You’re mistaken, the 600 % increase is indeed for the lamp poles. I say take them out of the residential streets. Every house, EVERY house has a light post in front. We do not need the leased light poles on the residential streets. They’re redundant, and the increase is for them.

It could be worse?
 

Things could be worse, residents could be paying local taxes like Wildwood, Leesburg and Fruitland Park residents.

Everything has gone up over our entire lifetime, not just the last three years. It's a normal reality. In the 60's gas was 25 cents a gallon!

I live in a Duke area, my costs are not changing. Why would you include my home in a price increase for an electric company I do not have?

SECO is a cooperative with reasonable rates. They give us HOTBUCKS which are a rebate discount off our monthly bill. Go to northern or western states and see what their rates are currently.

As I read the SECO announcement, this increase is to convert light poles to be LEDs. Given that this will result in lower power consumption, longer unit lifetime, and hence lower maintenance costs, how many years will it take to complete this conversion? Will SECO then decrease the rental fees after the conversion is done?

Get rid of them.....Use Solar powered lighting instead. Price Gouging should be punished by jail time. I bet it would quit if the law was enforced.

Framing this as a HUGE 400% increase is highly deceptive.

If the increase is $5/mo a rooftop, that is more like a 10% adjustment to the Maintenance fee.

So what's the correct number to use?

Ok, We see you know nothing about this!:ohdear::ohdear::ohdear:

:rant-rave: Dear Lord, How do dumb people live this long !!

I guess that depends on how you look at it.

$5/month is 10% of my maintenance fee. So either I accept a 10% increase or the CDD has to find a way to trim 10% of their budget for this additional cost.

10% of the budget doesn't sound too bad until you consider fixed costs. For my CDD, 67% of the budget is obligated for PWAC. This number seems to be non-negotiable. So the increase does not come out of the full budget, it comes out of the 33% that is left over. Another 10% of the budget goes to other fixed items such as salaries, legal fees, and management fees to the VCCDD.

All in all, this leaves about 25% of the yearly budget to cover an increase equivalent to 10% of the yearly budget. In other words, the $5/month per rooftop works out to be about 50% of the spending the CDD controls. Half of what gets done that is not accomplished through the PWAC will need to be cut to cover this increase. To me, that is quite significant.

That solution will work well during a 2 day storm, when, you know, there is no sunlight to charge the lights.

How?

Welcome to a world driven by.....we ain't allowed to say it here but you know.

I do know all about it and you are making a big deal out of a few dollars a month, what do you expect in this inflationary environment? It proves that you know nothing about this. Oh My, Oh My, Oh My, if you can't afford it they are hiring at McDonalds, can Daddymac make a Big Mac.

Nothing to do with amenity fees.

Recent electricity bill ratesin IL went up 3x from last summer with lots new wind farms & added solar arrays, shut down nat gas & constantly attacking existing nuclear plants. Green costs a lot of green but produces a lot less usable power.

///

Very interesting, appreciate the details.

I’m confused. If SECO is increasing their pole rental fees, that usually means they are going to receive more revenue from other utilities that use their poles. It would seem like ultimately this would benefit SECO rate payers.

(NOTE: This forum does not allow you to link to the online paper that shall not be named)[/QUOTE]
TIL. sorry.

I checked with ARC and, while we must have a lamp post, we don't need to have a bulb in it. Our front garden has been dark and wildlife-friendly for two years. Alarmists may tell you that the emergency services will be delayed getting to your home, but GPS means that they know exactly where they're going, without a beacon in your front garden.

Anyway, back to the main thread: people in the UK pay 60p (75c) per day standing charge, whereas those in Bermuda (notoriously expensive) pay 76c. In The Villages, SECO charges me $1.15 per day. That's a 50% uplift on the UK and Bermuda. Hmmm?

Means nothing unless we also know the number of poles in each location

Only the rich elites can that so easily

It’s spread across 67,000 homes. Most homes here have Duke as their supplier.

You could always sell your home and move to some Utopia where utility prices never go up. Let us know when you find it!

Pole rental fees are for companies that rent space on the poles for private equipment; ie cell phone equipment, cable tv lines and phone lines. Not for the general public.

It includes pole, lights, electricity, maintenance and repair.

This has nothing to do with the lamp post in your yard.

This is about street lamps, and has nothing to do with renting pole space to other companies.

Ohiobuckeye
 

Yes & personally if they get everyone on EV auto’s our grids won’t handle millions of EV’s, plus power outages!

ikr. up north we had bills of near $300 a month, so it's looking mighty fine down here

This increase in the tariff only applies to areas serviced by SECO. SECO is an Electric co-op, meaning that the cost of providing service is paid for by the people served, which is why it only applies to 62,000 households. And, when the cost of supplying a service goes up, it must be born by the members who benefit, and not subsidized by members who don’t.

Despite any speculation, rumor, or conjecture to the contrary, this is for street lights. It is NOT your yard light, not for pylons, nor for transmission, and not for cable or any other utility. It pays for the poles, lights, electricity, maintenance and repair.

Here is the press release from SECO:

SECO Energy Announces Increase in Lighting Rates – SECO Energy

p.s. As a co-op, SECO offers us much lower rates than those enjoyed by our neighbors who are are not SECO members.

This has nothing at all to do with other utilities.

SECO raising pole rates
 

At this time where everything is going up in price is it really necessary to raise those prices by that much?? Give us a break. Our social security certainly isn't increasing very much.

not true for this utility
 

They are not regulated.

DIRECT FROM THE SECO WEBSITE:

About Us – SECO Energy

"One of the most important distinctions between other types of utilities and SECO is that we are member owned."

"Our members have a voice in the co-op’s decision-making process. They elect a nine-member Board of Trustees, who meet monthly to monitor the financial status of the Cooperative and make policy decisions in the best interest of the membership."

"MISSION
As a not-for-profit cooperative, SECO Energy provides reliable and innovative energy services to our members and communities".

THE FOLLOWING IS AN EXCERPT FROM THE VILLAGES - NEWS 6/15/2024
TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE, HERE IS THE LINK :

SECO board holds emergency meeting after pole rental uproar in The Villages - **************.com

SECO held a closed-door meeting Tuesday with elected supervisors from The Villages at the cooperative’s headquarters in Sumterville to discuss the huge increases.

****** ""As a result of pressure from officials in The Villages, SECO trustees met on Thursday and announced they had agreed to “a two-year phased approach to incorporate the pole rental rate increase.”
This means 50 percent of the increase will take place Oct. 1 and the second half of the increase on Oct. 1, 2025."

Thanks. I didn't realize Co-ops have different rules.

How many electric utility poles do you see in TV? Not many! Pole attach.ent fees are only a couple of $ per year. If you see a couple of $ per year increase in your rates I would be very surprised. Don't sweat about it.

Please read some of the provided links.

The increase is not for utility poles. The increase is not for rent of space on the poles. The increase is not for your lamp post in your shrub bed.

The increase is for the CDD to rent the aluminum street-light poles.

The increase will be in the neighborhood of 600% (something like $63K/year -> $420K/year). Looking at one set of numbers provided in the linked articles, the increase will amount to about 10% of your yearly maintenance fee (depends on which CDD you are in). Either SECO lowers the rates, the CDD cuts something from the budget, or I will see my maintenance fee increase by about $60.

I like the idea of removing the poles and not having as much street lighting to save money and reduce light pollution. However, the County or State might require the lighting and I just read an article about a neighborhood arguing for more lights so it looks like removal is not an option.