Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

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Dear Editor:

What Mike Ross didn't tell in his legislature action in '99 was Prescott with the highest electric rates in the state will never be able to choose their electricity company because Mike Ross and the legislature passed Act 1556 of 1999 with a revision where the mayors and city councils of cities that have their own electric companies can vote to op-out of deregulation, meaning when electric rates get down to 4 or 5 cents per KWH the people who live in the city limits of Prescott will still be paying the highest electric rates in not only Arkansas but the United States.

Their Arkansas deregulation law won't take effect till 2002 or 2003, yet many eastern states and California already can choose where they want to buy their electricity from. Soon we will be able to choose who we want to buy our natural gas from. Thank God Prescott isn't in the gas business. Then soon we will be able to choose who we want our local phone company to be.

Mike Ross forgot to say that he and the legislature passed the law requiring reassessments every three years not every five years like the schools and county judges wanted, because reassessment costs each county almost half million dollars with no increase in property taxes, because the value of property doesn't increase in 3 years in Arkansas except in Little Rock.

Gary Avery

Prescott