There is a vocal segment of people in our city (a lot of the developer crowd) who continue to push the sale of Lake Worth Utilities. On August 6th at 6pm, there will be a joint meeting with the City Commission and the Electric Utility Advisory Board whose chair, Lisa Maxwell, is eager to sell our utilities. She ran on that platform a few years ago for District 4 and lost. Others have run on the same platform and lost like Tom Ramiccio and Jim Stafford.
They have invited Vero Beach City Manager to the city commission meeting tomorrow night at 6pm in order to get information regarding Vero's sale of its electric utility system and the facts and process surrounding that sale to Florida Power & Light.
The sale negotiations had been taking place for almost two years in Vero, a city of little over 15,000 people, and the city council approved a purchase and sale agreement earlier this year. The vote was 2,335 in favor and 1,328 opposed. You won't be seeing "sell to FPL" advocates questioning the turnout numbers at the polls regarding this vote because of how many showed up at the polls.
**FPL bid on Lake Worth Electric Utility in 1994 for $60 million. Who knows what it's worth today but we do know that we have a humongous unfunded liability and massive debt of $484,392,433 over 30 years, according to our finance director. With the potential revenue over the same time period, it would bring the amount needed from a sale to $373, 891,173. to replace income streams...a pipe dream.**
Vero Beach has the same problem as Lake Worth regarding their utility and using profits to help with the general fund. Vero will have to find a way to make due without the approximately $7.3 million the utility system provides to fund other operations. Lake Worth has several millions more to worry about that goes into its general fund. Vero says that some of this shortfall can be made up from money the city makes off the sale, cuts in expenses and implementation of a franchise fee as well as a utility tax on city electric users.
Instead of a few citizens talking about selling and a volunteer board doing the same and putting all of their energy into a possible sale of our valuable utility because they feel our rates are too high, perhaps they should be putting the same amount into making it the best little utility around, with Lake Worth producing its own energy.
In the back-up there is a good article from Florida Trend that gives the pros and cons of owning your own utility versus its sale. Click here to read the article.
9 comments:
It seems that if we were to sell it, we would be so much in the hole. We would lose hundreds of millions in the next 30 years. How can we think of selling it as most say it's not worth even what Vero Beach's is.
Perhaps the city can get it on the ballot and if they lose the election they can still do an end-run around the people somehow and come out selling it. I mean, after all, they have experience at doing that. It makes you wonder if their real game plan is to get rid of everything and become part of the County. No, that can't be an option--they like power way too much.
Lake Worth Utility is owned and paid for by its 35000 tax payers.As the history of munis shows ,this is the only steady,controllable source of electric Energy production and rates.
NextEra Energy/FPL is in the process of doing a Power grab,at bargain basement prices, to control all electric energy generation of Florida(Communist principle),while paying their CEO $95,000,000,- bonuses annually.
NextEra will then build 4 nuclear Energy plants and bill all
their captive unsuspecting victims for the hundreds of billions in advance, which will result in staggering rate increases.
The poor Floridians count on their own controllable electric generation,which when managed responsibly, with strict oversight of performance(never in Lake Worth),they can afford.
Lake Worth never had a conscientious,moral, Commission and City manager which made certain that the most precious commodity functioned efficiently.
A vital source of income, for the General Fund, to pay Utility Debt, City employees salaries,including of the City Manager and Commission. All
Commissions were elected with vicious maligning,lies,foul accusations,against and of moral,knowledgeable Citizens.
A City manager was always hired without thorough performance and background check.
Lisa Maxwell,and the lazy, Commission and City Manager(don't want to oversee production) delusionally think SHE and that motley crew have the RIGHT to have FPL power grabbers steal Lake Worth's Independent 35000 Citizens owned, electric Utility from all 35000 Lake Worth Citizens.
They have no idea of the value of our generation and distribution system!!!
This is beyond delusions of grandeur,with inflated sense of importance.This is malicious intention of permanently crippling Lake Worth Economy!
Just look at them.
The motley crew:
Maxwell and City manager and Commission, do not pay our taxes and Utility bills.
They want Lake Worth 35000 Citizens (90% below poverty level,unlike Maxwell,C.M.)to contribute to the $95,000,000,- bonuses from the power grabbers' bonuses, NextEraEnergy/FPL.
This must go to a vote of all honestly informed ningdoasningdoas 10Citizen taxpayers,without the foul motley elements' usual dirty vicious liars' campaigns, against all Citizens'interests.
South Daytona and Winter Haven tried to get it back, but FPL spent $480,000,000 maligning them and instigating their sucker Citizen taxpayers against those who fought for the interest and saving economy of their Cities .
FPL managed to get it shot down.Once in the hands of your Energy( super rich) Masters, the unlimited strangulation rates of their yoke stays on!They pay treacherous promoters for their thefts handsomely!
Commissions and Managers who damage the Cities permanently with this communist action should be jailed!
I want to see the numbers before I commit to a position and I don't think a volunteer board (no matter how dedicated) is what I want to rely on for those figures.
PBC Ethics - #ClO-007
Re: Pricilla Taylor (& FPL)
1- RESPONDENT did receive a gift of a ticket to the Delray Beach Annual Chamber Gala from Florida
Power and Light (FPL).
2- FPL is a company that does retain staff who function as registered lobbyists with Palm Beach
County.
3- The ticket value was $150.00 which is in excess of the $100.00 limit imposed by sec. 2-244(a)
4- RESPONDENT received the prohibited gift from a long time personal friend who had only recently
obtained employment with FPL, not as a lobbyist.
5- Although FPL is the employer of registered lobbyists, no significant issue involving FPL lobbyists has
come before the county since RESPONDENT became a county commissioner on July 19, 2009.
6- The Response received by RESPONDENT acknowledges that she could have, and should have done
more to ensure that the gift was not prohibited. (didn't read the Ordinance before voting to pass it?)
7- The RESPONDENT has taken significant, concrete steps, by establishing staff procedures which
require better screening of all Invitations prior to acceptance, to ensure future compliance with the
code of ethics.
8- The gift at issue is $150.00, and a permissible gift would have been $100.00. The Commission finds
that the facts and circumstances of this case indicate that the alleged violation was insignificant (AFTER 73% of PBC Voted in the Ethics and IG! - VERY SIGNIFICANT - See WTE Boondoggle and FPL's Part!)
within the meaning of sec. 2-260.3.
9- The RESPONDENT has voluntarily returned the prohibited portion of the gift to the donor.
10- Further, based on the written response submitted by RESPONDENT, the nature of the facts and
circumstances surrounding the alleged violation and the steps taken by the RESPONDENT to
eliminate potential violations in the future, the Commission finds that the alleged violation was
inadvertent and unintentional.
(FYI: Local lawyer commented the Ethics Ordinance was written more like a "How to get away with ???", than protecting we the people from corruption!)
http://websearch.co.palm-beach.fl.us/search?q=cache:syLvj32gxrUJ:www.palmbeachcountyethics.com/pdf/Orders/2010/C10-007_with_Letter_of_Instruction.pdf+pricilla+taylor+%28site:palmbeachcountyethics.com+%29&ie=UTF-8&site=palmbeachcountyethics&output=xml_no_dtd&client=palmbeachcountyethics&lr=&proxystylesheet=http://www.co.palm-beach.fl.us/websearch/websch.xslt&access=p&oe=UTF-8
How much money is again flowing under the corrupt table in Lake Worth to make a sale to FPL happen?
Know what's funny? You won't post some of my comments because (I think) that the issues and arguments I raise are too well founded and make your argument look bad.
But then you post Suzanne's drivel about how Pricilla Taylor, our esteemed County Commissioner for Lake Worth FOR $50 !!!!!
Maybe it should be mentioned, but all the findings could have been edited out. How does this relate to this topic?
We're not talking $50 here, there is much more at stake.
I realize this is not a short term problem and selling the utility is not a long term solution. But by having it there without some safeguards to keep three commissioners from plundering it further at their whim is just so shortsighted. This commission, the last commission and many before and many to come down the road. You give TOO much power to five elected officials who KNOW NOTHING about the utility business except for how to drain as much money as they can because there is NO CAP, unlike property taxes.
It seems impossible for politicians to live within their means. "Thank goodness we have the Utility so that we can exceed the taxable limit of 10 mils.
What hogwash!! Why don't you see the exorbitant rate we are being screwed with each and every month as the hidden tax it is?
What benefit is having "control" of this valuable asset when the only control exercised is that to rob all of us rate payers.
So some butt plug has a problem with FPL's chief exec's pay. What does that have to do with the predicament we find ourselves?
Should we be ecstatic that it only took 3 weeks to get juice back on when a strong wind knocked out a main feed line on A street? Could FPL have done it quicker? What about our glowing customer service or the $millions of uncollectable debt we have on the books?
Let's see, we let the county take over the police and fire and the result is we have a more professional service on both counts with several times the resources we had when we had "control". Actually, both departments were out of control and our costs were spyralling to the point you are STILL calling for an assessment to pay for their ill gotten gains.
You are bringing up a hurricane from 8 years ago? What sort of damage do you think FPL had?
Wilma was the worst disaster in Juno Beach-based Florida Power & Light Co.'s history. Palm Beach County felt mostly sustained Category 1 (74-95 mph) winds, but Category 3 gusts of up to 120 mph were common.
The storm whacked the backbone of FPL's electrical grid, and was the final blow in a string of seven hurricanes in 15 months that hammered the utility's 4.3 million customers. The total cost to fix the grid damage from the 2004 and 2005 storms was $1.8 billion.
During Wilma, more than 11,000 FPL poles fell or snapped, and 241 substations experienced major damage. Close to 100 transmission structures were damaged. About 258,000, were without power for more than two weeks.
It is your opinion that we have a more "professional service with county police and fire. Who says so? What are your comps? Who says that we have MORE resources? We ALWAYS had the sheriff's services that were paid for on the county tax bill. How do you figure the departments were out of control? This is how history is re-written in this city. Crime is out of control in case you didn't notice.
P.s. NO one is calling for an assessment but with all the spending that this commission wants to do, along with NO negotiation with the police or fire unions, what's left? Leaving the holes in the road I guess or going out on a $63 million bond to pay for them all.
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