MAN BEHIND THE POWER PLANT

The Owatonna Public Utilities lives up to its definition of being something useful and a service.
Roger Warehime, general manager of OPU since December 2018, recently said that local forefathers were right in creating the municipal system.
“They chose to do it ‘ourselves,’” he said, starting with the first bond issue election in March of 1922. The year 1924 is considered to be year one, according to the history written by Ted W. Joesting. It did not come without dissent and controversy.
Owatonna did have power and water before that time. The first municipal utility was the waterworks, which started in 1890.
The city council approved an electric light and power plant in 1889 and awarded a franchise to the Pierce Brothers, later the Owatonna Electric Company. That business added a gas plant in 1901 and in 1906, the business was known as the Owatonna Electric, Gas and Heating. It was not owned or operated by the city.
Decades later, it became a public utility and Owatonna’s City Charter was amended to provide for a Utilities Commission to provide management and control, removing it from the city council.
“Having a five-member commission, all members of the community, takes the politics out of it,” Warehime said. In addition, OPU makes a 2.5% contribution to the city annually, often known as contributed services, providing budget stability. Annual revenue is about $60 million.  The county and school district are not part of the contributed services and are billed for their usage.
Warehime has been with OPU for 17 years. He started as the conservation specialist after working in non-utility positions. He holds his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and has a master’s in business administration.
Commission members are Randall Doyal, president, Jay Johnson, vice president, Matt Kottke, Kent Rossi and Dena Keilman. It meets at 4 p.m. on the fourth Tuesday of the month in the Morehouse Conference Room. The meetings are open to the public.
Warehime said he believes there are many benefits of public power.
“We have one stakeholder, our customers, not shareholders,” he said, adding that being part of the community makes decisions personal for the staff and the commission. “We are a not-for-profit business, not a non-profit. When we earn a profit, those funds are reinvested.”
There are about 55 employees who serve the utilities 12,000 electric, 10,500 natural gas and 9,700 water customers. Some of those workers are very long-term employees. For example, the human relations person, Marge Madson, has worked there for 48 years. Customer contact is available 24/7.
When the COVID-19 shutdown occurred in March of 2020, Warehime said OPU put its catastrophe plan in place, shutting down the office to the public. “The IT guys had to scramble,” he said, but office
work was done remotely within a week. There were still crews for gas and electricity at the plant, with social distancing in place.  “We went over a year without one case of COVID.”