800 Pound Gorilla | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Forty cents on the dollar. That’s what the city of Washington is telling us we have to pay, to them, to pay off a loan to the NCEMPA, which is where the City buys electricity, to re-sell to the citizens of Beaufort County. Now according to my calculations, (taught by schools of Beaufort County) that is 40% of our power bill each month. If you take a light bill (not the total power bill including sewer and water) of 275.00 and break it down, that’s approximately $110.00 too high according to their facts and figures. I could live very comfortable with another $110.00 per month. I wonder if I am the only person who would be able to be more comfortable with more money?

    I recently read in The Washington Daily News that the City has been awarded nearly $6 million in Economic Recovery Zone Bond capacity by the N.C. Department of Commerce. The city plans on spending this money to do several renovations and building projects with the self patting on the back premise of “putting people to work”. It’s all good an fine to put people to work simply because we do need the jobs. It’s all good and fine to fix and repair. BUT!!!! These projects should be in the budget already and therefore covered so as not to interfere with this money. Is it not part of ownership to expect maintenance of properties? Do you buy a home and not paint and repair? Do you just sit and watch it crumble before your eyes or do you plan for repairs to be made? Why has the City not planned for these repairs and construction in advance and included them in their budget?

    Why not take this “nearly six million” dollars and apply it to the “loan” that is driving our power bills through the stratosphere? The city says that Washington’s “part” of the loan now stands at $144 million. So after nearly 40 years of paying on this “loan” we still owe $144 million dollars? Someone please tell us how much the riginal “loan” was and how much interest are they paying? Something must be wrong here because if it takes 40 years to pay a “loan” down to $144 million, there was a problem in the beginning. But let’s get back to the original story here.

    If you apply the “nearly six million to the aforementioned six million, that leave around 138 million (again according to BCS math) to be paid. Now I’m not going into interest, compounds, daily stock quotes and such, but just go old plain thinking will be used here. If you pay $6000.00 dollars on your home mortgage, you will save interest and eventually get the loan paid off early. It’s the same with any bill you may have. What separates this “loan” from any other loan? Does the city have a vested interest in NOT paying off this “loan”? Do they somehow manage to extrude a higher power bill from it’s customers through this “loan”?

    It seems to me that six million dollars paid on a “loan” of 144 million would certainly bring down the interest and balance of this “loan”. I really can’t see such a “loan” being made interest free, now or 40 years ago. If the city was truly interested in lowering our power bills as they say, they would make an effort to pay this bill down, without raising our utility bills. Six million dollars could and would make a dent in this “800 pound gorilla on our back” as the NCEMPA described the debt.