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Show ELECTRIC LIGHT SITUATION. For many years there has been an agitation in the community for a MUNICIPAL LIGHT AND POWEK PLANT and the sentiment in favor thereof has been gradually growing until finally tne citizens, in Mass Meeting convened, recently passed a resolution directing the City Administration Admin-istration to call a Bond Election for the purpose of raising funds with which to install a plant. Mount Pleasant is now one of the few remaining Municipalities within with-in the State of Utah not owning and operating its own Power Plant, and the citizens should now take advantage advan-tage of the splendid opportunity presented to get the local Company's j plant, and to proceed to c onstruct ! and install a good modern plant suf-' suf-' ficient to meet all the needs and requirements re-quirements of our inhabitants. The City Council has been making inquiries from cities throughout the State where Municipal Power Plants ae owned and operated, and without with-out exception the report has come to our city officials that such plants are a success; and that the revenues derived therefrom are ample to pay the running expenses, the interest on bonds and to put away a surplus as a sinking fund with which to redeem re-deem the funds at maturity. A serious ser-ious mistake will be made in this city if the citizens do not now take advantage ad-vantage of the situation confronting them, for they may never again, at least during the lifetime of the Franchise owned by the local com- j pany, have an opportunity such as is ; now presented. This is altogether a different proposition pro-position to that of a School Bond, for the reason that a School Bond must of necessity be paid out of the proceeds from a direct tax upon people's property, whilst a bond such as is now proposed for the installation installa-tion of a Light and Power Plant will be paid out of the earnings of the plant. The city has for many ears past been paying to the local Light Company approximately $100.00 per month for street and other lighting. This is equivalent to five per cent on $24,000.00, and the bond which is proposed is only for $38,000.00. The very moment that the city takes over the business of the local company a handsome revenue will he coming into the City Treasury, and there can be no question but what the plant, if properly managed, from the earnings thereof, without increasing in-creasing the charge now being made for electrical current by the Local Company, can easily pay into the Treasury a sufficient fund, over and above all running expenses and the interest on the Bonds, to redeem the proposed bond issue at maturity. What other cities can do advantageously advantage-ously we can do, and by taking hold of it now as has been proposed by the citizens in Mass Convention assembled assem-bled there will be no further Franchises granted to any outside Companies, and the City will forever have the entire benefits accruing from an Electrical Power Plant. There will come a time when the City's Water Works S.vstem and Municipal Power Plant will produce sufficsent revenues to pa all ordinary ordin-ary running expenses of the City, and thus relieve the inhabitants from property taxation. ' Every patriotic and wide-awake citizen should do all within his power to encourage the movement now on fot, for if the Bonds should be defeated de-feated and thus the proposed installation instal-lation of the Power Plant defeated, it will be a damaging blow from which our City will perhaps never fully recover. Therefore boost early and late and all the time that the plant may be inst illed. |
