OUCH! CLEVELAND PUBLIC POWER MAKES MORE HISTORY: Our Public Power bill -- for service in July -- showed up in the mail yesterday. The charge for 615 kilowatt-hours was $79.16, or 12.9 cents per kwh. Not only is this the highest rate ever charged by CPP... it's probably the highest price charged for home electric service by any utility, private or municipal, in the whole state of Ohio this month!

According to the new Ohio Utility Rate Survey for June, CEI's Summer bill for 750 kwh is $95.63. CPP's bill for that same 750 kwh used in July would be $96.54.

Here's how CPP's July 750-kwh charge compares to the seven major investor-owned electric utilities in Ohio, according to the Rate Survey:


I can't believe this hasn't become a news story. Thirty thousand households switched over to CPP in the '90s on the promise of lower bills, and now they (and the fifty thousand of us who were already with the system) are getting gouged as badly as any ratepayers in the country... and it isn't news? Why aren't Tom Meyer and Carl Monday chasing down Public Power Commissioner Jim Majer, or his boss Utilities Director Julius Ciaccia -- or his boss, Mayor Campbell -- to demand an explanation?