I've lived in Springfield for 15 years now, and during all of that time my SUB bill has been a fraction of what it would have cost if I was still living in Eugene and was an  EWEB customer.   Sorry, but your argument here is totally without any merit whatsoever.   SUB has a proven track record of consistently beating EWEB's prices, and by a significant margin too.   This is not just a temporary advantage as you so falsely claim, but something that I have enjoyed now for 1 1/2 decades.

And you forgot to mention that EWEB is saddled by the high personnel cost of the PERS retirement system, while SUB does not participate in PERS.    So SUB is always going to have a significant advantage when it comes to personnel costs.

The high cost of PERS is most likely a major reason why Lawson is planning to lay off so many workers.   They are just too expensive to keep, due to PERS.