From the City of Minneapolis website, with emphasis added:
Regular meeting of the Minneapolis City Council Committee of the Whole standing committee and Intergovernmental Relations subcommittee.
Municipal Utility: 10:00 a.m. public hearing to consider authorizing the establishment of a municipal electrical utility and authorizing the City to own, operate, construct, and extend electric facilities and to purchase and acquire the property of any existing electrical public utility operating within the City of Minneapolis for the purpose of providing electrical and related services.
10:30 a.m. public hearing to consider authorizing the establishment of a municipal gas utility and authorizing the City to own, operate, construct, and extend gas and similar facilities and to purchase and acquire the property of any existing gas public utility operating within the City of Minneapolis for the purpose of providing natural gas and similar services.
Minneapolis’ unofficial motto: “100 Years of Socialism: Someday It Might Work”
Oh, yeah. Excel will shut down its Minneapolis headquarters if the city takes over the city’s power business.
More government union jobs, I guess.
The Koch bros. aren’t going to like this. No, not at all.
In 10 years ( no time at all) Mpls residents will have the same level of utility service as their sister city Bagdad. What with 100+ year old sewer pipes, & water lines that fail so regularly that the streets are torn up and impassable on a regular basis add to that they want responsibility for the underground electric and gas lines – city residents will be forced to ride their bikes year around if they want to get anywhere.
Oh, here’s an idea, in a couple years the City could pass the John Moshik Remembrance and Atonement Ordinance that would mandate solar panel roofs on all new construction or replacement roofs with a $10,000.00 “denial of collective resources access” fee for those who want a standard shingle roof. That would keep the pension fund solvent.
You have to admire the chutzpah of a City that hoor’s itself out for any sports team when the sports team demands a new playpen playing hardball with a national utility (that happens to have it’s corporate office and a few thousand employees here) just to satisfy some noisy enviro-whackos who make up small percentage of their voters.
Good to see Xcel’s CEO respond by assuring Xcel will “Go Galt” if the City takes over. Hmm, if Minnesota loses yet another Fortune 500 corporate office (just lost Nash Finch), will the DFL Dominated Media Borg begin assuring us yokels that our appeal to Fortune 500 corporate offices is still strong, but like Spinal Taps audience, more selective?
It is technically possible for government to run a municipal power utility well and several around the state do (Rochester, Duluth, even North St. Paul).
But when the winds blow down hundreds of trees, leaving thousands without power, Xcel calls in crews from a five-state region to get lines up within days. Who’s Minneapolis going to call? Will you wait as long for power as you wait for a cop, for pothole repair, for building inspectors? Some cities are competent but is Minneapolis one of them?
Ah, but we won’t actually operate any of the equipment, we’ll just buy power from Xcel and retail it to residents, adding a markup for our “services,” which makes this a way to levy a disguised tax, to raise more money to piss away.
That, I’m confident the City is extraordinarily capable of doing.
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Hugo Chavez bequeathed his road map to them.
There was a comment that Minneapolis will try to power the city with thousands of hamesters (unionized of course) on spinning wheels.
You mention corporate offices, don’t forge that Cargill and CHS is moving jobs to Denver for their new flour milling entity.
It’s worth noting that lot of municipal utilities are more or less keeping antiquated coal fired plants going, and are looking down the barrel of Obama’s new carbon regulations. So it’s arguable that Minneapolis is, despite their love for President Obama, looking to incur a disaster on the part of taxpayers that they could avoid by leaving well enough alone.
Minneapolis has issues with snow plowing. And now they want to run electric and gas utilities? One point of interest I saw in an article about the proposal: the city would be exempt from many of the regulations that hamstring the private companies. Does that mean they’ll stop paying green liberals with solar panels an above market rate for electricity? I can support that.
One thing Minneapolis is exceptional at, ticketing and towing vehicles following snow storms. The snow plowing that follows is sometimes adequate.