Public Utility District And Consumer Demands

The Concern over the cost of electric continues to be at the forefront of the cost of living debate in Connecticut. Yesterday I met with an executive at Countrywide Financial who indicated that foreclosures in Milford have reached a record 350 with nearly 80% of the city mortgaged. Already declining real estate values have been impacting home equity lines of credit by having lenders either cancel them completely or reduce the amount by which can be drawn.

When I asked what advice he had for fixing these issues he said Connecticut needs living wage jobs and curbs on the cost of energy. There are too many Milford residents that are struggling and are in danger of losing their home. The news on Wall Street last week has also been disappointing with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae reaching new lows, lows so low that over 90% of their stock value has been lost in a year.

Should these two lending giants drop out of the lending arena, banks will have to issue their own in-house loans and reduce their risk to depositors by only writing loans to individuals with high credit scores. When I asked what the new magic number was, he indicated that would be somewhere between 740 and a 760 FICO score. Essentially this score would exclude 80-85% of all potential lenders. This is what has been dubbed as the "Credit crunch," and is going to pose some serious challenges for commission based professional dependent on loans being written to purchase property, build additions and conduct repairs.

On the local front, and specifically dealing with the energy issue alone, I have spoken with and written to some of our local leaders. I would like to add my concern that Jim Amann's last two legislative updates both ignored UI and the high cost of energy, this is even after I took issue with him after receiving the last 2007 legislative update. Not that I am a Rell fan but she has a "One Thing" program, what does Amann have or propose?

So far all I have seen from the Dem's, (and I single them out because all our elected state leaders in town are Democrats,) is one person looking to "condemn" the electric company and the other just completely ignores the issue, besides Slossberg "fighting the hike" where is the leadership?

I think you need to look at the UI situation like a bad marriage between us the ratepayers and them the monopoly. This is clearly an abusive relationship with UI as the abuser. We either need to fix the relationship or get a divorce from this company. Energy companies are a “dime a dozen” and the taxpayers have a real attractive “grid.” We do not need to take their abuse they produce nothing, since the 1999 deregulation they have become nothing more than brokers or middle men. Why can't we buy energy directly without having it marked up and resold to us? This was my question to Mike Brown who is a member of the Democratic Town Committee who responded to this question by making the following partisan statement:


"The Crux of the Situation: Government control of transmission and distribution, as indicated in the resolution, would require the establishment of a Public Utility District (PUD). This is the case throughout the country and is required by federal law. The PUD would manage the distribution of electricity. A government run district would be more inclined to promote reasonable energy development, conservation, and renewable generating methods. PUD's are nonprofit entities and are run by an elected board - elected by the citizens, not a shareholder in Texas.

And as for government control, would you let the State Government control the public highways? Oh, that's right, they already do - a very big "lemon aide stand" in deed (to quote Scott Willey). Apparently there are things called public libraries, also run by the government. Willey's rhetoric is right out of the Republican playbook. The Republicans say that "government doesn't work" and "government is bad." They often prove this once they get into power. Here in Milford, we suffered through 18 years of Republicans running the government - badly."

To conclude this post, I cannot emphasise more strongly that this is not an issue that we can afford to be partisan on. A solution must be found to benefit the thousands of struggling families trying to make ends meet. I believe that partisan politics will only prolong this problem and I am making a plea to all our Representatives here in town and the state to get on the same page. When we all agree miracles can happen!