Municipal Enterprise

MODELS & BEST PRACTICES

Austin Energy (Austin, TX)
www.austinenergy.com
Austin Energy is the nation’s 10th largest community-owned electric utility. Owned by the city of Austin, Austin Energy serve 360,000 households and over 800,000 people (including some customers outside Austin’s city limits). In the past three decades, the utility has provided $1.3 billion in profits to the community, including $73 million in 2003. Austin Energy has supported the use of renewable energy through its Green Choice power program, the largest such effort in the nation for the past three years, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Cedar Falls Utilities (Cedar Falls, IA)
www.cfu.net
Cedar Falls Utilities has been a leader among municipal utilities in the development of broadband. It provides high-speed Internet service to its customers for $40 a month, maintains lower prices than surrounding utilities, and generated $1.4 million for Cedar Falls’ general fund. By the end of 2003, the number of high-speed Internet customers had reached 75% of the number of basic cable subscribers, enabling the utility to begin to retire debt taken on for the project ahead of schedule.

Cleveland Public Power (Cleveland, OH)
www.cpp.org
Founded in 1906, Cleveland Public Power is Ohio’s largest public power company and the 35th largest in the nation. In the 1970s, the city was almost forced to sell the company. In 1977, then Mayoral candidate (now Congressman) Dennis Kucinich (D) ran on a platform to stop the sale. Two years later, city residents voted 2-to-1 against privatizing their municipal power system. In 1986 then-Mayor (now U.S. Senator) George Voinovich (R) introduced legislation to enable the utility to expand its service system. Today, Cleveland Public Power is one of the country’s leading public power companies, with power reliability rated at 99.99 percent.

Coquille Economic Development Corporation (North Bend, OR)
www.cedco.net
CEDCO acts as the parent corporation for all Coquille Tribal businesses, which range from hospitality and gaming to health care, agriculture (Coquille Cranberries may be the world’s largest producer of organic cranberries) and a broadband telecommunications company dedicated to providing rural communities with high-speed Internet connectivity. Additionally, CEDCO acts as a business incubator for developing Tribal businesses.

Denver Convention Center Hotel Project (Denver, CO)
www.denverconventionhotel.com
The City of Denver decided to use public ownership as a strategy to finance the development of a hotel to support its convention center. Construction began in June 2003. The scheduled opening date for the hotel is December 2005. The facility, when opened, will be managed by the Hyatt Regency hotel chain.

East Bay Municipal Utility District (Oakland, CA)
www.ebmud.com
The publicly owned EBMUD provides water services to over a million customers in the East Bay. EBMUD has converted a full 90 percent of its service cars were hybrid vehicles as part of the agency’s efforts to engage in environmentally responsible business practices.

Glasgow Electric Power Board (Glasgow, KY)
www.glasgowepb.net
The Glasgow Electric Plant Board governs the municipally owned power company in Glasgow, Kentucky. The service division provides consulting services and viability studies to those communities interested in starting a municipally owned utility, the acquisition of a privately operated facility, or the diversification of existing services.

Houston Convention Hotel (Houston, TX) www.houstonconventionctr.com/press_room/120303.html
The City of Houston entered into a public-private partnership with the Hilton hotel chain to develop a new hotel, which opened in December 2003, to support its convention center. The city owns the hotel, while the Hilton Hotels Corporation, the world’s largest convention hotel operator, manages the hotel.

Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power (Los Angeles, CA)
www.ladwp.com
LADWP is the country’s largest public utility supplying water and electricity to the city’s 3.8 million residents. Each year, it transfers at least seven percent of its electric gross revenues and five percent of its water gross revenues to the Los Angeles General Fund, helping finance city police and fire protection, as well as recreational facilities.

Opinet (Bristol, VA)
www.bvu-optinet.com
Optinet has been a leader among public utilities in the deployment of fiber-to-the-home technology for broadband transmission. Through its fiber network, the utility provides customers with local phone service, long distance telephone, cable TV, high speed Internet service, and advanced business voice and data transmission services.

Pike’s Place Market (Seattle, WA)
www.pikeplacemarket.org
Run by the Pike Place Market Development Authority, a non-profit board established by the city in 1973 after a 1971 voter referendum supporting the restoration of a public market, the market has proven to be a model for the redevelopment of public markets across the country.

Port Authority of New York & New Jersey (New York, NY)
www.panynj.gov
With $2.7 billion in revenues in 2003, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey is the largest port authority in the country, operating Newark, JFK and La Guardia airports as well as the owner of the site of the former World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. Since the 1980s, the Port Authority has been actively involved in industrial redevelopment to retain manufacturing jobs. One such effort is the Teleport, a telecommunications center in Staten Island.

Port of Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA)
www.portoflosangeles.org
The Port of Los Angles is the largest container port in the United States and the fourth largest cruise passenger facility. In FY 2004, total operating revenues exceeded $350 million with net income of $90 million. The Port is also a major real estate developer. Long term plans, for instance, call for the development of 400 acres of Port property into a combination of parkland, commercial, retail, and residential space along an eight-mile stretch of waterfront.

Port of Seattle (Seattle, WA)
www.portseattle.org
The Port of Seattle operates a cruise port and container facilities, also operates Seattle-Tacoma (Sea-Tac) airport. In 2003, operating revenues were $321 million. It also leases commercial space, including business conference facilities.