{"id":25348,"date":"2022-09-23T11:18:15","date_gmt":"2022-09-23T15:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=25348"},"modified":"2022-09-23T11:18:19","modified_gmt":"2022-09-23T15:18:19","slug":"nearly-6000-have-signed-the-petition-demanding-lakeland-electric-make-utility-prices-more-affordable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2022\/09\/23\/nearly-6000-have-signed-the-petition-demanding-lakeland-electric-make-utility-prices-more-affordable\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly 6000 have signed the petition demanding Lakeland Electric make utility prices more affordable"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After a summer of high temperatures and high electric bills, thousands of people are demanding more affordable prices from Lakeland Electric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of Thursday afternoon, nearly 5,400 people had signed a petition <\/a>started by Lakeland realtor Carly Cashman-Crespo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur electric bill just went up again and it\u2019s mid-$400s,\u201d she said about the cost to power her single-family home every month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She insists she has taken steps to be more energy-efficient, including replacing her air conditioner. Still, the bill keeps going up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe conclusion was always, \u2018well, so what can you do?\u2019 And I don\u2019t love that. I think that it\u2019s important to remember that we have a voice and we should use it sometimes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why she started the petition this month titled \u201c Make Lakeland Electric More Affordable for ALL Lakelanders <\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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The reason why her bill, and the bills of the potentially thousands of people who signed the petition, went up is due to two city commission-approved fuel charge increases this summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll the negative variables that exist right now are not in our favor in terms of all the tendencies both with absence of supply as well as cost of fuel and high temperatures,\u201d Mayor Bill Mutz said during the Aug. 1 meeting where commissioners approved the second increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commissioner Stephanie Madden expressed concern about the depletion of the city\u2019s fuel reserve funds, which can be used in moments of crisis, including during and after hurricanes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have gone through all of our reserves and we have used every financial tool available to us before we even went to our customers to raise those prices,\u201d said Cathryn Lacy, utility marketing manager at Lakeland Electric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Customers, including Cashman-Crespo, have been asking why the fuel charge has not decreased if the price of gas at the pump has gone down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFuel that you buy at the gas pump comes from crude oil. It\u2019s sold in a completely different market. Natural gas comes to us through a pipeline and it\u2019s completely separate pricing,\u201d said Lacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Cashman-Crespo is asking for is transparency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s no way that they can change it, we need to understand why and if there is a way they can change it, let\u2019s start troubleshooting and brainstorming what we can do to make this affordable for everyone here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lacy provided a study from the Florida Municipal Electric Association <\/a>that shows in July, Lakeland Electric customers\u2019 bills were lower than those in most of Florida, including Tampa and Bartow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For information on how Lakeland Electric customers could reduce their energy usage or if you need help paying your bill, you can visit\u00a0Lakeland Electric\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a summer of high temperatures and high electric bills, thousands of people are demanding more affordable prices from Lakeland Electric. As of Thursday afternoon, nearly 5,400 people had signed a… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[3469],"class_list":["post-25348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-nearly-6000-have-signed-the-petition-demanding-lakeland-electric-make-utility-prices-more-affordable"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}