No questions from public allowed at BED Press Conference today. The misinformation they corrected was their own!

Citizen Press Release: for immediate release, June 23, 2011

I think voters should vote NO on BED special election question #1 because we have before us an incomplete project plan, an incomplete budget/business plan, and therefore NO debt plan and no firm information about what the project costs will be.  BED apparently has no “interface partner” to stand in the shoes that Lockheed fills in relationship to Itron smart meters all over the world.  Are they in the shadows, or are they really not included in the project? There’s a critical hole in the team.  Is BED guessing at the costs?  I ask:

• How can BED budget and plan the engineering and management of this smart meter project without a complete project plan?
• How can the project risks be managed if partnering relationships usually filled by Lockheed’s role on the Itron team, for equipment, integration services, installation and support, are not in place, do not exist? (see attached Itron /Lockheed partnering statement, below, for importance of Lockheed on the Itron team).  I could not learn at the Open House who is filling that role.
• The BED open house  team members claimed:
• No knowledge of the complete package of products and services necessary to complete BED’s  project.
• No knowledge of Lockheed being part of the team.
• No knowledge that there is another vender to fill Lockheed’s role, i.e. for example provide the infrastructure to support time-based monitoring and date-gathering.  They are either hiding the interface partner that must fulfill this critical role, or they really don’t know.

Itron /Lockheed partnering statement

https://www.itron.com/newsAndEvents/Pages/Lockheed-Martin-and-Itron-Provide-Demand-Response-Ready-.aspx

“If there’s one thing that 30+ years of experience driving innovation for utilities has taught Itron, it’s that our complex industry is bigger than any one company. The importance of combining the complementary expertise of Itron and Lockheed Martin cannot be overstated.”

“SEEload is one of Lockheed Martin’s SEEsuite Smart Grid Command and Control™ applications, and enables utilities and independent system operators to precisely and easily manage demand response events across an entire distribution network, including substations and individual feeders. SEEload provides complete DR life- cycle management, including DR program definition and customer enrollment, real-time DR event management, and post-event DR analytics.’

Examples of importance of the Lockheed/Itron partnering relationship, according to Itron!

https://www.itron.com/pages/searchresults.aspx?s=Global&k=lockheed

https://www.itron.com/pages/searchresults.aspx?k=lockheed

QUESTIONS: 

Why is Itron reluctant to disclose the names of the project team members?” If not Lockheed, who? If they know, why wouldn’t they tell me?

How can BED ask for debt authority with such a big hole in the project, if project budget, debt repayment plan, etc is not known? If they do not know, why are they putting ratepayers and the city at risk?