JEA’s website made the case to keep JEA city owned, until the new CEO, Aaron Zahn and the new board deleted it. For years the JEA website had, in one version or another, a list of the benefits that public power provided. The benefits also served as a list of reasons why the city should never sell JEA.
Within weeks of the JEA’s board approving a new $520,000 annual salary for Zahn it was deleted.
When we contacted JEA we were told “JEA routinely updates its website to better serve the citizens of Jacksonville.” “There is no way to know when it was updated, or if Mr. Zahn had anything to do with it.”
Actually, Jax Examiner took screenshots just before Aaron Zahn’s raise and within 3 weeks weeks it was deleted. That’s really all we need to know about the timing of the deletion. We did however ask for addition comment from JEA as well as CEO Zahn, we’re still waiting.
Despite a poll by the University of North Florida, showing 72% of the city opposed selling off any part of JEA. Zahn sought and received unanimous approval from the board to explore privatizing JEA.
Below are the Benefits of Public Power as listed on JEA’s website, before Zahn was appointed CEO and as originally published by Jax Examiner in April of this year.
Benefits of Public Power
As your not-for-profit, community-owned utility, JEA is committed to providing you the most reliable service at the lowest possible cost in an environmentally friendly way.
- Annually, JEA electric rates are currently 4.7 percent below the national average and 2 percent above average in Florida.Check out how we compare.
- In 2013, 2014 and 2015 we gave fuel credits to our customers.
- In 2016, the JEA Board also reduced the monthly fuel charge by $6.85 per megawatt hour, a 5.56 percent decrease in the electric portion of a 1,000 kWH a month residential customer’s bill.
- JEA water and sewer prices are below the average in Florida.See how we compare.
- JEA had no rate increases in 2017 and no plans for rate increases in 2018.
In addition to running day-to-day operations of the utility, JEA employees are also customers, paying for utility services just like every other customer.
Most Utilities are Regulated Monopolies
You may not realize it, but all utilities in Florida and most across the United States have a regulated service territory and are monopolies. Your property location determines who your utility provider is. One reason for this is because electricity, water and sewer are essential services that require billions of dollars of investment in infrastructure to serve the community. And that infrastructure must be in place to meet today’s and future needs. Utilities typically plan and invest for future generations, decades in advance. JEA is regulated with a defined service territory, and strives to serve our customers and community with high quality electric, water and sewer services at a competitive price – and with a positive customer experience.
Why Public Power?
- As an essential service, electricity and water must be reliably produced and delivered 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Municipal electric utilities—also referred to as public power entities—are well suited to deliver this essential service, because the only reason they exist is to provide the service to the communities that own them – not to make profits for shareholders. - Public power and water utilities are directly accountable to the people they serve through local elected or appointed officials.
There are more than 2,000 community-owned electric utilities in the United States, serving more than 47 million people, or about 14 percent of the nation’s electricity consumers. These utilities are operated by local governments to provide communities with reliable, responsive, not-for-profit electric, water and sewer service. - Investments in infrastructure improvements.
Since JEA was asked to take over the City’s water and sewer systems in 1997, JEA has invested $2 billion in repairing and upgrading these systems as well as improving the whole wastewater treatment process. When JEA took over, the Buckman wastewater treatment plant was one of the worst in the nation. Today it is one of the best. And JEA has reduced the nitrogen that it puts into the St. Johns River as a result of the wastewater treatment process by 58%.