Cape Coral should not confiscate LCEC services
To the editor:
I have sent the city manger, John Szerlag, and council the letter to the editor from Grace Golling of Cape Coral. I have discussed this letter with many of my senior citizen friends (and voters) and have not found a single person that disagrees with it. We all feel that a decision of this magnitude, the possible municipalization of LCEC, should be decided by all of the voters of Cape Coral, not a very small group of political types with personal agendas that are influenced by lobbyists. In the event this should happen in spite of good common sense, we all feel sure our electric bills will ultimately double.
We presently have water bills that are for the most part, double the state average. City Hall should privatize the water/sewer service, also. Review the Sun Splash annual deficits and sell if off, also. No government or government agency has ever efficiently managed any commercial venture, anywhere in the entire universe. Take the $18.4 trillion national debt as the most horrible example of mismanagement on a grand scale by our elected officials in D.C. Long-term thinking to a politician is merely the next elections.
As for the influences of Labor Unions on our political system, you need to review the situation in Detroit, Mich., your old home state. Labor unions in the USA have negotiated wages and benefits nationally to the point of pricing us entirely out of the world market and have watched several million factories move overseas, never to return any time soon, if ever. In 1983, 20.1 percent of U.S. workers were union members. This was 17.7 million workers. In 2013, after losing millions of jobs overseas, it stood at 11.3 percent or 14.5 million. The handwriting is on the wall, but the labor unions and politicians refuse to read it.
At the present time, many states and cities are on the verge of bankruptcy as a result of union negotiations having committed them to billions of dollars of unfunded retirement pensions and benefits. The labor unions have shifted their collective bargaining to the public sector. Cities such as Cape Coral should be making every effort to eliminate as many employees as possible, both hourly and salaried, not seek more ways to add more employees and race down the road called bankruptcy.
Robert E. Workman
Cape Coral