Letter to the Editor: Southwest 2 would increase Springfield's competitiveness

Our family moved from just outside of Los Angeles, where we faced electricity rates that were more than 100 percent higher than Springfield residents enjoy. California experienced a terrible energy crisis because its citizens and public officials failed to ensure that it had access to adequate power at reasonable costs for its growing population. California and the cities of California also imposed huge cost burdens on its residents because it let its growth outpace its ability to support that growth.

We also previously lived in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pa., where we grew up. We have experienced the shifting tax burden and utility cost burden from corporations to residents as an area loses its employers and its competitiveness starts to gentrify.

The City Utilities-proposed plant will improve the environment by allowing the power generation load to be shifted to the more efficient and cleaner technology of the new plant from the older plants in the CU system. This will significantly reduce the emissions per kilowatt generated.

The new clean-coal power plant is also a patriotic thing to do. This plant will use low-sulfur coal which largely comes from the mines in the Western United States that employ mine workers and rail employees. This helps to reduce our reliance on imported oil and liquefied natural gas from countries that show increasing hostility toward the United States. It also allows us to reduce our oil and gas demand. This plant aids our country’s efforts to secure energy independence.

This plant will aid the competitiveness of Springfield by providing lower-cost power for employers while providing residents with lower average energy costs than homeowners across the country. This is critical to encouraging employers to stay here and locate here in the Springfield area. This in turn makes Springfield a more competitive community over the long term. Community competitiveness allows us to have great schools, superior hospitals and high-quality marketplaces. Most importantly, vibrancy and vitality ensure that the tax burden does not get shifted to residents over the long term and protects the city from gentrification and decline.

The new plant provides the city with the ability to negotiate more aggressively for lower power rates when power must be purchased and also allows the city to sell power and generate revenue when profitable opportunities present themselves. This again makes Springfield more competitive than those communities that are beholden to the power companies in their regions or beholden to the special interest groups that stand in the way. The power companies that surround our community would love for nothing more than to be able to sell power into our market at much higher prices than we pay today.

Your power plant is an asset. The enterprise of City Utilities is worth hundreds of millions and possibly more than $1 billion dollars as an enterprise. Investing in this additional capacity increases the wealth of this community while providing low-cost electricity to its residents. This purchase is similar to the decision to own a home versus renting a home. We are investing in ourselves by adding this capacity rather than buying electricity from neighboring states.

Community competitiveness and growth are critical to ensuring that our children find good employment here in the Springfield area and ensure that they and their families are able to enjoy low utility rates and low tax burdens. Having our grandchildren near us is a privilege that can be assured by keeping our community competitive.

This is all said as a 40-something that has had to move far and wide to find the best employment and career growth. We wish the public officials and corporate chieftains of our hometown had better ensured the competitiveness of the community where we grew up.

We sincerely hope that you will vote for the added electricity capacity that is required to improve our self-reliance, independence and the long-term competitiveness of Springfield. Please don’t let Springfield follow the ways of the Rust Belt cities. Please don’t let Springfield go the way of California where environmentalists and public power companies get their way at the expense of the average resident.

—Mark and Donna Steele, Springfield[[In-content Ad]]