Story last updated at
4:51 a.m.
Saturday, November 13, 2004
AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
Council appoints LP&L utility board
The City Council acted Friday on a pair of items connected with the
voters' approval earlier this month of an amendment to the city charter.
The amendment puts Lubbock Power & Light under the oversight of a citizen
board.
The City Council first voted to accept the final vote tally as presented by
City Secretary Becky Garza.
The amendment passed with 49,987 votes, or 83 percent, for the measure and
10,231 votes against.
The council then voted to appoint nine members to the newly created utility
board.
They are: Randy Andrews, W.R. Collier, Marciano Morales, John Owens, Loyd
Rinehart, Chris Snead, Craig Wells, Connie Wharton and John Zwiacher.
Four members' terms expire in February while the remainder will serve until
February 2006.
The amendment's backers touted the measure as necessary to secure the
long-term future of the city-owned utility.
Past councils siphoned millions of dollars out of LP&L's reserves throughout
a number of years to cover city costs such as street lighting and park
improvements.
As a result, the utility had to cut jobs and halt transfers to other city
accounts.
