Bad Debt
When it comes to regulated utilities in Hawai‘i, the state has laws. And the Public Utilities Commission is pretty strict about enforcing them.
That would seem to be the lesson imparted to the creditor in chief of Launiupoko Irrigation Company, Peter Martin. Because he did not bother to receive the PUC’s advance approval when the company took out millions of dollars in loans – from him – the PUC has now deemed those loans void.
What happens next?
The PUC has asked all the parties involved in the company’s rate hike request to weigh in by early this month on what information that the company has previously filed needs to be resubmitted in light of the loans being voided.
Meanwhile, the fate of the company’s water use permit requests before the Commission on Water Resource Management remains pending. Whether the appointment of Martin’s friend, Hinano Rodrigues, to the commission will speed that process along remains to be seen.
