Thursday, January 5, 2006.
Retired electrical engineer Jim Malinowski has announced he will run for the seat held by incumbent Clark Public Utilities Commissioner Carol Curtis.
Curtis, a real estate broker who has served on the utility's board of directors since 1982, is already the longest-tenured commissioner in the utility's history. In 2000, she narrowly defeated Malinowski, a critic of the utility's decision to build the natural gas-fired River Road Generating Plant.
Malinowski, now teaching in Clark College's Power Utilities Technology Program, said he believes he will fight harder to preserve the benefits of public power in the Northwest in general and Clark County in particular.
"My major goal is to protect the district from the major problems that deregulation brings," Malinowski said.
Malinowski, a native of the Amboy area, retired from a 31-year career with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. in 1993. Although he criticized the utility's decision to build the natural gas-fired plant in 1997, Malinowski made a point of saying in his campaign announcement that he believes the plant is nonetheless well designed, maintained and operated.
"In the last 10 years, I have attended most CPU public meetings and in large measure have been favorably impressed with many aspects of CPU operations and with the high quality of CPU employees," he said in a prepared statement. .
Malinowski is past president and current board member of the North Clark Historical Museum; board member of the conservation group Fish First; past president and current board member of the property rights group Clark County Citizens United; board member of Mount Valley Grange; and a member of the Clark County Endangered Species Act Advisory Committee.