Expiration of Lakeland Electric Contract in 2010

While looking through the 2009 - 2010 Fiscal Year Budget Document I stumbled upon some interesting contract information that to my knowledge had not been disclosed to the public. 

On printed page number 22 & 23, actual document page number 23 & 24, under the Franchise Fees: General Fund description is where I found this information.  Here is a link to the actual document on Polk City's web site: FY 2009-2010 Budget Document

This section states, "The city receives franchise fees from Lakeland Electric, Tampa Electric and Florida Refuse the sanitation company that the city has contracted with.  In 2008, the agreement with Tampa Electric was renewed, and revised to include all the customers.  The agreement for Lakeland expires in 2010 and council has given clear direction to staff to attempt to have Polk City removed from Lakeland's service area due to egregiously high electric rates.  In addition, Lakeland has fallen behind in payments to the city.  The city may have to consider an audit of Lakeland Electric's accounts to ensure that the city is receiving the fees owed.  Our projection does not reflect an increase due to economic factors."

Considering how may city residents expressed concern about their high electric bills from Lakeland Electric during the petition signing, when I found this over the weekend, first thing Monday morning September 27th, I contacted the Acting City Manager/Vice Mayor Trudy Block to find out what the status of the Lakeland Electric contract was.  She indicated that she had not heard anything about this contract expiration, but she would look into it.  She said that since she took office in April, she did not know if the contract has expired prior to her taking office and that was possibly why she had not heard anything, or possibly they had not had time to look at this issue due to all the other things they had been working on.  I stressed the importance of this contract issue due to the hardship that these high fees are putting on the majority of the city's population during these tough economic times, plus that fact that it could be an additional revenue source if back monies still need to be collected from Lakeland.  

I called her back the following day, Tuesday, to see if she had any additional information.  She said she had not had time to look into it yet.  Wednesday, I was unable to reach her.  Thursday, I called her again.  By the tone in her voice, she appeared to be getting a little agitated by my phone calls.  She still did not have any additional information on the issue.  She made it sound like it was on her To Do List, but is was not a priority.  I think the majority of the city residents would disagree.  These high bills hit close to 90% of the city residents every month.  If this contract with Lakeland Electric has expired and nothing has been done, there could be some financial relief in the near future of these residents if the city would follow up on this issue and finish what the previous administration had started the process on.

Please contact the City Officials in person or on the phone at (863)984-1375 and let them know how important this issue really is to the people.  The more they hear from the people, maybe they can realize that this issue does need a bump up on the priority list to give the residents some relief.  Apparently the city officials have no concept of living paycheck to paycheck and the struggles of trying to figure out where the money is going to come from to keep food on the table in these tough economic times.