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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.
As a card-carrying member of the Sons of the Republic of Texas, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the Shadowland Giant Lone Star hosta.
Make no mistake, I don’t believe this hosta was discovered in the shady soil under a Texas Madrone in Guadalupe National Park. It was actually a sport or morphological change in s hosta named Key West. That sounds like a fairy tale story all its own.
But Shadowland Giant Lone Star has winner written all over it. It is large and has thick leaves. When 12 straight days of rain brought out a rainforest of slugs and other forest floor creatures, the bane of hosta growers everywhere, it didn’t load up with holes but simply got more beautiful.
Read the full Garden Guy column in Thursday’s Bowie News.
Supertunia Mini Vista Pink Cloud petunia is having its debut year or thanks to Susan Middleton Turner in south Georgia’s zone 9 Miller County it’s breakout year.
Susan’s house looks quite like a movie set, and you would have to think that Supertunia Mini Vista petunias play a prominent role.
Last year it was the award-winning Supertunia Mini Vista Indigo that dazzled with incredible color. The petunias were planted in banister baskets across the front of the house. I featured her photos in an article I wrote about Mini Vista petunias.
Read the full Garden Guy column in your Thursday Bowie News.
The boil order for the 400 block of Decatur Street due to a line break and repair mid-week has been lifted.
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