IT IS A TALE TOLD BY A MAYOR, FULL OF SOUND AND FURY, SIGNIFYING NOTHING
The recent antics by the Mayor remind me of the line from Macbeth. He is trying to stir up his base and obscure the real facts about the high bills at the MLGW. After all this is an election year and he is feeling the heat.
The real reason for the high bills is that the MLGW is piling up profits and unrestricted cash at a rate of over $50 million per year. The latest publicly available audited financial statement is for the calendar year 2005. The unrestricted cash as of December 31, 2005 was $230 million, up from $177 million at the end of 2004. By the end of 2006 it is probably over $280 million. State law requires that the major part of this surplus be returned to the rate payers as rate reductions. This is not being done. The Mayor could follow state law and reduce the utility rates and bills. If he does not, there could be a class action suit by the ratepayers.
I have asked for the latest monthly unaudited financial statement. This monthly statement will give some indication of the amount of profits that the utility is making. Sources tell me that these are furnished monthly to the board of Commissioners of the MLGW and to other executives of the utility and are available by the middle of the month after the end of the preceding month. However, the open records person at the MLGW keeps telling me that it is not yet available. It looks like it will require a law suit to get this open records information from our public utility. And they are wondering why the public has lost confidence in the MLGW. If they had opened their records, none of this would have happened. I have shown below the November 2005 monthly statement which
I finally received in the past long past when it was available. They have so far refused to give the November and December 2006 statements or the January 2007 statements. What are they hiding and why?
Click here to see what the Board of Commissioners of the MLGW and the executives see each month but which the public is denied
The recent antics by the Mayor remind me of the line from Macbeth. He is trying to stir up his base and obscure the real facts about the high bills at the MLGW. After all this is an election year and he is feeling the heat.
The real reason for the high bills is that the MLGW is piling up profits and unrestricted cash at a rate of over $50 million per year. The latest publicly available audited financial statement is for the calendar year 2005. The unrestricted cash as of December 31, 2005 was $230 million, up from $177 million at the end of 2004. By the end of 2006 it is probably over $280 million. State law requires that the major part of this surplus be returned to the rate payers as rate reductions. This is not being done. The Mayor could follow state law and reduce the utility rates and bills. If he does not, there could be a class action suit by the ratepayers.
I have asked for the latest monthly unaudited financial statement. This monthly statement will give some indication of the amount of profits that the utility is making. Sources tell me that these are furnished monthly to the board of Commissioners of the MLGW and to other executives of the utility and are available by the middle of the month after the end of the preceding month. However, the open records person at the MLGW keeps telling me that it is not yet available. It looks like it will require a law suit to get this open records information from our public utility. And they are wondering why the public has lost confidence in the MLGW. If they had opened their records, none of this would have happened. I have shown below the November 2005 monthly statement which
I finally received in the past long past when it was available. They have so far refused to give the November and December 2006 statements or the January 2007 statements. What are they hiding and why?
Click here to see what the Board of Commissioners of the MLGW and the executives see each month but which the public is denied
posted by watchdog at
4:36 PM
1 Comments:
First it was the City's budget where the red ink caught everyone by surprise, especially Lee and Herenton. Now it is happening at MLGW. Sabotage, hardly, try incompetence.
This city is the biggest joke in the nation.
By
Anonymous, at 8:58 PM
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