CUC still working on Feeder 4 issues

The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. is looking to get down to the “root causes” of blackouts that have frequented its “Feeder 4” area of the island recently, according to CUC acting executive director Gary Camacho.

Some have complained that the blackouts at nights and unreliability of power over the last weeks were comparable to post-Typhoon Soudelor.

“Feeder 4 is fine. There are some issues,” Camacho said. “We’ve done some more work over the mid last week to make a determination as to the root cause.”

“We’ve identified the location, which was originally thought to be in the Kagman area—well it turns out it’s a little further down, it’s in the As Mahetog area toward the power plant [in Lower Base].”

“So there is going to be some work done tomorrow morning and you’ll see the press release,” Camacho told reporters before the start of a Federal Emergency Management workshop yesterday.

According to CUC maps, Feeder 4 encompasses the villages of Kagman, Capitol Hill, As Mahetog, Sadog Tasi, As Teo, Kagman, Talafofo, among others.

At the same time, Camacho was asked to comment on his firing of former chief financial officer Matthew Yaquinto, who was fired without cause late last month.

Camacho reiterated that pursuant to Yaquinto’s contract “there is a clause that his services” can be “terminated without cause.”

Pressed on the issue of whether Yaquinto could be fired by the acting CUC executive director and not the CUC board, Camacho said the process was “moving forward.”

“Therefore at this particular juncture there is no comment at this time on the matter,” he said.

Camacho, when asked, also said he was not fully aware of House lawmakers meeting on their concerns over the firing of Yaquinto, whose former CFO position was a federal court-stipulated order position.

He was also asked if Yaquinto has formally contested his firing, but Camacho said there was “no comment at this time.”

Gov. Ralph DLG Torres wants to understand why Yaquinto was fired and said yesterday he would be meeting with CUC next week.

“We want to find out what’s the rationale for firing. I understand that there is no-fault firing and that’s what the clause is. So I want to know what’s transpired and where do we go from here,” said Torres.

Torres said he is in support of the CUC board but wants to know “what is our goal?”