Tomorrow night, the Lake Worth commission meets at 6pm. Under New business, there are four items. I am addressing Item A.
Item A. Commissioner Hardy brought forward this item. He thinks it a good idea to get our Electric Utility "off our plate." He wants the City Commission to deliberate and decide the following two questions:
(1) Should the City Commission engage the Florida Municipal Power Agency (FMPA)
to ascertain whether it and its members will release the City from its obligations to
them for an agreed upon price?
(2) Should the City Commission engage Florida Power and Light to ascertain whether
it is willing to transact with the City and purchase its electric utility assets?
Commissioner Hardy, acting alone without vote or any authorization of the commission, approached FMPA and FPL.
For a little bit of trivia--In year 2002, we entered into a contract with FMPA that locked us into higher power costs.
The beginning of lowering rates started in December 2008 when we voted to exit FMPA All Requirements. By the end of 2013, we ended our contract with them. In January 2014 we got a new energy provider with Orlando Utilities giving us a rate that was more favorable to Lake Worth and renewed with them in 2018 on a five year contract.
Then what did the commission do? FMPA had been contracted again, this time regarding our solar and signed a Solar Power Sales Contract with FMPA; deliveries began June 2020. FMPA screwed us on the gas line years ago so the City must be masochistic to be back in business with them.
The FMPA solar procurement is a 20-year power purchase agreement. Normally they give option renewals to extend the agreement and I have a Public Information Request for the contract. And good luck with the wish to sell our electric utility to Florida Power & Life (NextEra Energy). It will never happen. They don't want it. We all could have told you that Commissioner Hardy.
Even though we have had some problems with our solar energy program...some people believe it easier to sell the whole damn Electric Utility--easier to get it off our plate. We go through this every decade or less.
Just like there is no systemic racism in Lake Worth Commissioner Hardy, no one wants to sell our utility that has been around since 1914. Any sale of our Utility would take a vote of our electorate.
Immediately following is New Business B, Commissioner Maxwell's Resolution 30-2020 in support of the Lake Worth Electric Utility.
5 comments:
No company is going to buy the Electric Utility. Hardy is just, once again, acting like a know-it-all before he leaves office by November 2 or something like that.
Does Ass Man(aka Hardy) even live in Lake Worth? And even if he does,he won't for much longer. Does this guy know what is going on in this city?????
The latest destructive and uninformed idea from the politically motivated Hardy.
We citizens of Lake Worth pay his inflated salary and he does not educate himself re the history of a previous attempt to sell.
I spoke with the PUC during that time and they told me that FPL would be required to raise our utility rates to recover their investment over a 10 year period.
So a 'sale'would be a loan that FPL would recover by gouging us with exorbitant rates that we citizens got rid of by exiting FMPA and contracting with Orlando Utility.
If I were being paid $30K a year as a commissioner, I would fully study an issue before making s uch a proposal.
Laurence McNamara Citizen taxpayer
Thank you Laurence. Well said.
Thank you Laurence. Well said.
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