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© St. Petersburg Times, published June 20, 2001
Editor: Re: Florida Water Services, nee Southern States Utilities:
I am an ordinary, retired, tax-paying, law-abiding citizen, 76 years of age. I pay my bills, vote and have never been in trouble. And now I am just about as angry as one my age can get about the seeming conclusion to the Florida Water Services/Southern States Utilities overbilling fiasco.
I don't know about other folks, but I don't like to be ripped off so blatantly by the utility, the self-serving legal processes, and some of our indifferent elected officials and their appointees, vis a vis, the Public Service Commission.
Apparently the sole obligation and purpose of the arrogant, misguided PSC is to ensure the utilities only make profits and, heaven forbid, never suffer a loss, despite poor management, operating inefficiencies or other techno-mumbo jumbo they espouse to the poor, dumb public.
If a private business tried pulling this kind of highway robbery, they'd soon be put out of business. A legitimate business would declare a loss and adjust or refund its customers the amount of the overbilling or injury. Is this water provider going to do this? No, the only plan they ever had, supported by the PSC, was to stonewall and sweep this whole thing under the rug.
For the past six years or more, they have owed me and many others who lived, or still do, in Sugarmill Woods more than $500. (They owe lesser amounts to customers in other areas, including Spring Hill.)
Let's be clear: I am not interested in some token contribution for a park or recreation center, for which the utility also could get a tax deduction. I want my legitimate overpayment in hard, cold cash.
I am requesting of state Rep. Nancy Argenziano that if the state of Florida is ready to accept the apparent conclusion reported in the press recently, then the state needs to find a place in its miscellaneous accounts to come up with the overcharge refund I and many others are due.
-- William C. Ruland, Crystal River
Editor: Permit me to articulate a misunderstanding in the community. Prayer of any stripe, intoned any time, any place by anyone is not an "interruption," unless of course it's while School Board Chairwoman Patience Nave is praying. Then it becomes cause for her to have the prayerful arrested and jailed.
Her less-than-cunning attempt to obfuscate prayer doesn't escape the notice of voting, taxpaying citizens in Citrus County. Isn't it wonderful to live free in America?
-- Charles W. Schrader, Dunnellon
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