Mayor Sullivan Part III

Mayor Elect Sullivan on privatization:

this is telling us that we need to take control of the utilities away from the city and bring in a non- profit entity to run them.

In fact, I would rather see someone like Al Capone running the utilities rather than the city of Cape Coral.

We have been paying too much for utility line installations. Someone at the city level must take control of these projects as they have become unaffordable the way they are being delivered.

Either that or the utilities must be privatized. We cannot afford to let the city run the utilities any longer.

If our administration can’t deliver the same services at the same price as other communities in Florida by taking these projects in-house and/or by getting rid of manager at risk...

then the utilities need to be privatized in order to curb the financial destruction brought on by these projects as they exist today.

If the city refuses to take these projects in-house, then there is only one other alternative and that is to privatize the utilities.

We are paying a premium for the construction because we use the manager at risk methodology.

I suspect we are paying a premium of around 37% to make it more convenient for some of our utilities' employees.

There is one other alternative; that would be to sell the utilities and pay down the debt and privatize it. It would be regulated and we would have experts running it.

We don't appear to be able to run this ourselves without the prospect of huge rate increases each year.

We need to get the utilities out of the hands of the city because it is too expensive and will only make it unaffordable to stay in Cape Coral.

Two words pop into my mind, gross incompetence. This administration is not capable of running the sewer and water utilities.

The Nattering One muses... we concur with the Mayor elect...

the current administration is not capable of running the city, much less the sewer and water utilities.

Don't blame the worker bees... Its not the utilities employees or the supervisors and managers where the rubber meets the road that are the problem.

CCC does not need any outsourcing or privatization. Utilities need the mayor elect to clear the deck, so they can get their jobs done without any interference.

Privatization to "for profit" would be a disaster of epic proportion. For profit, means FOR PROFIT, as in we hire the cheapest labor...

and defer maintenance on new equipment, till the system is run into the ground. Thus dropping service levels to the bare minimum, while raising rates to the maximum.

Better check the records, utilities employees never asked for a manager at risk. It was someone else who convinced the council on that one.

Keep it in the house... Baton Rouge, which was ranked No. 6 in the top 40 cities to weather this depression by the Brookings Institute...

"grew jobs every month until August 2009 and in August it only lost nine-tenths of a percent, compared to 5.1% nationally,"

said Lauren C. Scott, professor emeritus of economics at LSU.

Scott said $5.1 billion of construction projects have been announced or are under construction in the Baton Rouge metro...

including a new plant for French chemical company SNF and the expansion of an ExxonMobil chemical plant.

Most of the projects are infrastructure buildout being done by local government.

Again, Mayor Sullivan, no privatization, no outsourcing of utility management or jobs, get the UEP on track by taking the project in house...

and expanding services down the main buisness corridors. Thereby, letting local business defer the costs to cut a path to the residents.

More to come.