"Municipalization of a New Orleans utility is not going to happen," WWL-TV political analyst Clancy Dubos comes right out and tells WWL's Newell Normand. "When it gets down to pragmatics, a city run utility in New Orleans is too expensive, its unworkable, if you like the way they pick up the trash after Ida, you will love a city run utility. If you love the way they drain the streets, you will love a municipalized ENO (Entergy New Orleans)."
Speaking Thursday afternoon, the long time political analyst and local pundit declared that the city of the New Orleans cannot and will not take over Entergy New Orleans.
Dubos also says the New Orleans City Council is going to waste taxpayer dollars on hiring consultants to tell the public it is too expensive a proposal to happen.
"They tried this 30-years ago, when the [current] council was in grade school, I was in the chamber and it was too expensive then."
Dubos continues, "They're not going to let Entergy New Orleans merge with Entergy Louisiana, which will lower rates in the city, because the council doesn't want to give up its regulatory authority—that's a political decision."
Dubos says the consultant will put together a very expensive report with four main points:
"They're going beyond regulation; they're going into management… They're going to spend hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions on what they already know. There are four options. One is municipalization, not going to happen. One is merging Entergy New Orleans with Entergy Louisiana. The other one is to spin off ENO and hope that some local buyer is dumb enough to buy it and have to deal with the council as a regulator/manager. And [lastly] to see if another utility will buy ENO. I can't see any utility wanting to come into New Orleans and deal with the City Council as a regulator."
Dubos proffers that the best the city can do is put chess pieces on the board, figuratively, and spar with Entergy to get relief on other issues the city has had with the utility, like rising energy prices and other problems with the way the utility is run.
