Pay to play

Wednesday’s Herald revealed a couple of stories that should have most rational people alarmed.

One is about the Whitman family that has purchased two commissioners in Bal Harbor in order to obtain approval for a major expansion.

And, of course the payments of several hundred thousand dollars to the campaigns will not affect the commissioners’ judgment, they will remain independent. If you believe that then I have a church that needs to be demolished. Oh sorry, that was already done.

The second issue is tens of millions of dollars that FPL has spent to have Amendment 1 passed on the Nov. 8 ballot. Former Senator Bob Graham has voiced his concerns about the effect of this amendment’s success.

It appears to stifle the benefits of future expansion of residential solar panels, and gives more power and revenue to the electric utilities.

These companies are government granted monopolies and public companies where their executives are richly compensated at our expense.

Meanwhile,FPL is asking regulators for a 23 percent rate increase.

Who is going to stop them? Governor Rick Scott and the legislature which have received huge sums of campaign contributions?

If you haven’t voted yet, take an anti-incumbent stance and clean House, and the Senate, too.

This is your time to make a statement that “you are mad as hell and you aren’t going to take it anymore.”

This story was originally published November 3, 2016 at 9:25 PM with the headline "Pay to play."