Municipal Power Utility in Iowa City?

Iowa City will be voting on the following two questions on November 8th:

Shall the City of Iowa City in the County of Johnson, Iowa, be authorized to establish as a city utility and power plant and system?

and

Shall the management and control of an electric light and power plant city utility be placed in a board of trustees consisting of five trustees as provided by law?

The reason this vote is being put to the people is because a certain group perceives our utilities prices as being too high in Iowa City. I've linked to some sites below that cover a range of opinions on this issue:

MidAmericanEnergy
Press-Citizen OpEd piece about the confusing wording of the ballot.
An Iowa City Law Professor talking about the implications of a "yes" vote (and favoring one).
A letter refuting the above letter.
Citizens for Public Power website. I encourage you to check the "Reasons to Vote Yes" section and the "What people you know and trust say" section.
Finally, a letter to the editor from a candidate for the Iowa City council.

Personally, I agree with the final letter. I like the points he makes about not all communities using public power have rates lower than Iowa City. A significant number have higher rates.

I also do not like the idea of a municipality claiming to be able to run something better than the private sector. Often times, people believe when the government steps in to run things, all their troubles and cares will disappear. A brief glance at the State and Federal government's handling of the Katrina disaster should snap them back to reality. Bureaucracy and delay is all they know how to do well.

The article by Rick Dobyns rightfully points out that to purchase the energy from a co-op or from an energy broker, the citizens will have to pay for it (in this case with bonds sold to make the purchase. Hopefully, the income from the public utility will meet the costs of interest and principle, while allowing the energy rates to stay lower). The power wholesalers are not going to give Iowa City power for free, just because we've taken a more "progressive" view of distribution.

Another fact Rick points out is the almost $100 million discrepancy between both camp's cost estimates for acquiring MidAmerican's distribution means. The "Yes" group says Iowa City will save $60 million dollars and the "No" group says the city will lose $58 million. This is just too large a gap between estimates, leading me to believe that neither is true.

A neighbor of mine is a strong advocate for the "yes" vote. She came around and knocked on our neighborhood's doors trying to gain support for the two initiatives. I told her I was leaning toward voting "no." She explained that MidAmerican Energy has a 12% profit margin and that was too high. She also said that we shouldn't trust a large company.

Had she let me get a word in edgewise, I would have replied that profits for a company are good and that even she could participate in those profits by purchasing stock in Berkshire Hathaway or even the company itself. Those profits aren't just squandered. They are reinvested in the infrastructure and used to fund R&D in order to provide more efficient and cost-effective ways to continue to deliver power.

By the way, I'm sick of people demonizing large companies. See my post about Wal-mart for more in-depth opinion on the issue, but it is because of these large companies that we are able to live the lifestyles we do. These companies are able to deliver to consumers what they want or need. Yes, they do it for profit. But only the foolish, shortlived companies would not use that profit to seek better ways of "delivering the goods." I'm not naive. I know about Enron and Worldcom, but please, these examples are few and far between when taken in the context of the number of capitalistic and entrepreneurial companies in America.

I'm still keeping an open mind and reading the local papers and talking to friends, but as of today, I'm probably going to vote "no."