"No Town Subsidy For TEP"
Evan Wise: May 21, 2007
TEP owes it to all the citizens to do business in a way that is acceptable and not an eyesore. Putting power lines underground in a city that is trying to present and upscale image makes the most sense from a safety and aesthetic sense. Everyone that uses power from TEP must pay for the total costs of that power. The total cost includes installing the infrastructure as well as the cost to generate the power. In future years it will include the costs associated with adding carbon to deteriorate the environment as well.
The Town Council must do what is best for the community as a whole. Taxes are to cover the cost of providing government and essential community services. Private industry must remain private. They must pay to use community or private property to do their job. If that means putting their lines out of sight in order to install them, that is what they must do. If they must charge more for their product, that is also what they must do. If we allow TEP to get undue subsidies by allowing them to install lines in the cheapest manner, the long term benefit of the community will suffer. If TEP chooses not to install the lines at full cost, that is their choice and contractors wishing to build would need to fund the added infrastructure as they will be the ones benefiting.
The costs to Oro Valley residents occurs not only by making the community unsightly, but by lowering property values and applying the cost of power to everyone instead of those who use the power. What is the incentive for homeowners to install solar power if they must pay taxes to cover those that don't?
This decision is very important for the long term precedent and development of the community. Let's not slip into the easy answer or the short term solution.
Read: Blogger Talk
From time to time, we receive comments from bloggers that are worthy of posting in their entirety. Unfortunately, we can't always do this directly on the blog. So we are posting them here.