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Friends turn out to support Progress

Progress Energy is praised by beneficiaries for its good deeds, if not its rate hike request.

By LOUIS HAU
Published July 22, 2005

As dean of the University of South Florida's College of Marine Science in St. Petersburg, Peter Betzer was perhaps an unlikely figure to speak at a public hearing on behalf of Progress Energy Florida as it seeks approval of a rate increase.

Yet during a public hearing Thursday before the Public Service Commission at the Sunshine Center Auditorium in St. Petersburg, Betzer took the podium to urge the PSC to be mindful of the important support Progress provides for local causes, including USF.

The St. Petersburg utility has been a key financial backer of the marine science college's recruitment of minority graduate students and of the college's oceanography camp for eighth-grade girls, Betzer told the commission.

If other companies in Florida were as generous as Progress, he said, "this state would be a whole lot better off."

During PSC hearings in Ocala on Wednesday and in St. Petersburg and Clearwater on Thursday, Progress' request to raise its monthly electricity rate for residential customers from $94.43 per 1,000 kilowatt hours to $98.22 drew the ire of some customers.

Approving the rate would benefit Progress shareholders at the expense of customers who are facing a monthly surcharge ($3.35 per 1,000 kilowatt hours) to cover the company's hurricane costs from last year, said St. Petersburg resident Lois Herron, 71, the former Florida president of senior citizen advocacy group AARP.

"We believe this is not only excessive, but outrageous and unfair," Herron said.

Ingrid Comberg, the 65-year-old owner of the Uptown Laundromat on Fifth Street N in St. Petersburg, said a rate hike would hurt small-business owners like herself and described Progress' request as "very arrogant."

But the voices of dissent were outnumbered by those who spoke favorably of the company, nearly all of whom represented organizations with ties to Progress.

In 2004, Progress donated about $3.5-million to various causes, much of it earmarked for education and economic-development programs.

That level of giving represented a tiny fraction of the company's 2004 Florida electricity revenue of $3.5-billion, or of the $205.6-million in additional annual base-rate revenue the company is seeking through its planned rate hike.

But it was enough to bring out plenty of supporters to the PSC hearings.

They included officials from the St. Petersburg Area, Clearwater Regional, Dunedin, Tampa Bay Beaches and Gainesville Area chambers of commerce, as well as the Pinellas County Urban League, the Tampa Bay Partnership, the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership and Pinellas County's economic development office.

John Shafer, corporate accounts manager for Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Tampa, described Progress' work in delivering electricity as being "a vital part of what we do everyday." Shafer later acknowledged Enterprise has a contract with Progress to provide rental vehicles.

Despite their positive comments, most Progress supporters who spoke at the hearings did not explicitly address or endorse the rate hike.

One exception was Craig Sher, chairman of the St. Petersburg chamber and president and chief executive of the Sembler Co. During a hearing Thursday evening in Clearwater, Sher urged the PSC to "support the maximum increase."

He described the company's requested rate of return of 12.8 percent - a measure of profitability - as "maybe the high side of the normal range, but I find it acceptable."

Also supporting the rate hike was Darryl Rouson, the outgoing president of the NAACP's St. Petersburg branch.

Rouson praised Progress for making a "meaningful commitment" toward ensuring that minority and female-owned businesses get a portion of the contracting work for the construction of the company's Florida headquarters building in downtown St. Petersburg.

"I'm here to support the rate increase," Rouson said, adding later that, "Progress Energy, unlike other corporations in this city, puts its money where its mouth is."

Louis Hau can be reached at 813 226-3404 or hau@sptimes.com

[Last modified July 22, 2005, 00:32:15]