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The city of St. Cloud Public Services staff has been working with Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC) and Toho Water Authority (TWA) since October 2012 to ensure the smoothest possible utilities billing system transition for St. Cloud customers.

Customers will see the changes starting in late September.

OUC now provides electric service to more than 30,000 customers in St. Cloud. It also performs all meter reading, billing and customer service for the city of St. Cloud, including potable water, wastewater, reclaimed water, stormwater, solid waste and specialized fees billing. In an effort to reduce costs and maintain affordable electric rates for its customers, OUC is working to upgrade its billing, website and phone systems and add more than 400 third-party payment locations, including 7-Eleven, Walmart, CVS and Publix. OUC also will migrate its billing system and close its customer service walk-in centers Sept. 27 (including the one in St. Cloud City Hall). The upgrade to the OUC billing system included an estimated $800,000 in migration expenses to St. Cloud to transfer all non-electric services. After consideration of potential cost estimates of up to $2.2 million for future project phases and careful research of alternative billing options, a St. Cloud partnership was developed with TWA to save on costs and implement software that will allow city staff to open a customer service center and manage the city services currently provided by OUC (with the exception of electric services).

Currently, approximately 6,000 customers utilize OUCs St. Cloud service center in City Hall monthly, said Public Services Administrator Veronica Miller. We understand St. Cloud residents want to be able to come to City Hall and interact with an employee regarding their city utility services and payments. Therefore, our City Council decided it is in the best interest of our residents to fully staff a full-service walk-in center after the planned closures of OUCs customer service walk-in centers.

Many utilities billing system transition changes will occur in-house for city staff. However, the most noticeable change customers will see is the receipt of two monthly statements instead of one monthly statement starting in October.

One bill will be issued by and paid to OUC for electric use and another bill will be issued by and paid to St. Cloud for all other services; that is water, wastewater, reclaim, stormwater, solid waste, and EMS, said Miller. Its important to our City Council and to our staff that our customers know that we are working diligently to ensure the smoothest transition possible while maintaining the highest level of customer service St. Cloud residents expect and deserve. These efforts will continue through the transition phase and beyond.

Following the closure of OUCs St. Cloud service center in City Hall Sept. 27, the area will be closed for a renovation period and a new city walk-in center will open Oct. 14 with city staff serving customers. Phone and Internet support will continue to be available during the renovation period of Sept. 27 through Oct. 14. OUC will continue to provide its St. Cloud payment website, phone payment services, and Amscot payment options until Nov. 22 for City-issued bills. After Nov. 22, residents will be able to make their OUC electric payments online at http://www.OUC.com, over the phone at 407-957-7373, or at one of the more than 400 new authorized third-party payment centers. The city of St. Cloud will convert to its new billing software Nov. 25. The new billing software will produce a new bill appearance and will enable a new website for eBills, online payment and customer service.

An updated Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) document is posted on the St. Cloud News section at http://www.stcloud.org. As new information becomes available, the FAQs will be updated. An OUC presentation to St. Cloud City Council about the utilities billing system transition may also be viewed at http://www.stcloud.org > Media Center > St. Cloud City Council Meeting 5-23-2013, Part1 and St. Cloud City Council Meeting 5-23-2013, Part2.

Beginning Sept. 30, for city of St. Cloud-initiated bills (water, sewer, solid waste services, etc.), contact St. Cloud Utilities Customer Service at 407-957-7344, Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

For OUC-initiated electric bills, continue to call 407-957-7373.

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St. Cloud working toward utilities bill system transition

There are two great centers of unaccountable power in the American political-economic system today -- places where decisions that significantly affect large numbers of Americans are made in secret, and are unchecked either by effective democratic oversight or by market competition.

One goes by the name of the intelligence community, and its epicenter is the National Security Agency within the Defense Department. If we trusted that it reasonably balanced its snooping on Americans with our nations security needs, and that our elected representatives effectively oversaw that balance, there would be little cause for concern. We would not worry that the information so gathered might be misused to harass individuals, thereby chilling free speech or democratic debate, or that some future government might use it to intimidate critics and opponents. We would feel confident, in other words, that despite the scale and secrecy of the operation, our privacy, civil liberties and democracy were nonetheless adequately protected.

But the NSA has so much power, and oversight of it is so thin, that we have every reason to be concerned. The fact that its technological reach is vast, its resources almost limitless and its operations shrouded in secrecy make it difficult for a handful of elected representatives to effectively monitor even a tiny fraction of what it does. And every new revelation of its clandestine requests for companies to hand over information about our personal lives and communications further undermines our trust. To the contrary, the NSA seems to be literally out of control.

The second center of unaccountable power goes by the name of Wall Street and is centered in the largest banks there. If we trusted that market forces kept them in check and that they did not exercise inordinate influence over Congress and the executive branch, we would have no basis for concern. We wouldnt worry that the Streets financial power would be misused to fix markets, profit from insider information or make irresponsible bets that imperiled the rest of us. We could be confident that despite the size and scope of the giant banks, our economy and everyone who depends on it were nonetheless adequately protected.

But those banks are now so large (much larger than they were when they almost melted down five years ago), have such a monopolistic grip on our financial system and exercise so much power over Washington that we have cause for concern. The fact that not a single Wall Street executive has been held legally accountable for the excesses that almost brought the economy to its knees five years ago and continues to burden millions of Americans, that even the attorney general confesses the biggest banks are too big to jail, that the big banks continue to make irresponsible bets (such as those resulting in JPMorgan Chases $6 billion London Whale loss) and that the Street has effectively eviscerated much of the Dodd-Frank legislation intended to rein in its excesses and avoid another meltdown and bailout all offer evidence that the Street is still dangerously out of control.

It is rare in these harshly partisan times for the political left and right to agree on much of anything. But the reason, I think, both are worried about the encroachments of the NSA on the privacy and civil liberties of Americans, as well as the depredations of too big to fail or jail Wall Street banks on our economy, is fundamentally the same: It is this toxic combination of inordinate power and lack of accountability that renders both of them dangerous, threatening our basic values and institutions.

That neither Republicans nor Democrats have done much of anything to effectively rein in these two centers of unaccountable power suggests that if there is ever to be a viable third party in America, it will be born of the ill-fated consequences.

Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Beyond Outrage, now available in paperback. He blogs at http://www.robertreich.org.

Link:
The two centers of unaccountable power in America

The Trayvon Martin murder case will boil down to one claim known by mothers everywhere.

He started it!

Every parent with more than one child has heard that cry. When their little one points his or her finger accusingly at a sibling, claiming to have been provoked into the tussle or name-calling, a wise parent responds with, Well, why did you react?

George Zimmerman will be asked if he instigated the altercation that led to him shooting to death the unarmed Trayvon, for which Zimmerman now faces the charge of second-degree murder.

The basis of Zimmermans defense is that, fearing for his life, he believed he was justified to shoot and kill.

The jury, being chosen now, will decide.

Zimmerman waived his right for a hearing to exculpate himself under Floridas Stand Your Ground law, although his lawyer has suggested that he may attempt to invoke the law if he is found guilty in his impending trial. These laws need to be better understood for their implications for a civil society. Since Florida became the first state to pass the so-called Stand Your Ground law in 2005, about 30 other states have followed suit with some form of these laws. Most states have the Castle Doctrine, which allows people to use deadly force, without the expectation to retreat, when threatened in their own home. What the Stand Your Ground laws do is broaden the right to kill without retreating, even when it is possible, to other places, such as a workplace or a car.

Prior to the spread of these new laws, people were expected to back down, to retreat, if possible. Shoot First, Stand Your Ground, Make My Day laws can make it legal to refuse to walk away. More research is needed into the effects of these laws. However, the evidence available now should trouble anyone who thinks laws should make society safer, rather than promoting violence. One point is made repeatedly by David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center: Firearms are used far more often to frighten and intimidate than they are used in self-defense.

People are confused about what constitutes self-defense. What many people term self-defense is really just the last act in an argument gone out of control, a situation that escalates until one or both parties reach for a gun. In one study, verbatim accounts of people who claimed self-defense were sent to criminal court judges for review. The majority of time, the judges felt the shootings, as described by the shooter, were not legal uses of self defense. Most often, the cases were simply arguments that ended violently when one person used a gun. Many were avoidable.

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Stand Your Ground law is a shaky basis for justice

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