FUEL ADJUSTMENT?

[TBEAR]

Well I got my electricity bill in from Entergy and they nearly doubled the fuel adjustment from last month. My power usage was $80.00 and the fuel adjustment they convieniantly tack on was $154.00. Last months fuel adjustment was $104.00.

I have talked to other people with Slemco and LUS and the same crap.

Its now getting ridiculous on fuel adjustments. Until these power companies invest in nuclear power plants it will keep going up. I have friends that live in Florida that recieve their power from a nuclear plant. There are no fuel adjustments and it is way cheaper for the size home they live in.

The oil and gas companies, of which South Louisiana and their bought and paid for politicians, dont want nuclear plants in South Louisiana because that means their product would not be used to make electricity therefore they would lose money.

So I guess next month it will go up another $50.00 for fuel adjustment.

[theman]

well get use to it. the political powers want them to charge more because that is more money they can get from them in contributions to they campaign. the OIL companies can go down on their prices BUT they don't give a crap about the common person. My bill went up $100.00 from last month that does me no good. the state is broke, prices are going up and we are not getting a cost of living raise to keep up with all the extra expense.

[zoe10850]

I wonder exactly why the "City" owned and operated utility system is supposed to be good for the taxpayers ?

The rates are higher than Cleco, or SlemCo, LUS does not pay ANY TAXES (unlike SlemCo, Cleco, Entergy etc), but do offer a "payment in lieu" which is substantially less than taxes would be. Now we must not only pay taxes, both property (high) and sales, excessive electric bills, but soon, we will be subsidizing a government telephone and cable T V business.

I say, let private industry run business, let's sell LUS and use the money to build some roads.

[guest]

obviously, once again the big oil compaines are making the big bucks, supported by the federal government, where so many high elected officals maintain personal financial intrests- they may say they are concerned, however when you make over six figures in salary, ect...get driven around in a limo, or jets that the tax payers pay for and the fuel there in- they are not concerned, or can fathom what a $100.00 increase in fuel costs means to the average person- furthermore, in reference to the LUS monopoly, it seems that city government, and the ties there in to LUS make it seem like the coreleone family...(don't think the higher ups there are concerned either)

[TBEAR]

Check out this link and think about what I originally posted:

www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/states/statesla.html

[zoe10850]

And why doesn't our "free press" ask LUS why it has the money to subsidize a telephone operation, sell energy to others, yet cannot seem to cut our rates? I am glad that BellSouth sued the City...Government has no place in business except where business cannot be profitable (streets, fire and law enforcement etc) To think this is okay, used to be called socialism (and this is a republican administration ?) You folks have to understand that the operation af a cable, telephone system is expensive, and will require many people to staff and service...who will pay? YOU !!!!!!! through the higher utility rates we pay. And the best part is only citizens within the city can access the proposed service, even though we are all part of "consolidated government"...........

[TBEAR]

Anything that would help lower my bill a month, of course competition doesn't always work either, look at cox and bellsouth, they didnt offer any lower rates to keep customers and make them vote out fiber in the city.

[TBEAR]

I sure hope so because even now cox and bs customer service aint nothing to brag over, so we'll see

[john]

New member, just catching up..

zoe10850, there are some inaccuracies here: 1) LUS pays a higher percentage of its gross income in "in lieu of taxes" than any private provider. Arguably this is appropriate because they are returning both "tax" to the city and "profit" to owners but it is not true that they pay less than private companies; they pay more. (If Entergy owned the city lines the city would get less from them than they currently do from LUS. 2) LUS will not "subsidize" its telecom division with monies from other divisions. This is forbidden by a law that BellSouth and Cox had passed just for Lafayette (lucky that we have such carring state legislators). LUS can borrow money, only at market rates, from LUS and the city but that has to be paid back. Any ongoing subsidy is a legal impossibility. 3) The published buisness plan does cover equipment and personel. (LUS already does line service and the like, that would be hard for them to miss that.)

Bout fuel prices: I think that the biggest issues are the increasingly high price of gas and rate hikes for the hurricanes. Gas used to be the cheapest way to generate electricity but market hikes recently drove up prices beyond other fuels like coal. Louisiana companies, for obvious reasons, found it easy to use gas. Companies with the greatest proportion of gas in their generating plants are passing on the largest increases. I think Entergy just got a rate hike, early, for the hurrican expenses. We'll see more of that probably....not good.

[citizen]

Why is LUS making a profit? Why should a citizen owned utility make a profit? Why should my "in lieu of tax" money be spent arbitrarily by the government? Should the beneficiaries of the "in lieu of tax" money (our local government) also be the "controlling authority" that sets the rates? One has to wonder how fair our rates are.

[john]

Nick,

You musta missed last summer....LUS and a lot of people in the community waged a winning election campaign to introduce a retail model.

There was nothing sneaky or underhanded in the least about the retail plan. There was no nefarious, hidden change pulled over on the people of Lafayette. Billboards, ads, editorials in the paper, the whole nine yards.

It was suggested, we voted, the new idea won: 62 to 38%.

I'm not sure what grounds there are for distrust in all that....unless there is some other reason to dislike the very idea.

[citizen]

Maybe he's a believer in free enterprise? Maybe he's not a fan of collectivism and central planning? Lots of reasons to not like LUS's plan. And an aside to one of your other posts: Isn't there an attempt by a few local leges to repeal the very laws you state that govern LUS?

[layne]

Guest, believers in free enterprise ought to be ecstatic that, once LUS goes into the telecomm business, we'll FINALLY have some free enterprise competition here. Right now, you want cable, you got one choice, and it's expensive, their service is bad, and the channels are lousy. Do you think they can keep that up after they get some competition? Are you aware that Lafayette is the only city served by Cox that had THREE rate increases in a single year? They could never have gotten away with that if there had been another cable company in town. Free enterprise thrives on competition -- let's get some!

[Friend]

I have read and re- read that last response, but for the life of me, I cannot believe that anyone would define a government owned utility as "free enterprise". Sorry but maybe you could explain that to me.

[TBEAR]

I sure wish they would spend as much effort on roadbuilding as running fiber.

[john]

Nick,

You say:

"As we all know, government hardly does anything well or effectively, and I believe service for repairs and technical problems for LUS's customers will be no different."

I think that may be where we differ. It is NOT obvious to me, sorry. I think that I'm pretty suspicious of the "everybody knows that" argument generally. 9 times out of 10 it turns out to be untrue. For instance Public electrical utilities regularly have better track records on both down time and speed of repair than adjacent private companies. LUS is a good local example of this.

I think the problem that most folks identify with "govt" is actually a problem of big bureaucracy--and in that regard LUS has the advantage over both BellSouth and Entergy. LUS is a small, local company and I expect them to care more about this community than BS ever will. (You've talked to Huval--do you know who the head of BS even is? Much less AT&T when the buyout goes through.)

So on both the evidence and logic I expect LUS to do a better job than BS or Cox....though Cox at least has a half-decent chance to compete.

[layne St Julien]

TBear, LUS is doing fiber, city-parish government does roads. LUS is a utility company, and their fiber efforts won't affect city-parish road building one way or another. A lot of folks are misinformed about this, thinking that resources that could be used on roads -- or drainage, fire protection, or policing -- will be taken away from those projects and used instead to build the fiber loop. It isn't so. The money to lay in fiber will come from selling bonds, not from the city-parish coffers, and this money can be used ONLY for fiber. Your comment is kind of like saying you wish Cox would spend as much effort rebuilding I-10 as it does providing cable and Internet. :-)

[Abbd]

Did we "hire" this present group of politicians to build out a fiber system or did we "hire" them to do what a government is supposed to do: Police protection and crime prevention, fire protection and prevention,drainage,build streets that are easily traversed and facilitate movement with little effort, solve existing traffic problems, be proactive in anticipating future growth by building streets in correct locations, cut the cost of government by eliminating needless expenses. I believe in Mr. Durel's campaign literature he emphatically stated he was against the "government competing with the private sector" when asked specifically about terry's fiber. So I guess I voted for Joey for all the wrong reasons. Too bad I didn't know how he really felt.

[Abbd]

Using the supposition that government can do things cheaper, what other business do you think gov't should challenge? How about the oil business, we all know the "big oil"companies are making obscene profits and ripping off consumers, and let's face it we need cheaper energy costs much more than we need cheaper internet. Just think, if the gov't owns it then the gov't won't have to pay out all those $dividends$ to shareholders (there won't be any shareholders, because the government will own it and control it). In this time when it's harder and harder for a government to get the taxpayers to vote to increase their own taxes, we will see more and more government intrusion into the private sector, and that cause will be championed by the same folks that are leading this charge.

[TBEAR]

layne said:

TBear, LUS is doing fiber, city-parish government does roads. LUS is a utility company, and their fiber efforts won't affect city-parish road building one way or another. A lot of folks are misinformed about this, thinking that resources that could be used on roads -- or drainage, fire protection, or policing -- will be taken away from those projects and used instead to build the fiber loop. It isn't so. The money to lay in fiber will come from selling bonds, not from the city-parish coffers, and this money can be used ONLY for fiber. Your comment is kind of like saying you wish Cox would spend as much effort rebuilding I-10 as it does providing cable and Internet. :-)

Layne / John (new member), if you will note I said "I sure wish they would spend as much effort on roadbuilding" I did not say spend as much money. In other words the time and effort they, ie: DUREL, is spending on pushing the fiber issue could be better spent on pushing the road issues.

Why is it the private sector, such as the Home Builders Association, that has to push the issue of road building instead of our local government? Why is not the city parish president's job to contact the governor/federal government to make verot school rd a hurricane evacuation route? His only answer is more taxes from the people or toll roads. You would think the head of transportation could have thought of that. Does anyone even know his position, not the councils, on backing the Home Builders?

I am a parish residence and could care less about fiber because they do not offer it to parish residents and no one in the parish could vote for it. What happended to consolidation? Why is the city parish not extending their utility services into the parish and spend efforts on that instead of fiber. Of course once this happens you are locked into one choice for utilities to your home, kinda like cox and bellsouth have done with tv and phone.

It appears the agenda is to forget about parish residents.

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