There are two exceptions to this general rule in our state: 1) There are two PUD Commissions that are allowed by a law written exactly and only for them to have 5 Commissioners (two are elected at large) in Chelan and Grant counties largely due to the size of their hydro-power dams which are located in the Mid-Columbia River. 2) There are two PUD's inside of Mason County, Mason PUD #1 and Mason PUD #3 (the effort to create the original PUD #2 got merged into the effort to create PUD #3 when it was initiated not long after), they each have their own separate districts where they provide electrical service separately, Mason PUD #1 provides water service county wide, while Mason PUD #3 provides wholesale telecommunication service county wide by an inter-local agreement. PUDs and MUDs can operate and often do operate outside their jurisdictions; for MUDs in other adjacent cities and for PUDs in other adjacent counties unless restricted by state law (like Seattle and Tacoma are). PUDs do not have any other responsibilities other than utilities, MUDs can get off-track with the city's other general purpose responsibilities (such as fire hydrants for water utilities and street lighting for electric utilities) or providing building space for fire or police public safety activities that need to be grouped together etc. PUDs tend to rely exclusively on Revenue Bonds for financing. Cities can also employ General Obligation Bonds (paid through taxes) for which they are limited in the amount they can issue by state law. The basic similiarity lies in the basic responsibility to actual elected officials that are considered to be recognized forms of local government. The other two forms of Public Utilities, Co-ops and Mutuals are not government entities. While like MUDs and PUDs, they are run also as nonprofits but are administered more like private entities. They have to pay taxes instead of fees in lieu of taxes. Their membership elects their board directly and even businesses have the right to vote, if they are a customer, for their governing body. They often are the other two public utility entities providing service to rural customers or residents of islands when a private entity refused to provide it for them due to the cost of service.]Powerplay in olympia (talk) 15:40, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
Grant County
[edit]Not sure if this should go here or in the Grant County PUD article. But here are some notes to show the scope and size of one PUD. So feel free to put this text where it belongs: Grant County PUD for instance owns its own optic fiber Internet backbone and two c. 1 GW hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River.[1][2] The PUD supplies 99.99% availability electricity to Dell, Microsoft, VMware and Yahoo data centers.[3]
References
- ^ About high-speed network, Grant County PUD, retrieved 2015-07-24
- ^ "River Riders: Grant PUD monitors mid-Columbia River hydro operations" (PDF), Connections, Washington PUD Association, Spring 2009, archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-06-03
- ^ Quincy Data Center, Washington Department of Ecology, retrieved 2015-07-24
Comment: Merger proposal
[edit]This article or page is essentially identical to Municipal utility district as such I suggest the two be merged into the article District.——→StephenTS42 (talk) 19:57, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
Merger complete. Klbrain (talk) 07:42, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
