Life Of Jason

It’s all over town that City Council voted to table the proposed rate increase by City Utilities for gas rates. While it’s not a definite no…more like a “come back later”…it’s good for customers of City Utilities who cannot afford to have their rates go much higher.

The lone voice against tabling the measure was Councilman Doug Burlison. Why? This is from Doug:

“I voted not to table the natural gas increase because I felt that a stronger message needs to be sent to C. U. I was fairly confident that the opposition votes were there if the measure did not get tabled, otherwise, I would have preferred “tabling” over passage of the increase. My reasoning behind this is that I still feel that the utility has paid only lip-service in their response to the recommendations and spirit of the audit report. I do not feel that it is just a matter of the utility’s management not communicating about their reforms well enough; I think what citizens and ratepayers are looking for are obvious actions that indicate less arrogance, and show a truer attitude of service.”

Strong words from Councilman Burlison and I think he is really reflecting the opinions of many in the community regarding City Utilities request on this matter. I know I had posted earlier about John Twitty side-stepping the question about the rate increase going into effect because customers were using less gas. The answer of “if you use less gas your bill will be lower” is true enough but that doesn’t explain why customers should pay more per therm because they’ve been conserving enough to create a noticeable drop in usage. We still don’t have an answer to that.

Something that really leapt out to me during the discussions of this issue from City Utilities was the constant refrain that CU customers enjoy rates that are 20% below the state and national average. I had the thought…and a few other local bloggers and media professionals shared it…about the income levels in Springfield versus the averages.

The following information is taken from Wikipedia, HUD and US Census Bureau data.

The average median income for a Springfield area household is $34,631. The average for the state of Missouri is $44,651. The national average is $48,201.

That means on average a Springfield household is making 22.4% less than the average median household income in Missouri. It’s making 28.1% less than the national average. So if we’re paying 20% less for utilities than the average we’re still paying more on average than other areas if it’s based on income.

Right now, it feels like a lot of people don’t trust City Utilities. It’s not an active distrust like you may hear from some of the more vocal critics but it’s more like that the citizens have stopped giving CU the benefit of the doubt.

If you want to sound off on what’s happening with City Utilities and provide them more citizen input on the front end before they send proposals to the Council, you can attend their board meetings. The next regularly scheduled meeting of the board is Thursday at 3pm in the C. Frank Knox Board Room. It’s not in the building on the corner where you pay your bill…it’s in the building behind that one. A public comment time is scheduled although the agenda doesn’t say if you have to register ahead of time to make a comment to the CU board.