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Show Power negotiations scheduled to continue CEDAR CITY Determination to eventually own the electric system serving the 11,000 households of southern Utah pushed on last week as the Southwest Utah Power Federation met and announced more negotiations and hearings for January. George Fadel, legal counsel for the Federation, announced that Jan. 8 will be the next negotiating session between Utah Power & Light and southern Utah municipalities, with negotiations to be in Salt Lake City. Also, another Utah Public Service Commission hearing is scheduled for Jan. 11 to monitor the developments of the long negotiations. The PSC ordered the negotiations after a year of arguments and hearings concerning who should own the electircal system in the area. UP&L was required at that time to provide purchase options to individual municipalities that were interested in purchasing the system within their boundaries. "We have a lot of negotiating sessions ahead of us, but we are making definite progress," said Barbara Starr, president of the Federation, after Saturday morning's meeting. "We think there is nothing which we can't settle." . Starr listed three options that are still open to municipalities in the area to wrest ownership from UP&L, which she says has been more than unwilling to cooperate. First, is to exercise the option to purchase the system. This is the most desired option, and is being actively pursued at this time. However, two other options are also open, according to Starr. The first is to build a parallel system. This would be the most expensive for the cities and currently is not being considered seriously. The other is condemnation, which would require court actions, and lengthy litigation. The current negotiations, however, have been slow, said Starr, with disagreements on several major points causing snags for both sides. The most basic argument is the purchase price for the system. Although some progress on how to reach that figure has come about, exactly what the system includes is still being discussed. The financing of the system is another point of major disagreement. The Federation would like to float one large bond to cover the purchase for all the member municipalities. However. UP&L insists that each city would need to finance its own purchase. Othej arguments 'include source of a power supply and maintenance of the system. |