Sobering reports from here to Mideast
Lead Summary
By
Rory Ryan-hcpress@cinci.rr.com
Bill Horne warned us. He really did.
One year ago this month, in a Feb. 28, 2011 news release by American Electric Power, the electric utility company filed a request for an increase in its distribution rates.
By its own admission, AEP said the increase in a customer’s total monthly bill would be approximately $4.38 or 4.05 percent in 2012. (The story is readily available online by searching “AEP distribution fees.”)
Imagine our surprise – and others’ – when our residential bill increased by 60 percent last month. The distribution fee was higher than the electricity cost. We were not pleased.
Others, including residential consumers, businesses and public entities, have reported increases in their January statements that range from 40 percent to 700 percent. Keep in mind, too, that the taxpaying homeowners and taxpaying small business owners – in addition to their own rate hikes – also ultimately foot the bill for the public usage and for those home energy assistance programs.
Brent Huffman, who owns and operates Beech Street on Main in uptown Hillsboro, said his AEP bill spiked from $214 to $497 in one month.
Shocked at the increase after opening his January bill, Brent said he started talking to his fellow Uptown Hillsboro business owners, and he found that he was not alone.
“We’re trying to draw attention to this,” he said. “We can’t sustain this, with bills that high. That is thousands of dollars a year.”
Brent is a businessman, and a respected member of the local community. I've known his family for 30 years and, in fact, used to run a printing press with his dad.
Brent told me this week when he tried to reach a state lawmaker, he was informed the lawmaker was "on vacation."
"I wish I could go on vacation," Brent said. "But I've got to work to pay this electric bill.
This week, Brent Huffman was interviewed by the Ohio News Network on the increase and what it means for his business. “It’s scary,” he said. “It’s scary because I don’t want to see myself or my neighbors go out of business. If my neighbors start going out of business, that is going to affect the foot traffic into my store here.”
Hillsboro Mayor Drew Hastings has “urged residents affected by AEP’s rate increase to contact the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) seeking immediate intervention in the case. It is vital that PUCO hear immediately from anyone struggling with the lopsided rate and service fee increases. This is the most important action that each of us can take right now,” he said.
The mayor said PUCO has re-opened the AEP rate case, with a file number of 11-346-EL-SSO, and said it was important that the case number be cited in all correspondence with the state.
Hillsboro City Auditor Gary Lewis also addresses the matter in his column this week. Lewis told commissioners of a dramatic increase in the utility expenses at Shaffer Park last month. The last time we checked this is the offseason for baseball in southern Ohio.
By its own words, AEP warned of a 4-percent increase. AEP did not caution consumers that double- or triple-digit increases were on the horizon.
The late HCP columnist and college professor Bill Horne warned us of the unintended consequences of deregulation as implemented in Ohio. We didn’t listen.
PUCO’s response – half-hearted as it is – is on our website.
So are other reports. Here are two websites worth checking out:
www.ohiosenate.gov/committees/standing/detail/energy-and-public-utiliti…
www.followthemoney.org/database/topcontributor.phtml?u=130&y=0&incs=0&i…
As always, follow the money.
* * *
On a much more somber note, Lt. Col. Daniel Davis has offered a most disheartening read entitled “Truth, lies and Afghanistan,” for the Armed Forces Journal.
In some ways, its message is similar to that of another former military man, Major General Smedley Butler.
Butler was a major general in the U.S. Marine Corps and an outspoken critic of U.S. military adventurism. At the time of his death in 1940, he was the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. He had received 16 medals, five for heroism, and was one of 19 men to twice receive the Medal of Honor.
In 1935, he published a short book entitled “War is a Racket,” in which he warned of the workings of the military-industrial complex. (The book can be read online.) Fast forward a few generations, and Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis offers his own observations.
“I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners,” Col. Davis writes. “My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.
“Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress. Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.”
The colonel continues at length in describing what many of our older veterans used to call a SNAFU (Situation Normal, All “Fouled” Up).
In no way does he discredit the efforts of our troops on the ground. No, his criticism is properly aimed at those who do have a “higher pay grade.”
Col. Davis concludes: “When it comes to deciding what matters are worth plunging our nation into war and which are not, our leaders owe it to the nation and to the uniformed members to be candid in telling them what’s at stake and how expensive potential success is likely to be.
"Likewise, when having to decide whether to continue a war, alter its aims or to close off a campaign, our senior leaders have an obligation to tell Congress and American people the unvarnished truth and let the people decide what course of action to choose. That is the very essence of civilian control of the military. The American people deserve better than what they’ve gotten from their senior uniformed leaders over the last number of years. Simply telling the truth would be a good start.”
(Seems like good advice for elected and/or appointed public officials everywhere.)
Roughly 75 years ago, Gen. Butler wrote: “War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”
As U.S. intervention in Iraq was to conclude by Jan. 1 and troops are to withdraw from Afghanistan by 2014, Americans will be debating for generations what was won – and what was lost.
Perhaps, more importantly, military families will be asking: “What’s next?”
The rest of us should ask that as well, and also ask “Why?”
Rory Ryan is publisher of The Highland County Press.[[In-content Ad]]
One year ago this month, in a Feb. 28, 2011 news release by American Electric Power, the electric utility company filed a request for an increase in its distribution rates.
By its own admission, AEP said the increase in a customer’s total monthly bill would be approximately $4.38 or 4.05 percent in 2012. (The story is readily available online by searching “AEP distribution fees.”)
Imagine our surprise – and others’ – when our residential bill increased by 60 percent last month. The distribution fee was higher than the electricity cost. We were not pleased.
Others, including residential consumers, businesses and public entities, have reported increases in their January statements that range from 40 percent to 700 percent. Keep in mind, too, that the taxpaying homeowners and taxpaying small business owners – in addition to their own rate hikes – also ultimately foot the bill for the public usage and for those home energy assistance programs.
Brent Huffman, who owns and operates Beech Street on Main in uptown Hillsboro, said his AEP bill spiked from $214 to $497 in one month.
Shocked at the increase after opening his January bill, Brent said he started talking to his fellow Uptown Hillsboro business owners, and he found that he was not alone.
“We’re trying to draw attention to this,” he said. “We can’t sustain this, with bills that high. That is thousands of dollars a year.”
Brent is a businessman, and a respected member of the local community. I've known his family for 30 years and, in fact, used to run a printing press with his dad.
Brent told me this week when he tried to reach a state lawmaker, he was informed the lawmaker was "on vacation."
"I wish I could go on vacation," Brent said. "But I've got to work to pay this electric bill.
This week, Brent Huffman was interviewed by the Ohio News Network on the increase and what it means for his business. “It’s scary,” he said. “It’s scary because I don’t want to see myself or my neighbors go out of business. If my neighbors start going out of business, that is going to affect the foot traffic into my store here.”
Hillsboro Mayor Drew Hastings has “urged residents affected by AEP’s rate increase to contact the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) seeking immediate intervention in the case. It is vital that PUCO hear immediately from anyone struggling with the lopsided rate and service fee increases. This is the most important action that each of us can take right now,” he said.
The mayor said PUCO has re-opened the AEP rate case, with a file number of 11-346-EL-SSO, and said it was important that the case number be cited in all correspondence with the state.
Hillsboro City Auditor Gary Lewis also addresses the matter in his column this week. Lewis told commissioners of a dramatic increase in the utility expenses at Shaffer Park last month. The last time we checked this is the offseason for baseball in southern Ohio.
By its own words, AEP warned of a 4-percent increase. AEP did not caution consumers that double- or triple-digit increases were on the horizon.
The late HCP columnist and college professor Bill Horne warned us of the unintended consequences of deregulation as implemented in Ohio. We didn’t listen.
PUCO’s response – half-hearted as it is – is on our website.
So are other reports. Here are two websites worth checking out:
www.ohiosenate.gov/committees/standing/detail/energy-and-public-utiliti…
www.followthemoney.org/database/topcontributor.phtml?u=130&y=0&incs=0&i…
As always, follow the money.
* * *
On a much more somber note, Lt. Col. Daniel Davis has offered a most disheartening read entitled “Truth, lies and Afghanistan,” for the Armed Forces Journal.
In some ways, its message is similar to that of another former military man, Major General Smedley Butler.
Butler was a major general in the U.S. Marine Corps and an outspoken critic of U.S. military adventurism. At the time of his death in 1940, he was the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. He had received 16 medals, five for heroism, and was one of 19 men to twice receive the Medal of Honor.
In 1935, he published a short book entitled “War is a Racket,” in which he warned of the workings of the military-industrial complex. (The book can be read online.) Fast forward a few generations, and Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis offers his own observations.
“I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners,” Col. Davis writes. “My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.
“Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress. Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.”
The colonel continues at length in describing what many of our older veterans used to call a SNAFU (Situation Normal, All “Fouled” Up).
In no way does he discredit the efforts of our troops on the ground. No, his criticism is properly aimed at those who do have a “higher pay grade.”
Col. Davis concludes: “When it comes to deciding what matters are worth plunging our nation into war and which are not, our leaders owe it to the nation and to the uniformed members to be candid in telling them what’s at stake and how expensive potential success is likely to be.
"Likewise, when having to decide whether to continue a war, alter its aims or to close off a campaign, our senior leaders have an obligation to tell Congress and American people the unvarnished truth and let the people decide what course of action to choose. That is the very essence of civilian control of the military. The American people deserve better than what they’ve gotten from their senior uniformed leaders over the last number of years. Simply telling the truth would be a good start.”
(Seems like good advice for elected and/or appointed public officials everywhere.)
Roughly 75 years ago, Gen. Butler wrote: “War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”
As U.S. intervention in Iraq was to conclude by Jan. 1 and troops are to withdraw from Afghanistan by 2014, Americans will be debating for generations what was won – and what was lost.
Perhaps, more importantly, military families will be asking: “What’s next?”
The rest of us should ask that as well, and also ask “Why?”
Rory Ryan is publisher of The Highland County Press.[[In-content Ad]]