JAMESTOWN – The Jamestown Board of Public Utilities will share $475,000 – roughly 10 percent – of its 2013 profits with the city of Jamestown. That after the BPU held a meeting on Tuesday afternoon to finalize its 2014 budgets for both the electric and water divisions.
According to an article in the Jamestown Post-Journal, the vote for sharing the dividends was 6 to 3. And although it had initially been proposed that the dividends come from both the electric and water division, in the end all the money will come from the electric division profits.
Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi had initially proposed the dividends be given to the city in his 2014 proposed budget. However, some BPU members were against the idea, and held off on including the dividend sharing in the BPUs 2014 spending plans.
Voting against the dividend sharing were BPU chairman John Zabrodsky along with members Carl Pillittieri and Wayne Rishell. Voting for the dividend sharing were Teresi along with Maria Jones and Gregory Rabb, who also sit on the city council, Len Faulk, Fred Larson and Jeff Lehman.
According to the Post-Journal, the BPU members met in executive session prior to the vote to discuss potential litigation that may arise should the dividend sharing take place.
Following the vote, Zabrodsky is also reported to say that the BPU will need to develop a policy on how to use revenues toward the city’s budget in future years.
This is the second year in a row that the dividends have been shared with the city. Prior to last year, the last time BPU profits were shared with the city was in the 1930s.
Leave a Reply