Listen, don’t believe for a minute that Chuckles’ hostile takeover of Gainesville Regional Utilities is an isolated instance of one suburban politician doing dirt to a city that he hates.
In fact, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Chuckles’ bad bill to rob Gainesville residents of their control over the municipal utility they own is part and parcel of a larger legislative blueprint intended to enrich investor owned utilities at the expense of municipal ratepayers.
Thanks to the Florida Phoenix, a non-profit news organization in Tallahassee, for its heads up about the passage of a bill that will make it easier for investor owned utilities to pick up city-owned water and sewer utilities at bargain basement prices…and then drive up rates for customers of those public services.
Reports Florida Phoenix:
Here’s some more mischief the Legislature is up to: Both chambers have passed legislation making it easier for corporations to take over municipal water systems.
According to columnist Craig Pittman, that’s bad news because these corporations, some controlled by hedge funds, tend to inflate water and sewer bills after they assume control — by 90% in one Pennsylvania town.
This legislation would put muni water customers at the tender mercy of the Public Service Commission — which has been called “a wholly owned subsidiary of Florida Power & Light” — to set rates.
Read Pittman’s report here in its entirety. It’s an eye-opener.
Among other things he writes: When similar legislation passed in a dozen other states, “it set off a feeding frenzy of corporate takeovers of smaller water systems,” warned Mary Grant of Food and Water Watch, an advocacy group focused on government accountability on those issues. “And then all these small towns started seeing their water and sewer bills going up.”
In one Pennsylvania township, she said, “the rates have gone up 90 percent … and a lot of it’s just going for corporate profits.”
Make no mistake, GNV. Make no mistake, GRU ratepayers. Chuckles and his cohorts in the Legislature do not have your best interests at heart.
Rather, they are carrying water for investor owned utilities that see the opportunity for enormous profits by turning publicly owned utilities into privately run cash cows.
FreeGNV 