2. Background
The following is a brief procedural history.1 In 2002 the City of Salinas (Salinas) updated its General Plan and identified three future growth areas. On March 23, 2006, Alisal Water Company, doing business as Alco Water Company (Alco), filed Advice Letter 107 to serve the portions of the Salinas future growth area contiguous to its existing service territory. On April 6, 2006, California Water Service Company (Cal Water) filed a protest to Advice Letter 107.
On April 25, 2006, the Division of Water and Audits (DWA) approved Alco's Advice Letter 107 filing, essentially rejecting Cal Water's protest. On May 3, 2006, Cal Water filed a request for full Commission review of DWA's approval of Advice Letter 107.
On April 10, 2007, Cal Water filed Application (A.) 07-04-020 seeking authority to extend its service territory into the portion of the Salinas future growth area that was the subject of Alco's Advice Letter 107. Alco timely filed a protest to Cal Water's Application and requested that the Commission dismiss Cal Water's Application.
By Resolution W-4630, dated April 12, 2007, the Commission affirmed DWA's disposition of Advice Letter 107. However, the resolution also ordered Commission staff to prepare an Order Instituting Investigation (OII) examining Alco's customer service, water service and water quality. Alco could not extend service to additional customers in its new service area without Commission approval.
On June 21, 2007, the Commission issued OII 07-06-020 to determine if Alco was competent and capable of serving additional water customer in Salinas and whether such service was in the public interest.
On July 19, 2007, the assigned Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) issued a ruling denying Alco's motion to dismiss Cal Water's Application. Because an OII had been issued to determine Alco's competence to serve the additional service territory, the ruling coordinated Cal Water's Application with the Alco OII. However, the ruling suspended action on Cal Water's Application pending the outcome of the OII.
On April 20, 2009, the Commission issued Decision (D.) 09-04-035, finding it in the public interest for Alco to serve additional customers in its newly filed territory. D.09-04-035 also concluded that Alco should work to improve its customer complaint tracking and customer service and that certain concerns raised during the proceeding would be more appropriately examined in the general rate case ordered by D.08-11-035.2
On February 1, 2010, Alco filed general rate case A.10-02-006, in compliance with D.08-11-035. In A.10-02-006, Alco sought authorization to increase rates in its service territory in the years 2010, 2011 and 2012. On March 16, 2011, the Commission issued D.11-03-005 which among other things found that Alco should file its next general rate case as a full application, with the increased scrutiny that entails, and not as an advice letter.
1 Decision 09-04-035 found at http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PUBLISHED/FINAL_DECISION/99997.htm contains a more comprehensive background of events leading up to this decision.
2 Generally only Class A water utilities file general rate cases by application. A Class A water utility is defined as one with 10,000 or more connections. Although Alco only had 8800 connections, when built out, the additional service territory would increase Alco's service connections to over 10,000.
