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City explores electrical options
By BARBARA GREEN
bnews@sbcglobal.net
The number one complaint in the City of Bowie is its high electric rates.
Mayor Larry Slack addressed that topic in last week’s town hall meeting, explaining some ways the city staff is exploring to help reduce and make the system more efficient.
He opened with a comparison between area cities that operate electric utilities and, as expected, Bowie was in the higher range. Of eight cities surveyed in their overall utility and tax bills per month, Bowie was at number five with a total of $207.63.
Whitesboro was the lowest at $177.40 and Farmersville the highest at $223.78. Granbury was sixth highest with Sanger seventh.
In electric cost alone Bowie was at the highest point at $102.52, but fell to number four in taxes and water/sewer costs. Bowie has one of the lower taxes rates in the area at .4945 cents per $100 in property value for 2015.
Nocona’s rate is .54 cents, Decatur .703; Iowa Park, .76; Archer City, .75 and Graham, .60.
Slack said Bowie purchases around 73,500,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year and bills residential and commercial customers 68,500,000 kWh.
Electrical revenue is the largest contributor to the city budget at $9,354,325. Water revenue is $1,864,000 and wastewater at $994,360; however, both have debt service and usually barely break even or fall into the red.
Charges for services brings in $2,652,553. It includes things like ambulance fees, garbage collection fees, contract service, code enforcement pool and similar items.
Ad valorem tax revenue is $1,244,706 and sales tax at $1,459,299.
Bowie’s current contract for power is with Bryan Texas Utilities. The 30-year term contract began in 2008 with a five-year option to terminate.
Read the full story in the Sept. 23 edition of The Bowie News.
Lent has just ended and if you observed it in any way, strictly or somewhere in the middle, you probably felt it. That slow shift in how you cook, what you reach for, and how often you stand in the kitchen wondering what else there is besides peanut butter and pimento cheese. But there is something about going through a season like that that resets your perspective.
You come out the other side appreciating things you did not think twice about before, and sometimes you discover a few new ones along the way.
As a kid, the frozen seafood we ate came in a rectangular box and answered to the name fish sticks.
They were breaded within an inch of their life, cooked until vaguely crisp, and served with enough ketchup to make you forget what you were eating.
They were not great. They were fine, which for a long time was about the best you could say for most frozen fish. And that stuck with me.
Read the full On The Table feature in your Thursday Bowie News.
See a shrimp ramen recipe (top photo) in On the Table this week.
Leading up to this primary election there have been lots of questions about the requirements to fill these positions, which are the only contested races in Montague County. The Bowie News review the Texas Association of Counties and state code in regard to requirements and ongoing educational requirements. Read the column in Thursday’s Bowie News.
Bellevue ISD will start at 10 a.m. on Friday
Gold-Burg, Forestburg and Prairie Valley will not have school Friday.
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