Procedural History
This application was filed on November 28, 2006. Initially, it was assigned to Examiner Kevin P. Coughlan, but it was reassigned to Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Victor D. Ryerson on March 28, 2007.2
On May 21, 2007, the Commission's Division of Ratepayer Advocates (DRA) sought leave to file a late protest. The protest cited DRA's concerns that the application is incomplete and does not comply with Commission Rule of Practice and Procedure 3.6, specifically in that it lacks an up-to-date description of the property to be conveyed because it incorporated the eleven-year-old purchase and sale agreements, and because it does not contain Buyer's current balance sheet and income statement. The ALJ granted DRA's request to file the protest, and held a prehearing conference (PHC) in Tahoe City on October 2, 2007, to identify the contested issues.
At the PHC, DRA stated that Buyer had furnished additional information in response to a data request, and indicated that it would probably withdraw the protest once it had analyzed the new information. Consequently, the matter was not scheduled for evidentiary hearing at the time of the PHC, and the ALJ granted DRA the opportunity to analyze the new information and determine whether or not it would maintain its protest. On November 6, 2007, DRA filed a timely motion to withdraw its protest, and we accordingly treat this as an ex parte matter.
2 At the time of the reassignment of this matter, an application for a general rate increase (GRC) was pending before the Commission. The GRC was requested by Tahoe Park Water Company, which is the Buyer in the present proceeding. On May 3, 2007, the Commission authorized a rate increase in Resolution (Res.) W-4628.
