If you want to be able to read the franchise agreement ahead of time, please click on this link – FPL Franchise Agreement
Also here is a comment that was just sent in by a reader. I thought it was worth not having it buried in the comment section.
“Anonymous has left a new comment on your post “City of Sarasota to Vote on FPL Franchise Agreemen…“:
Read this carefully: FPL Franchise Agreements are very bad for municipalities.
In the simplest terms, FPL pays money to municipalities in exchange for the total rights to build ‘facilities’ in the municipality’s right-of-ways. This means dangerous and property value reducing Transmission Lines, Sub-Stations, transforms, etc.
Once signed, FPL has all the rights, and the municipality has zero rights. The municipality will NEVER be able to sue FPL to stop these things, because they signed the Agreement. No judge will let FPL lose, and rightfully so – its what the Agreement says. See “FPL v Brevard County”, and read how the court ruled in favor of FPL, based on the Agreement.
Is that clear enough?
Then add this to the mix – the municipality will never be able to produce it’s own power for the benefit of its residents, and in most cases, for the benefit of its own power needs. The municipality may be able to ask another power company to provide power at a lower cost that FPL, but FPL has right of first refusal, and they are so big that they will always lose some money to keep their monopoly.
Clear enough yet?
And finally. The worst of it all – the money that FPL pays the municipality? It comes straight out of the resident’s pocket. Read that again.
Resident gets an electric bill, resident pays an extra 6%, FPL passes through that money to the municipality, and FPL gets all the benefits of the Agreement. It’s an invisible tax, and the municipality gets to claim their millage rate is low, and FPL gets all the rights.
Any elected official who signs this agreement ought to be run out of town on a rail, plain and simple. They are not voting for their constituent’s benefit, but for FPL’s profit.
Don’t sign that Agreement, and FPL still will provide power and service and upgrades – it’s the law.
And yet, I bet that Sarasota will pass it. It’s a disgrace.”
