Eagle i: Islander does the math on city’s underground electric plans

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Marco Island Taxpayer Association member Amadeo Petricca chats with Chairman Bill Trotter following the first city financial planning committee Friday. Petricca said he believed many residents did not understand that the spending cap by design will make tax rates go down when property values are going up and tax rates go up when property values are decreasing, as occurred for the first time this year. Kelly Farrell/ Staff

MARCO ISLAND — A recent community discussion on the city taking over the Island’s electricity provider, Lee County Electric Cooperative, led to a resurfacing of several residents’ questions about what happened to the fee on their electric bills that was supposed to pay for putting electric wires underground.

At the recent In the Round discussion, LCEC CEO Dennie Hamilton said he collected the 5 percent tax, called the electric franchise fee, on behalf of the city. The city was responsible for putting it into the proper fund, he said, responding to questions from residents about what happened to the money over the last four to five years. Hamilton said he wasn’t fond of becoming a tax collector, but he was willing since the practice is legal.

John Arceri, who served on City Council when the city implemented the franchise fee said at the “In the Round” Jan. 7 that he was very upset to see that the money was being used inappropriately after he left.

In an August 23, 2007 e-mail to City Councilor Chuck Kiester, Arceri wrote: “My concern is that the budget crisis will never be over... and this franchise fund will now be the cash cow to balance deficits.”

Resident Amadeo Petricca has an accounting background, serves on the Marco Island Taxpayers’ Association board and also serves on the city’s electric municipalization committee. He did the research on the city’s “cash cow” and has worked extensively with the city’s former Finance Director Bill Harrison to gather city financial information. Petricca said he believed it was important to share these facts and figures with Marco Eagle readers.

After reviewing where the money came from and the cost for the Collier Boulevard reconstruction project, which was done between 2005 and 2008, Petricca reported that he was “overwhelmed by the cost of the project.”

Petricca backed up his concerns about “misappropriation of funds from the franchise fee fund” in a report to MITA in October 2008.

“In conclusion, $3,216,788 was disbursed from the franchise fee fund not authorized by city ordinance 04-18,” Petricca said upon completing his tracking of the dollars.

The ordinance Petricca refers to was established by Council in 2004 to collect the franchise fee, 5 percent on electric bills, to pay exclusively for putting overhead electric wires underground.

Approximately $7 million was collected over the years, according to a city document produced in September, 2008, when Kiester set out to rid the city and residents of the franchise fee since it was not being used as intended.

Council instead decided to lower the fee to 3.5 percent to collect $1 million still needed to pay off a bond for putting electric lines underground along portions of Collier Boulevard.

Petricca reports that $2.4 million was used to purchase and install street lights and $800,000 was used to pay the electric bill on those lights for about three years. Nearly half of the fees collected were misappropriated according to the city’s ordinance, Petricca reports.

See the breakdown of Petricca’s math as well as the city documents he used as sources for his research in a sidebar above.

Have an Eagle i contribution on the city’s possible electric takeover? How about putting power lines underground? Submit your information at yourmarco.com or contact Marco Eagle Content Editor Kelly Farrell, 213-5335, or via e-mail kfarrell@marconews.com.