Last night, St. Augustine City Commissioners passed on first reading Ordinance No. 2008-13, which would extend for thirty (30) years the Florida Power & Light franchise to operate in the City of St. Augustine.
The franchise does not expire until June 2009.
Haste makes waste.
The only detectable concession by FPL is annexation of its SR 16 substation.
If the franchise agreement passes, St. Augustine and St. Johns County residents will pay more for electricity for 30 years.
We need to consider the possibility of public power – like Jacksonville, Orlando, Gainesville, Tallahassee, Clay County and other Florida towns.
St. Augustine may be too small to take on FPL by itself – but we should be talking to St. Johns County and Jacksonville about it, instead of letting our lousy lawyers con us into another horrible deal.
Remember the rush to judgment on COMCAST’ franchised? We got stuck with a bad deal for 15 years.
These City Commissioners don’t know how to run business operations and they damn sure don’t know how to negotiate.
The corrupt franchise renewal deal should be stopped.
At least two new Commissioners will take office in December.
There’s plenty of time to consider a referendum for a St. Augustine and St. Johns public power system, buying FPL’s poles and wires and negotiating with JEA for power supply.
The defeatist attitude showed by Chief Operating Officer JOHN REGAN once again shows no imagination, no ethics and little interest than in pleasing his boss, City Manager WILLIAM B. HARRISS.
Stop the 30 year deal with FPL. Let the people learn more about electrical generation and choose for themselves. The clowns who just authorized three billboards to stay past 2016 have no business deciding on the energy future of our town.
They have no energy (SUSAN BURK was falling asleep last night) and no interest in protecting the public.
Come to the City Commission on July 28th and speak out on our right to have a debate on public power.
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