More arguments for munis
October 2, 2005
THANK YOU for your editorial in favor of the Municipal Electricity Choice legislation ('Local Power," Sept. 25) in which you point out that the 41 cities and towns that currently have municipal electricity charge their customers an average of 24 percent less than NStar.
I would like to offer three more reasons why we need this bill:
(1) Munis are much more reliable electricity suppliers than the big utilities, with far fewer power outages and better response times when there is an outage.
(2) Having a muni allows cities and towns to address safety concerns such as sagging wires, lines entangled with tree branches, and unstable poles in a timely way.
(3) The private utilities would be forced to compete with the standards set by area munis.
KEN PARKER
Newton