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ATLANTIC CITY - The city that is "always turned on" appears to be paying a high price for it.

Atlantic City government paid more than $9 million in energy costs to power its government buildings and streetlights between 2006 and 2008, according to figures accumulated by the Langford administration and released Thursday.

The electricity expenses, which totaled $9,130,778 within the three years, increased each year. The city paid $3,183,206 last year, an increase of $200,377 from 2007 and $218,463 from 2006. The accumulated bills do not include this year's bills because the city is heading into its "peak season," said Business Administrator Michael Scott, who calculated the totals.

"We're just spending too much money," Scott said Thursday, adding that 2009 totals could be worse if the resort doesn't start looking toward alternative energy to cut costs.

City officials say they intend to do just that. The energy totals were gathered to assist a new task force designed to identify green technology to be utilized in city government. That task force met privately for the first time Thursday.

"We're jumping into the alternative energy future with two feet," said 1st Ward Councilman Bruce Ward, who spoke on behalf of the task force Thursday and initiated discussions about energy with the mayor earlier this year.

Among those participating in the meeting Thursday was Dennis Weiss, dean of natural sciences and mathematics at Richard Stockton College, and economist Richard Pernicaro, of Atlantic Cape Community College. Also in attendance was Keith Groff, a city resident whose home is an example of the money that can be saved through cleaner energy sources.

Groff'sNorth Congress Avenue house is bolstered by extra insulation in the walls and roof and triple-paned windows, adorned with 32 solar panels and equipped with energy-efficient appliances, energy alternatives that he has said save him about $8,000 per year.

The administration is hoping to expand that vision throughout the resort - and expand the savings.

Although city officials avoided questions about current electrical costs that could be deemed wasteful, Ward said there are plenty of areas to improve with different technology. The councilman pointed to the city's Public Works Building along Route 40, which consists of 135,399 square feet, or 3.1 acres, of flat roof.

"That's ideal space for solar panels," Ward said.

The group also discussed establishing more wind farms similar to the city's $12 million farm operated by the Atlantic County Utilities Authority, arguably the most visible on the East Coast.

But new projects based on new energy technologies require far more money than the city's budget can withstand. Scott said the task force's priority now is to obtain as much state and federal aid as possible. The business administrator vaguely referenced some state grant money that could become available in the next three weeks, but did not say which grants or how much they are worth.

Ward said as money comes in and projects are proposed, the members of the task force will expand and rotate to provide the most insight possible.

"Today we didn't have any utility companies represented," said Ward, who projected the group to meet again next month. "We didn't want to waste their time today. Today was a start. We're looking now to prioritize and move forward from there."

11 comments:

• PPisPork (50) posts 6:14 pm

  Hey Rep. I came up short, only hit 8 this weekend. But the bone-us wuz that three of them had Republican dads that they hate so they gave up some protest poon.

• weisenthal (261) posts 1:53 pm

  Sounds like the city "officials" figured out how to steal electric, too. No stone left unturned and walked away with here in the city that's always turned inside out by it's thief government.

• Republican4Mayor (161) posts 4:40 am

  "Thats allright, I'm going out and git ten ladies pregnant this weekend", said PisPork. AND WHEN YOUR DONE, TELL THEM (notice I said them) TO GET AN H.I.V. Test! There is something seriously wrong with you PisPork and I am only too glad that you are the Mayor's neighbor and NOT mine. By the way did you register with the county? You know it's the law now!

• todfiat (0) posts 1:20 pm

  What's especially pathetic about the venereal City Government, white black & in between, is how they crow about "the budget" and "saving money," but every time the sun goes behind a cloud another overpaid second cousin or trashy girfriend is put on the city payroll. the only need for "savings" is to keep pace with the chronically obese city budget, nothing is ever "saved" or "escrowed" or "invested." It must be kept close at hand to pay off the interminable series of lawsuits. Heck, how many unserved warrants and unpaid tickets were found in city court two years ago? a $100,000.00 worth, or more? How about the decades when every Tom Dick & Jabril in 08401 simply stopped paying property taxes, since THERE WAS NO PENALTY asside vrom a tax lien. Ask Scott Evans, wannabe Mayor. Naturally, the city taxpayers had to make up the shortfall -- but wait, the tax rate had been frozen for two decades or so as well. Is this a brilliant strategy, or what? It's like eating your seed corn when the wagon train still has 1000 miles to go to reach Calleyforneea. Where were all the geniuses then? The hi-stepping City Managers ("Yes sir, General!"), the Linwood-living Brandons and their ilk, the big-mouthed, morbidly-obese Zipper of Public Works, the Absecon-living police chief, and all the hoores and grifters they ran with, the Ton Brothers, the excessive promotions in overstaffed ACPD & ACPD entailing millions of $$$ in salaries and full bennies and pension obligations, the fleets of city cars for Tri-State personal travel. All those white-shoe law firms on Atlantic Ave., thick with Margaters, what the heck did any one of them ever do to restore integrity to city government?? Nothing, just padding the billable hours while the know-nothing, poorly-educated local heros in Chitty Hall played their games. Now, the swamp is draining itself. Gambling was always provisional, ephemeral, transitory, shallow, all flash, a Michigan bankroll of Guidos and bling and loudmouths - "yo, Mikey!!" - and the game has moved to greener pastures. In 20 years, A.C. will be radically revamped, downsized, and shorn of its enduring self-delusions. The plantation mentality will be a vague regrettable memory, like Prohibition. The scum is being corraled and sent to the processing plant for re-education. It's a day late and a dollar short, of course, just like everything A.C. does, the terminally feeble "celebrations" of A.C.'s tawdry 150th anniversary being the most abject example. Heck, they couldn't even unveil the Peter Max mural without a big FUBAR. Chitty Hall not even drop a curtain on the side of that wall!! What an old hoore the faded resort is. I don't think Madame Sonya would even like to be seen in public with the clapped-out two-legged trash of A.C., frankly. At least without collecting a hefty, per-orifice fee.

• PPisPork (50) posts 12:23 pm

  You white folks didn't have nothing to say when the white guys in Lower Township announced they would git rid of the BL England Golf course and replace it with Solar Panels. Its just because the brothers and sisters are in charge that you show your true colors. Thats allright, I'm going out and git ten ladies pregnant this weekend. I'm gonna do my part to keep our numbers and keep yall in check. Yall don't deserve to lead anymore cause yall are morally deformed!

• miketoland (3) posts 11:36 am

  "Jumping into alternative energy with two feet"? Maybe the Councilman should jump with 2 feet into repairing the Boardwalk in the Inlet in HIS ward.

• RussOCNJ (27) posts 10:58 am

  Generating electricity from solar panels costs about 8 times as much as getting it from the electric company. The Ocean City solar project cost $4.5 Million and generates less and $50K per year worth of electricity.

• B4real (268) posts 10:56 am

  I couldn't have said it better myself Todfiat. Right on the money.

• todfiat (0) posts 10:43 am

  Solar panels? green energy? blah blah. What about the following?: taxes, Boardwalk restrooms, Garden Pier, Bader Field, the sea-hiding dunes, the swelling ranks of homeless, needle junkies, grifters, and petty criminals? (Not all of them are in City Hall.) And a never-ending series of indictments and arrests of City Officials. (What's in YOUR closet, councilman?)Drum roll please -- the long-awaited, much-needed, embarassing, yet so indicative a failure of a city mired in petty corruption: A SUPERMARKET. Set your sights a little higher, Mr. Ward. Stop the pettifoggery about clean energy when you cannot -- jointly and severally -- find the ENERGY to manage any or all of the above-referenced hardy perennials in the weed-choked lot that was a famous resort a CENTURY AGO. And is an eyesore now, with a few oases of heavily-secured private property fiefdoms called CASINOS the only respite from the dirty, car-clogged, noisy, crime-infested neighborhoods in between, from Lower Chelsea to Gardiner's Basin.

• Republican4Mayor (161) posts 11:20 pm

  "We're just spending too much money," Scott OUR POINT EXACTLY, THANK YOU FOR AGREEING WITH US, now can we please have your vote in November?

• BernieSchwartz (466) posts 10:23 pm

  "We don't want to waste the utility companys time" Ward stated. OK just waste our money for another month. F'n pathetic.

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