WREC Electric Cooperative capital credits and hurricane response
What the county recorded
This item is not from the published agenda
It is a stretch of the recording that this archive identified as a separate matter — a call to order, a recess, or something taken up that the agenda does not list. There is no official title, no staff recommendation and no disposition, because the county never recorded one. Everything below is inferred.
The source document
The county’s agenda for Board of County Commissioners, Dec 10, 2024
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
The county’s minutes for Board of County Commissioners, Dec 10, 2024
The published PDF, as served by the county. This item is one entry in it.
What was said
Machine transcription of 6m of recording, with speaker names inferred from voice matching. 96% of 26 lines carry a name. It shows what was said, not what was decided, and both the words and the names can be wrong.
We we we bring greetings from Santa today. So uh I just want to say uh congratulations, Madam Chair, on your election to the commission and our vice chairs. We greatly appreciate your service to our communities. As y'all are aware, the co-op with Lacucci is member owned. Uh we are owned by the community that we serve. And since our inception We have returned with this capital credit refund over a half a billion dollars back to our members. So that is a significant uh uh
uh milestone for the cooperative and on behalf of our board of directors and our employees we want to say thank you to Pasco County. We work hand in hand with your team each and every day and uh to deliver critical needs and services to our citizens. And uh we just look forward to another prosperous year. And uh and uh we want to present you all with a check for $354,055.20 is your fair share of uh our capital credits that we've refunded.
This year we refunded over $23 million in capital credits to our members across Pasco, Hernando, Citrus, Sumter, and Polk County. Uh not only with that, our rates are significantly lower. than most utilities throughout the state of Florida. So we're very proud of that. And we couldn't do that without the hard work and dedication of almost our s of of 600 of our employees that we have. And uh we're growing. The cooperatives making over a billion dollar
investment in Pasco County over the next ten years. And you all may be aware the new power plant that's being built. That power plant is owned by Seminole Electric Cooperative. And who owns Seminole Electric Cooperative with Lacucci and eight other co-op co-ops throughout the state of Florida. So in order to meet Pasco County's growing needs, uh we will be investing heavily in infrastructure in our county, which will provide significantly more tax base to this community and we will certainly continue
to invest in our communities as we do all over uh So thank you. Thank you.
John's been with the cooperative over 32 years, and he helped train me at the co-op. When I was on the line, he was my journeyman. So all my bad habits on the line came from John. But he's here right here locally in Newport Ritchie and will do a great job for us. And if you ever need anything, and you always can reach out to me directly, but John here is your local. Local contact to be able to do anything that we need to do right here in the west side of the county.
And and I I want to thank you for the check, but I know this board thanks uh your company for the great service you provided during um Hurricane Helene and Milton and how you stepped in and helped the other power companies is very admirable. So we're we greatly appreciate it. You're welcome. Uh Commissioner Mariano.
Yes. Uh you know, David, John, I I I just can't say enough great things about with the Gucci Electric. What you guys do for the community has been amazing. Uh this storm is just another one that you've gone through and you had your everything in place. Uh you set up a clear communication line so we could call Put put the information with staff who would get to you. And then sometimes you guys were so quick and so efficient the other people didn't know that you already done the work that was they were waiting on. Um Seapines just recently where you had gone up there. But what you guys do for the community
is just amazing. I mean you guys have made innovative strides to try to help Pasco Grow which has worked very, very well. You help our community with all the scholarships you give out. And you guys don't know this yet 'cause it just happened yesterday, but there was a local citizen right in the middle of uh the Hudson area that Had a a couple of trees right on the canal, but they're a little bit too tall to be able to get a regular ladder up to to get to. Uh put a caller to David and John and and within four days they're out there,
put the lights up. And now Hudson in the heart of the near Clark Street near Lonnie Lee, you'll you'll see a big tree with a l lot of lights around. The whole community's gonna celebrate on Wednesday night. So You didn't have to do that. Wasn't wasn't a a long time sequence for you to go do it, but that that effort that you made in the community just to make it a little bit better for the season is just greatly appreciated. So thank for all you do.
Yes. Also I wanna thank you guys prior to the hurricane I had a family uh that had a fire in your at and had with Likuchi and I called you guys and and you came through within a day and um help that family out. So I really appreciate that.
Okay. Um oh go ahead,
come shortly.
David, I certainly appreciate everything you do. in our community and the work you've done in years past and even when Mr. Brown was there you were part of all those actions and Did a great job. During the storm you uh shine Like the biggest star you'd ever think because Y'all were very, very prepared and you could tell the work that you did it moved very smoothly. You're getting things back to order. So we certainly appreciate all you did in that effort. And
that effort that you put out to help others. So very very well noticed. So thank you. You're you're welcome, Commissioner.
All right, we're gonna come down and take a photo, right?
Yeah.
Um Yeah,
Mm-hmm.
Try
to
pick
up.
Yeah, you know, Okay. All right, ready. One, two, three.
Yeah.
Sure.