City Light spent $50,000 on meetings, advice

Seattle City Light paid consultants almost $50,000 last year to run and analyze focus groups that were asked to rate the utility's performance and the performance and credibility of local politicians, newspapers and community groups.

Gogerty Stark Marriott, one of the city's top lobbying firms, was paid $26,500 to give advice to City Light based on comments by those in the focus groups, which were conducted last April by another consultant who was paid $22,600.

Critics call the project a waste of ratepayer money and a prime example of City Light worrying more about image than performance under Gary Zarker's watch.

"It looks overtly political to me," said City Councilman Jim Compton. "How did that $50,000 really benefit the ratepayers?"

Zarker, City Light's superintendent, said it was not unusual for utilities to perform market research to know what customers were thinking. He denied any political motivation.

Don Stark of Gogerty Stark Marriott called the criticism of the focus groups "the most tired, silly thing I have heard."

He said City Light had been battered unfairly by bad publicity, including "a campaign on the part of The Seattle Times" and the Municipal League to "inflame" public opinion against City Light. The utility wanted to find out "where do we stand with the public."

City Light is the nation's ninth-largest publicly-owned utility. It has an annual budget of $1 billion, which includes $2.5 million for public relations.

Bob Royer, the utility's director of communications, said he viewed the focus groups as "one of the ways of talking to our customers." He said past focus groups had been convened to assess the utility's messages on energy conservation and deregulation.

The $50,000 came out of City Light's public-relations budget, which covers $849,000 for salaries and wages, $535,000 for advertising and consulting, $632,000 for printing and $488,000 for other expenses. Rather than have the salaried City Light PR people do the focus groups and draw the conclusions, Royer said, the utility wanted outside expertise, "a fresh set of eyes."

The four focus groups consisted of about a dozen people each. They were culled from City Light's residential and business customers, and had lengthy discussions of their feelings about City Light's service and performance.

As part of that, the focus groups were asked to rate the job performance of several utilities and elected officials, including Mayor Greg Nickels, the Seattle City Council, the state Legislature, City Light and Puget Sound Energy. Nickels got the highest rating, while the Legislature came out the lowest. City Light fell in the middle.

Later, the focus groups were asked to gauge the credibility of City Light compared with local newspapers, politicians and community groups.

Of groups that were recognized by most focus-group participants, "an independent auditor" was rated highest. The Seattle Times came next, just ahead of City Light, which ranked slightly above the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Nickels and Seattle City Councilwoman Heidi Wills, head of the committee that oversees City Light, ranked last. (The Seattle Times published a series of stories last year that called into question the utility's performance during the energy crisis of 2000-01.)

Based on the focus-group comments, Stark wrote a three-page letter last August summarizing his advice to the utility. Stark wrote that the groups were encouraging, and that participants showed "goodwill" toward City Light and didn't seem interested in "rehashing the causes of rate increases." Instead, people wanted to hear steps the utility was taking to ensure the problems of the energy crisis "would not reoccur."

Stark advised the utility to focus on ways to get its message out to the community, including efforts to seek "well informed" media coverage as well as talks with business groups and utility employees.

Gogerty Stark Marriott is one of the city's premier lobbying and public-affairs firms, employing former journalists and ex-city officials to influence public policy and opinion. When news of the firm's hiring was reported last year, some critics questioned the utility's motives. Suspicions deepened when it was learned the focus groups had been asked to rate local politicians — questions that some said sounded like political polling.

The Municipal League of King County, a civic watchdog group that has been critical of City Light, also was the subject of focus-group questions. Though many didn't recognize the group, those who did ranked it as a more credible source of information on energy matters than City Light.

Despite that compliment, one Municipal League official said he was disgusted with City Light spending ratepayer dollars on the project.

"If they want to compare their credibility with Heidi Wills and the Municipal League, they shouldn't pay for that with public money," said Bruce Carter, chairman of the league's energy committee.

Jim Brunner: 206-515-5628 or jbrunner@seattletimes.com