Vineland Electric: a socialist success story and a challenge to Democrats

[Pab Sungenis]

My home town of Vineland, NJ, was founded 150 years ago this summer. While not always the most progressive or forward thinking city, one area it's been very ahead of its time is in how its people get electricity.

Vineland's first electric generating facility was built in 1900 when none of the existing electric companies would sell to the growing borough. In the 1980's a deal was cut with the company then known as Niagara Mohawk to purchase hydroelectric power, starting a slow transition away from coal to cleaner renewable fuels.

In 2009 construction started on the largest solar grid in the State of New Jersey, and by the end of the summer four more fields will be online. At the same time construction is continuing on a natural gas powered turbine with a second turbine in the planning stages. Wind power and biofuel projects are underway, and if all goes well by the year 2015 the City of Vineland and its 60,000 residents will be completely self-sufficient in terms of electricity and 25% of that power will come from completely renewable sources.

And through all this, Vineland residents already pay the lowest electric rates out of all of its neighbors. In some cases, significantly lower. And once the four new solar grids are generating power the rates are going to be re-evaluated and will likely go even lower.

So how can the electric company that services Vineland transition to 25% green energy, rebuild its grid, and not only have lower rates than its neighbors but be ready to cut them again?

One word: socialism.

Vineland Electric was created in 1899 by the borough council because no private company would service them. It's wholly owned and operated by the City of Vineland. It's run as a not-for-profit company, and without shareholders to have to pay out to and multi-million-dollar-"earning" CEO's to line the pockets of, it can keep costs down and plow excess funds into development and expansion. If you want to get picky, I guess you could even say that the company's shareholders are the residents of the City and they reap the dividends through lower costs.

And somehow all of this was done without the rolling blackouts that seem to plague all of the for-profit electric companies during the summer. Hmmm.

So the next time you hear someone railing against "socialism" and how the public sector can't do anything right: point them at the City of Vineland Municipal Utilities. They're selling electricity cheaper than their neighbors while still making strides in environmental areas.

Makes you wonder what other areas of services could benefit from this approach.

One quick footnote for my fellow Democrats. The governments that did all this? Republicans. Vineland was a Republican stronghold throughout the 19th and early 20th Centuries. The council that started the municipal electric company was Republican dominated. Vineland's last Democratic Mayor served from 1988-1992. Before that, we hadn't had a Democratic Mayor since 1976. Are we going to let a bunch of Republicans be more progressive and eco-friendly than us?

[izquierdista]

1. Republicans used to be progressive

But about 100 years ago, Taft came along. They haven't been the same since.

[femrap]

2. Didn't Nixon

start the EPA?

[izquierdista]

3. Along with the war in Cambodia.

[femrap]

4. And now we have troops

in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, probably Yemen and Egypt...Bahrain....where there's a US military base. I don't see any improvement over the years....none.

[Gabi Hayes]

5. to be fair, the OP is an example of improvements at the micro level, but I can't disagree

with you AFA substantive improvements at the macro

hard to argue that point

just talked to a hard-core socialist friend of mine tonight, and, while we both enjoyed talking about the TRULY insane tack the pugs in power are resolutely maintaining, we commiserated over the course the craven, DLC-led 'democratic' party has assumed ever since the loss of the 1984 elections

dems have clearly tried to become more republican in order to win/retain power in every election cycle, only succeeding in becoming a pale shadow of the fascist party (IOW, both major parties melding into one)that's held sway ever since Reagan stole the 1980 vote