Comment Up
Florida Power & Light is one of the companies that has submitted a proposal to be our new energy supplier after we have finally exited All Requirements with FMPA. Our Commission will consider all the proposals this week. FPL has jumped on the hysteria bandwagon and said, "It would be open to a conversation about
a potential acquisition of the city’s electric system.” The sale of our electric Utility was brought up by mayoral candidate Tom Ramiccio last summer, one of the main reasons why he lost his election. A group of residents are still complaining about high power bills and even formulated a citizens Utility Board with the encouragement of the "Visionaries."
Read more...
26 comments:
The majority of Lake Worth citizens would love to see the utility sold to FPL. Tom lost because few people really trusted him. The utility needs to be sold at the right price and we need to get out of the electric business.
Well, number one, it's not going to happen.
Number two, who is the "majority" of which you speak? The other eleven people?
Those saying we need to get out of the electricy business,PURE PSYCHO TALK,don't know anything about it'S VITAL IMPORTANCE TO THE ECONOMY OF LAKE wORTH..The Lake Worth Utility,is a major source of revenue for our General Fund,which pays for the services those psychos enjoy,garbage collection,PARKS ,WATERPLANT , all City DeptS MAINTENANCE. Electricity on the open market is run by pirates,THIEVES, KNOWING HUMANS NEED IT,working for the STOCKHOLDERS' PROFITS of their Corporations,AND WILL KEEP RAISING THE RATES WITHOUT LIMIT.
ONLY A TOTALLLY IGNORANT PERSON WOULD NOT KNOW THIS, AND SHOULD NOT TRY TO STEAL THAT VALUABLE, 35000 CITIZENS OWNED ASSET,NOT OWNED BY A SMALL GROUP WHICH IS TOO LAZY TO STUDY THE CONNSEQUENCES, WHO SUBSEQUENTLY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THE VITAL IMPORTANCE IN THE WORLD, ELECTRIC ENERGY IS, ALWAYS AT A PREMIUM, NO VISION-MORONS WOULD LET THOSE PIRATES STEAL OUR ELECTRIC ENERGY, IMPORTANT TO HUMAN LIFE. THERE WILL BE VICIOUS CAMPAIGNS WAGED TO STEAL INDEPENDANT ELECTRIC GENERATED ENERGY FROM DUMB SMALL TOWN ADMINSTRATIONS.The PIRATES' stockholders demand dividends, the idiots who want Lake Worth to lose its' electric energy generation rights(cheaper when run professionally by responsible,NOT BY SOFAR LAZY,NEGLIGENT Commissions).THE MORONS DON'T KNOW THAT WE WOULD BE LOSING OUR UTILITY AND REVENUES, AND MUST PAY THE BUYER,WHICH WILL TRY TO STEAL IT CHEAPLY,AS IN THE PAST,THEY DON'T KNOW ABOUT,
KNOWING THEY ARE DEALING WITH IRRESPONSIBLE, POMPOUS ASSES, AS GREATER BAY PROVEDTHAT WE MUST PAY BACK WITH INCREASED RATES, WHAT THEY PAID FOR OUR UTILITY,ACCORDING TO THE PSC RULES!
I HOPE THE NEW COMMISSION WILL UNDERTSAND THE DANGER AND PROTECT THE CITIZENS ELECTRIC UTILITY GENERATION ABILITY ,CITIZENS OWNED ,NOT BY UNCARING ADMINISTRATION MEMBERS. wE WERE ROBBED SOFAR OF $1,000,000 PER YEAR ,-WITHOUT ONE CITY MANAGER OR COMMISSION NOTICING IT,CAUSING OUR INCREASED RATES.THE HAVE NOT BEEN ALE TO CREATE ONE REVENUE GENERATING PROJECT TO REPLACE THAT DISASTROUS LOSS TO 35000 CITIZENS !!!!
WHOM DID YOU VOTE FOR????WHAT DID THE NEW COMMISSION MAJORITY DO IN 8 MONTHS ABOUT THIS DANGER?
lynn you know how much our Utility contricbutes to our general Fund to sustain our whole City!
What hole in the ground did that creature and his fellow windbags, crawl out of?Did they come with a method of replacing this loss of Millions in revenue????
Please don't write in all caps..we can't read it and don't want to be yelled at, which is how it comes across.
You mean the Black Hole you all always complain about should be allowed to continue? Everybody else in the world who has an outside provider is in danger?
Sell it...get it over with...and there's no place to hide the money anymore.
Lynn, You don't like alternative energy, or lack of transparency,and you want the unions gone. This is the right move. Sell it.
I also believe in protecting our assets and taking care of what we have. We are in a unique position owning our own electric utility. What do you think you would get from FPL---pennies on the dollar like everything else this city manages to make a mess out of.
The mantra here is sell it or give it away. You have done a great job so far in dismantling our city--police, fire almost the beach that drove us into a law suit and nearly our water supply. I think you guys need to relax now and take a backseat to smarter govt.
Beside, it belongs to all of the residents here, not you and your gang of booty bandits.
Weak, weak, weak and yawn, yawn, yawn. You seem to argue both ways.... if this is so great why aren't the rich towns doing it. Because it's not. This has been held against LW since before I moved here in 2005. The realtor told me about the utilities but I didn't understand it then. Now I do. And so do you. Susan Stanton used it as a slush fund as did other CM's before her. Why is that o.k.? Move out of town if you don't like it. Senior citizen village perhaps?? It's time.
Ok...I am going to assume that the above poster is an adult asking these juvenile questions and personally insulting me. Go back and read your comic books, punk.
Most elected Commissioners-Mayors campaign on reducing rates. It never happens. The only way to get out from under the rates that are head and shoulders higher than anybody else, including FP&L, is to have somebody else manage our utilities.
Everybody else has lower tax rates than we do and they manage their cities without utility slush funds. Our current CM had a Budget with a millage rate than is less than half our. Lantana doesn't have an electric utility slush fund.
i believe the current Commission majority is going to figue this out and the end result will be the benefit of lower utility costs with better Budget management.
You are comparing sleepy Lantana with 10,423 residents to progressive Lake Worth that is over three times its size in population and a city that has implemented capital costs for infrastructure to allow us to develop and grow and be sustainable well into the 21st Century.
The current commission is not going to figure out anything. Hiring a good utility director is imperative.
Age discrimination now 3:38? Is that the only thing you can get Lynn on?
The biggest white elephant in lake worth is far and away the electric generation plant. Mulvehill says FP&L has had rate increases, but aren't they still less expensive than Lake Worth?
Just because you own it doesn't mean it's worth keeping!
Lake Worth citizens pay the highest rates and have the lowest property values but you all love the utility. From a common sense standpoint you need to look at how much it really costs the city to put the 4 or 5 million into the general fund each year. If we the citizens pay about 14 million each year into the utility and get back less than 5 million why would we want to keep the utility. Sell the dam thing and and use the interest on the money to run the city. The electric utility should not be a tax on Lake Worth's hard working folks.
I'm a senior myself so that doesn't stick my friend!
It's a good thing 5:20 that you post without a name as what you said is just so far wrong and ignorant of the facts. On top of everything else, there is no financial institution paying any interest these days that is worth a hot damn.
5:28 ...you make no sense
To the person who just tried to post here. I really wish you would adhere to policy.
I have NEVER said that I wanted to sell our Utility. What I have said is, let's find out what's going on in the Black Hole. BIG DIFFERENCE. I think our new internal auditor should be able to find out a lot. Where is he, by the way?
Stick to MY policy and there is no problem here. Go beat up on your grandmother, don't pull your crap here anonymous. My blog; my rules. If you don't like it, beat it.
I was once in the "unique position" of owning a gas guzzling SUV. I sold it because I could not afford it any more.
The same goes for the electric utility.
The cost of power is killing Lake Worth, enough is enough, sell it, and let the city learn that gouging the residents and businesses is not acceptable and stiffing our growth!
How do you expect to support the services in our city without our Utility? Growth is not being suppressed by the cost of electric. That is just an excuse to bitch, moan and complain and sell our city down the river.
Oh so wrong at 8:49 - People of from every demographic and add to that businesses, will NOT consider Lake Worth PRECISELY because of the utility rates and previously unstable government (pre-Visionaries)
Economy Of Scale.
Do you all know what that means?
We need to have an independant electric audit before we make the decision to sell or not. We don't want to be out of the frying pan into the fire.Also,the people in power should be closly monitered so that no checks get into pockets under the table.
9:06--you have been talking to the Dirty way too long. Give me an example of a business that was going to locate here and changed its mind because of electric rates.
Give me examples of unstability from the past commission. I can give you PLENTY from this new "visionary." PLENTY.
You are so full of yourself. As said, start talking to some other people in this City and get a different perspective--the RIGHT one. Other than that, your opinion is just that, an opinion that is unfounded on anything factual.
Here's some facts for you.... We haven't generated electricity for years. Yes, we still have generators but they are old and inefficient so it is cheaper to buy power from other entities.That is what we are looking for now.... a "power provider" so that we can "buy" electricity at wholesale and resell and distribute it to ourselves.
High energy costs are another tax on our residents and businesses. We lose competitiveness with other communities in ALL areas: Businesses and home sales are lost to nearby communities due to our higher costs of operation. Lake Worth is legendary in its high cost electricity.
If you look at any chart listing municipality or member owned (co-ops) utilities, FPL is still much lower than any of them. If we were to sell, FPL would be the only choice. (for me)
One of the responding companies to the RFP, suggests we get back into the power generating business with enough capacity to sell off excess. This would require getting rid of our old, unused, antiquated generating system and purchasing new natural gas fired turbine, state of the art generators. Short to medium range outlook is that natural gas supply far out-weight demand,is low polluting especially with the newer turbines and actually has the potential to lower our costs to that of FPL, or at least close.
This is the only proposal other than FPL's that sounds like an eventual win for the city. Obvious drawback is the initial cost and how to finance it.
When you hear "how much LWU contributes to our general fund", remember much of those costs would come to us in "franchise fees" from FPL that help neighboring cities balance their budgets.
Bottom line is that this must be a business decision. Take all the hysteria out of it and look at the long range affordability of owning our own versus another entity (FPL)
c
Not sure that what you say is correct. Of all our assets, and this is by far our top asset, we DO maintain our electric and water plants. They do not skimp on the CIP and replacement costs.
Our Electric plant is very important to our city and we need to keep it. In fact, I would say, that it's not going anywhere in spite of those who want to sell off EVERYTHING we own.
Post a Comment