The title of this blog is a quote of Alphonse Karr, a French critic, journalist and novelist who lived in the 19th century. It is the theme of today's guest blogger, who wants to remain anonymous. He cares about our Utility and the way in which it is being "managed." Resigned former mayor, Rene Varela, said that one of his goals was a forensic audit at the Utility. After he was elected, it never again came up. This is where we get a huge portion of our revenue to operate our City. Therefore, the Utility must be audited and decisions challenged.On page 81 it says that the 138kv tie-lines will be located in different corridors providing a "true" back-up if one is disabled. This is an inaccurate statement. The plan design now is to tie sub-stations in a looped system. "Using a different corridor means absolutely nothing if you are going back to the same source."
Guest Blogger's comments:
Re: Pg. 81, 82 and 62 CM 2012 Budget
1) Do you remember back six months or so ago when Becky Mattey told you emphatically that the new 138 kV tie would not be back to Hypoluxo? She said at the time that there was no case for installing a second tie line back to the very same location. Well, she either lied or was forced by FPL to come to her senses. Remember, we had told both she and Clay at the time that Hypoluxo was the only tie location possible and that spending $4 million to tie back to Hypoluxo was a total waste of utility dollars, especially when this same money could be better spent installing new generation. (It also appears that your time spent repeatedly asking the City for the Garrison Report was also a waste)
2) The utility is also pulling the wool over the commission's eyes by saying that the conversion, even though they have taken the Smart Grid and Under-grounding out of the mix, will only cost $11 million. They are wrong! They will spend the entire $21 million on the conversion or be forced to cease all conversion activity when they reach the $11 million mark.
It is becoming more and more apparent that the more things change in LW the more they stay the same. Spending $4 million for an alternate feed to the very same source makes absolutely no business sense, especially when the city is is dire financial shape. And reducing the cost of the conversion (on paper only) by half is simply a way to pull the wool over the commissions eyes for a few years in hopes that everyone will forget it down the road? This makes me question whether or not LW has the correct management team in the utility department as this is not the way to conduct business.
If the city truly wants to get back on sound footing financially, one way to do that would be to eliminate the conversion, the 138 kV tie line and all of the apprentice linemen. While it would not put the city back in the black, it would help tremendously.
If pressed by a professional, the utility cannot make a business case for any of these items at this time. The load within LW has gone down substantially over the past few years, there is no need to spend dollars on a tie line that uses the exact same source, and apprentice linemen will simply move on to FPL once their apprenticeship is concluded because of the wage/benefit comparison. (It must be understood that a majority of LW linemen (Ed Womsley is the exception) are rejects from other utilities and could not work for a more professional organization).
A much wiser and more cost effective approach would be to construct new substations at Bryant Park and Elizabeth Streets, and add new generation.
If I were a commissioner I would challenge the Utility Director on her budget.
Wow, that is really something. We never get answers on the utility and all the commission ever does is approve expenditures. I don't even think the city mgr understands it.
ReplyDeleteThis is really an eye-opener! Thank you to lynn and the guest blogger for putting something out there that an ordinary taxpayer like myself would never know about! I hope our Commissioners also read this.
ReplyDeleteThere are two great stories here: Number one is the complete and utter incompetence of the utility to put together a ten year forecast that is even remotely accurate, and the second is that it required three ordinary citizens (Mary Lindsey, Lynn Anderson and Bill Coakley) to expose this incompetence. Individually, they intervened with Commissioner Maxwell and the CM to bring to their attention the truly mind numbing numbers the utility department was attempting to foist upon the commission and the citizens of LW.
ReplyDeleteWhen Clay Lindstrom presented the utilities five/ten year plan to the commission during the spring, red flags began appearing that only the most informed could have picked up on. His $22 million price tag for the 4kV conversion whereby he was going to install smart grid, underground everything East of Federal Hwy and convert both the 26.4kV and the 4kV Distribution to 13.2kV was the first and most egregious. This number was not even close to what the actual cost would have been. Heck, the smart grid would cost nearly that much by itself.
Then, to compound this bit of estimating fantasy, he and Becky said that they were going to construct a new 138 kV tie line and that it would not be going back to its original source at Hypoluxo, and do this for an additional $4 million. Both ignored repeated warnings that FPL would not permit another source, and that the $4 million would end up being 1/10 of what would be required to place the tie on either Military Trail or North of the Canal. This was pure and unadulterated wishful thinking on their part.
My hat is off to Mary, Lynn and Bill for attempting to keep abreast of at least one aspect of the CM Budget and to question the numbers when warranted.
Our Utility has always been a mystery. Very few lay people in the City even understand what a kilowatt is and I am pretty close. Because of that and the fact we can't get a forensic, it will always be that dark hole.
ReplyDeleteIn this Budget the Utility has made a minor overall reduction to its revenue of $500,000--rate per KWh, reduction in the public utility tax of 2% and a reduction of the conservation surcharge of 65 cents per 1000 KWh. This will mean perhaps $1.15 a month to me.
We couldn't paint the beach. Do you honestly think we can run a utility company.
ReplyDeleteWhat everyone overlooks or does not want know is that Mattey is a Civil Engineer,who's specialty is water treatment!!!!She parades with Clay's feathers of knowledge.
ReplyDeleteThe Commissions,who undestand nothing of our generation and what tie lines are for, have ignored this consistently and Susan Stanton does not know anything about electric generation, as she was fron a Town which had no electric generation Utility plant, and approves probably millions in expenditures without
knowledge of what exactly this money serves. Higher rates? Tax increase/ Of course, no control of all expenditures.
Mike
McManaman is used to pushing millions in purchase orders ,unverified, through the Consent Agendas.We now hire for hundreds of thousands ,a company to inventory all our materials!!What did mike do in all those years with our inventories??
If I had to hire such Co. I would fire the one who should have kept an accurate inventory with accounting and verification by the Commission!We can't even get our ungrateful employees to send out Utility bills, ignored by Becky Mattey, who shuns all responsibility.
They were Utility bills Becky, not dry-cleaning bills!
Dee McNamara