Since the Gainesville Sun editorial page Editor, Ron Cunningham has refused to publish this column by former Gainesville Mayor Tom Bussing, we offer this information to the visitors of this webiste with thanks to Mr. Bussing for sharing his opinion with the citizens of Florida who depend on the media and government officials to defend their best interests.
The Shell Game
Gainesville Is Giving Away Its Energy Future
By Thomas Bussing
It defies belief that the biggest utility contract in our city’s history has been offered to an essentially empty paper entity whose principle activity is financial speculation, quick profit and quick sell-off.
We the people are committing to their 500 million dollar private contract to burn trees so that we can buy back electricity at more expensive rates.
Until now we were a municipal utility that built, owned and operated its system on behalf of the citizens. This deal transfers future ownership to shifting paper corporations who in turn sell off the rights they acquired from us.
Better hope it all works perfectly, because the bail-out leaves us bankrupt and in hock forever to outside private financiers.
We have been told that we cannot break this contract. We have been told it’s too late, that if it is stopped the city might incur a financial penalty for the default.
What we really worry about is the opposite: that going ahead with this plant may bring on the biggest financial disaster possible for a city. We who pay the rates are on the line to pay the half-billion dollar cost.
But there is hope.
A good start is simply agreeing that building this plant is a bad idea, and that therefore the agreement is against our interests. The facts tell us it would be better to not go ahead.
Many letters to this newspaper have presented various reasons why we would be better off if this plant is not built. Here are a few more.
The contractor, “Nacogdoches Power,” is a corporate entity created for a single project, a planned bio-burner in Nacogdoches, Texas, for which it was named. Quoting from their December 14, 2007 proposal to GRU: “Nacogdoches Power was formed in 2005. … the company has no permanent employees…”
They are not builders or operators of power plants. They are merely seekers of financial arrangements, which they re-sell. They have no visible balance sheet and no actual employees.
They recently sold their so-called “Texas Project” to another outfit, before even getting it constructed. “Nacogdoches Power” has rebranded into “American Renewables” in the process.
They will not be running whatever gets built here. They may not even construct it. But they expect to be lucratively rewarded for their short time in town.
GRU admits that when completed, this plant will command a premium (high) price for its output. Rates can be expected to rise. In the end, to solve such problems we may be forced to buy them out – and at a price that has not been disclosed.
Amazingly, such key terms have never been disclosed to the public, nor even our elected commissioners and mayor.
Five hundred million dollars is a lot of money to contract for, and it is we, the citizens who live here, who will have to pay unless it is stopped.
There is one thing we can all agree upon – that it would be far better for this contract to be voided than to take the enormous risk of bankrupting our utility and our city.
Not a brick has been laid, no equipment purchased for this proposed plant.
With that as our goal, we can proceed to explore mechanisms and any costs of extricating our City from this ill-advised and hastily-agreed-to contract.
In the long run, we will be much better off.
Dr. Thomas Bussing served as Mayor of Gainesville (2001-2004)
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