Michael Giberson
Last week the Lubbock city council approved a plan to direct municipal utility Lubbock Power and Light to pay the cost of operating and maintaining the city’s street lights (see earlier post). This week the municipal utility fights back: “LP&L ready to fight city on street light money.”
The Lubbock Power and Light board met on Thursday in hopes of getting their voices heard.
“What we are trying to say as a board is that this is inconsistent with our charter and if its inconsistent with our charter then we don’t believe it is our issue,” said Rinehart.
As proposed by the city, almost $2-million of LP&L’s budget is set to power street lights, another million is in place for maintenance. That’s $3-million Rinehart says LP&L should not be responsible for.
But also see this key bit of information, from the related Lubbock Avalanche-Journal story:
The vote [by the LP&L board] … would be largely symbolic. Though given great authority over the operations of the municipal power company, the council, not the appointed board, makes ultimate decisions on the budget.