Man wants city to sell Lodi’s Electric Utility

Lodi resident Dave Christy says it’s time to get rid of Lodi’s Electric Utility. For too many years the city-run power provider has been aiding the city’s taxpayer-supported general fund with millions in rate revenue, Christy said.

“Government does not belong in private enterprise, and Lodi has turned this into an enterprise, for profit,” Christy, who has written a couple of letters to the local paper about the issue, told me today.

On Monday, the Acampo business owner went to City Hall looking to file a petition. Under the heading “Lodi Citizens for Fair Electric Rates,” he wrote:

The Founding Fathers of the City of Lodi started the Lodi Electric Utility to service its citizens at an affordable rate. Like all government run agencies the Lodi Electric Utility has become a tool to tax its’ rate payers to cushion the overspending of tax dollars. Therefore, we the undersigned citizens, i.e., the owners of the Lodi Electric Utility, move to place on the next general election ballot, the Lodi Electric Utility shall be placed, “FOR SALE” to the highest bidder regulated by the California Public Utility Commission…”

City Clerk Randi Johl told him the proposed petition did not meet Election Code requirements and that it needed tweaking before the city could accept it. Christy said he’ll work on that.

“We’re getting that taken care of now,” he said. “It’s just part of the over-complex way everything is run in our society these days.”