Washington nonsense trickles to state Capitol
Over the past 24 years living here in Arkansas, I have never really paid much attention to what our state legislature does when they meet every other year (thank goodness for that). Watching all the nonsensical bills being proposed and passed makes me think of Congress and all the same lame-brained stuff that goes on there.
I have come to the conclusion that the lack of common sense has made its way to Little Rock. As I stated before, thank goodness the Legislature meets regularly to consider major law changes only every other year.
Pete Rathmell
Garfield
Regulators should eye cold snap surcharges
I just received my April power bill from SWEPCO. It includes a new fuel surcharge that is 23% higher that the previous month. The fine print on the bill says this is due to the February cold snap. It says that these excess costs for February will be spread over the next five years.
Maybe they didn't expect anyone to do the math, but I did. I used 28729 kWh over the past 12 months. That figures out to be $221/yr in increased storm-related fuel charges for next year. For five years, that is over $1,100 for one customer.
Don't get me wrong: I'm glad SWEPCO kept the power on during the extremely cold weather and we didn't suffer like our friends in Texas. However, I urge the Arkansas Public Service Commission to review this with a very hard, cold eye. SWEPCO's website reports they have 122,800 customers in Arkansas. My bill may be a little larger than average but that works out to $135 million in excess fuel charges over just a few days. Hey, it was cold but I've got to believe that either there was gross mismanagement in the power purchases or SWEPCO is asking Arkansas customers to subsidize their 187,600 customers in Texas.
Public Service Commission, do your job: protect Arkansas power customers.
Thomas Savage
Lowell
Governor shows decency lawmakers can't muster
At last, there is some sense that the state is not an unrelenting site of hatred and intolerance. It is a happy reminder of the state 30 years ago, a long-abandoned time that has been replaced by rigidity and lack of generosity. It's exemplified by our Legislature, which has been hellbent to make life miserable for all who are not their idea of what is acceptable, which is very little.
The governor has attempted to insert some very small modicum of decency by resisting the effort to punish people who might find themselves to be transgender. At least for a brief moment, until legislators overturned the governor's veto, Arkansas was perceived as other than totally benighted.
Malcolm Hayward
Fayetteville