Avista seeking to extend surcharge
Avista Utilities wants to extend a 2.45 percent monthly surcharge paid by its Idaho electric customers through Sept. 30.
The surcharge costs about $1.63 per month for a residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity. It’s scheduled to expire June 30.
Surcharges allow Avista to recoup expenses related to higher-than-expected electricity costs, said Hugh Imhof, Avista spokesman. The current surcharge stems from last summer’s low water year, which led to shortfalls in hydropower generation, and from higher gas prices, which increased the cost of power from the company’s thermal generating plants.
Extending the surcharge requires approval from the Idaho Public Utilities Commission. Avista is also asking the PUC for permission to increase the surcharge to 4 percent beginning Oct. 1.
Comments on the request will be accepted through May 31. They can be mailed to P.O. Box 83720, Boise, ID 83720-0074, or sent via the Web at www.puc.idaho.gov by clicking on “Comments & Questions.”
– Becky Kramer
Post Falls
Fourth Avenue to get a face-lift
A plan to revitalize Post Falls’ city center got a kick-start Monday with the announcement of a $500,000 state grant.
In a visit Monday afternoon at Coeur d’Alene Airport, Gov. Butch Otter announced $6.1 million in Community Development Block Grants for infrastructure improvements in 16 cities and counties.
Cities in North Idaho collected more than $1.3 million. Plummer was awarded $320,000 to build a 9,500-square-foot fire station. Smelterville received $500,000 to rebuild the city’s wastewater collection system. Post Falls will use the money to redevelop two blocks of Fourth Avenue, from Spokane to Idaho streets. The $1.3 million project will repave the street, install new curbs and sidewalks, and put in decorative lighting and landscaping.
“This (grant) is very special because we need to get our Fourth street brought back into the modern world,” Mayor Clay Larkin said.
The city and Post Falls Urban Renewal Agency are collaborating on the project to promote the city center as a destination and make it more pedestrian-friendly.
City officials plan to begin construction this summer.
– Hope Brumbach
Bayview
Early morning fire destroys cabin
Four cats may have died in an early morning fire Monday that gutted a rental cabin in this unincorporated town on the south end of Lake Pend Oreille.
Timberlake Fire Chief Marion Blackwell said the 450-square-foot structure at Lyvel and Cherokee streets was a total loss, despite an effort by tenant Stephen Kyle to fight the fire with a garden hose.
Kyle told firefighters that he had four cats inside the house and believed they were killed. Blackwell said the fire, reported just before 6 a.m., started in the kitchen.
The cause has not been determined, he said.
– Taryn Brodwater