Slate article ... about Montana

[SonomaCat]

I actually hadn't read much about this as wasn't aware of the recent attempt to the buy the company by the cities. What do you guys thing/know about the possibilities of this happening?

http://slate.com/id/2122082/

['93HonoluluCat]

I actually hadn't read much about this as wasn't aware of the recent attempt to the buy the company by the cities. What do you guys thing/know about the possibilities of this happening?

http://slate.com/id/2122082/

I haven't heard anything about this, either--I'm only aware of the origins of the story, since I was stationed at Malmstrom Air Patch during the period.

It really is amazing how fast us displaced Montanans lose touch with grassroots politics within the nation's largest area code.

[Bleedinbluengold]

It is somewhat analogous to a hostile takeover. NWE says they aren't interested.

While I'm all for the cities buying NWE, I think the chances that NWE will accept the deal are pretty slim. However, it will put a lot of pressure on NWE in any case because there are some big time institutions who actually have money at stake.

I don't know that the cities are any better equipped to run an energy company, but, heck, they could hardly do any worse. I understand that the folks on the ground won't change, just the business structure. One thing is for sure. It would be better to have our energy supplier in-house again.

[Ponycat]

It makes me nervous when a government entity says they can run a business more efficiant let alone numerous governments entities trying to run ONE company together.

[mquast53000]

It makes me nervous when a government entity says they can run a business more efficiant let alone numerous governments entities trying to run ONE company together.

I would have to agree with Pony. I don’t think that Montana Government should get involved with private businesses. My faith in the local Montana Government is slight…

[Cat Grad]

Know this is not a timely post (I've obviously been out of the net for the better part of a month chasing redfish, blue marlin, etc.) but this has to scare anyone that's followed Montana's economic leadership for the last thirty years Would hope common sense prevails.

[Bleedinbluengold]

The municipalities comprising the non-profit company are not affiliated with any part of the State government. Just pointing that out.

One thing in the article should be expounded upon. The writer implied that the non-profit company would try to find a diamond in the rough at City Hall to run the company. That is not true. The municipalities are the stakeholders, and will hire the management team, who will in turn run the business. The non-profit has already started mining for talent across the nation. The stakeholders, being local government units, do not seek a return on their investment...as opposed to the institutions who financially backed NWE coming out of bankruptcy. The municipalities simply seek to control the distribution of power in Montana and the rates. That's no different that NWE, but theoretically, at a cheaper rate and with less fluctuation - theoretically.

[El_Gato]

The municipalities comprising the non-profit company are not affiliated with any part of the State government. Just pointing that out...

Aren't you ignoring the MILLIONS of $$ those municipalities receive from the State? Do you really think if the cities involved actually pull this off that Gov. Scheister and the folks in Helena won't immediately start brainstorming ways to get themselves involved somehow?

Sorry, but my cynicism leads me to feel that most, if not all, politicians and bureaucrats want a piece of ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING they can get their hands on and I guarantee you they'll be trying to figure a way to get in on this.

Politicians/Bureaucrats motto:

"If anything moves, regulate it; if it keeps moving, tax it; when it stops moving, subsidize it!"

[Hell's Bells]

The municipalities comprising the non-profit company are not affiliated with any part of the State government. Just pointing that out...

Aren't you ignoring the MILLIONS of $$ those municipalities receive from the State? Do you really think if the cities involved actually pull this off that Gov. Scheister and the folks in Helena won't immediately start brainstorming ways to get themselves involved somehow?

Sorry, but my cynicism leads me to feel that most, if not all, politicians and bureaucrats want a piece of ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING they can get their hands on and I guarantee you they'll be trying to figure a way to get in on this.

Politicians/Bureaucrats motto:

"If anything moves, regulate it; if it keeps moving, tax it; when it stops moving, subsidize it!"

agreed..when i heard that the cities are trying to take over nwe i got scared. do you really think that these cities can run nwe better then nwe? seriously? half of these cities cant run themselves, and they dont have the assets of northwestern. bad idea, very bad idea. buy the way didnt we vote this down in the first place? i remember voting against it. i guess if you loose the election try going about it in another means. lastly who says that nwe will agree to it...last i heard they wont and if they wanted to sell the assets, there is plenty more companies that will be able to offer more money then the cities

just my opinion of the matter

[grizbeer]

The one thing I will say is that I lived in the Puget Sound area for years, and had homes services by Puget Sound Energy (Public Company) and Tacoma Public Power (Municipal owned). TPP was consistently better in every phase, from rates to reliability to service. I never would have believed that to be true if I hadn't experienced it. TPP is set-up with it's own board of directors and management, and while it is accountable to to the city, it is not directly managed by the city government.

One thing TPP had on their side is that they also owned their own power generating facilities which only provided power to their own customer base, so they weren't subject to the same market forces PSE was - if power prices went up in California it didn't raise rates in for TPP like it did for PSE. The Montana cities wouldn't have the same leverage.

In the late 90's Tacoma was fed up with the delays from TCI then ATT in providing state of the art cable service in the area - there was little digital cable, no plans to roll out high def, about 60 channels, and no cable Internet. TPP created their own cable network, and suddenly AT&T rolled out massive service improvement, but only in the areas where TPP cable was. Competition works.

[mquast53000]

NWC spurns cities' buyout offer:

http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.ph ... buyout.inc

Well NWE didn't think that the offer was any good.

[Bleedinbluengold]

El G -

No I'm not. The State didn't/isn't providing any money to the municipalities for this buyout, nor for the management after the buyout (which, as Quast points out, didn't happen).

I'm pretty cynical when it comes to government, but maybe not as cynical as you. My belief is that the only real difference a common citizen can make is in local politics, which is why I think the municipalities could, indeed, run the power and distribution of energy to Montanans better than a wacked out publically traded company can that can't seem to get out of their own way. Further, a municipal energy company would certainly be more responsive to the citizens of Montana compared to NWE, who is now controlled by Wallstreet Institutions, some of whom are highly leveraged hedge funds. MPPA would be subject to the oversight of the PSC in addition, as is NWE.

Thus, it basically comes down to who you trust to distribute reliable energy at a reasonable rate in Montana. I trust Montanans, not Wallstreet, or the NWE board of directors, who already succumbed to bankruptcy.

I'm not surprised that the NWE board turned the offer down. Expect to see another offer in the future. The board's decision is clearly money-related. The 18% premium offerred by MPPA was not satisfactory to Wallstreet. It would not surprise me to actually see a deal go through at a later date for a much cheaper price as NWE's stock declines.