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Meet former Mayor Johnnie Mosley
IN HIS OWN WORDS (Part 5)
By Lee Raynor, Editor
Posted: 11:00 PM EST Monday, December 12, 2005
Johnnie Mosley says energy-saving measures can reduce electric bills, and he talks
about insulating kits the city will be making available to residents, as well as an
announcement coming soon that Dobbs School will be expanding in Kinston.
Q: Aren't industries discouraged from coming to Kinston when they see our
high electric rates?
A: No. The peak generation savings we're capable of providing to industry can
make industrial rates comparable with other rates in this area. That's what good
about the generators industries can purchase to reduce that peak load.
Q: I just keep remembering that poor little man over in East Kinston who
was on a fixed income. It was three or four years ago. You remember him. He
had to borrow to pay his electric bill.
A: His electric bill was $700.
Q: Right, and I kept wondering how he was going to pay his next electric bill
when he had to pay off that $700.
A: What you didn't understand about that situation, that young man probably had
about a 2,000-or-greater-square-foot home and had the most expensive electric
service. He lived alone and he heated the entire house with baseboard heating.
Now, that's the most expensive.
A lot of these high utility bills are because of the way the homes are constructed.
Most of the homes in East Kinston don't have insulation. I can give you a good
example. Mine doesn't have insulation. My house was built in '67. I was in the
Army when my house was being built. The contractor didn't do it since I wasn't
here to check it. About five years after it was built, I decided to close in my
carport. When I closed in the carport and took the living room wall bricks out,
that's when I found out I didn't have insulation.. If I had been there when they
were putting up the sheetrock, I would have known.
That's why the majority of people in East Kinston always said their electric rates
were higher. That thinking process is not going to change. [They say] "I got such
and such over here and her heating bill is $200 and mine is $300." They don't look
at how much they use. They look at the cost.
Q: Is there some way the city can help people like that? Maybe send out
somebody to do an energy use assessment and make recommendations on
savings?
A: They just created a kit that will help with the costs. They can insulate with
plastic on the windows, different type foams you can seal around your doors and
windows. That will be in the kit. People got to call and say they want the kit. I
think we're going to make about 220, or something like that.
Q: How much will the kits cost?
A: I think about $4,500 for all of them.
Q: If I want to go up there and get one of them, how much will I have to pay?
A: I asked that question when they made the presentation, but they didn't have a
figure. It will be expensive because some of that stuff is not cheap. I think the kits
are good. There are so many ways people can reduce their electric bill.
One of the main contributors to high electric bills is the hot water heater. I tell
people when they first get up in the morning, after they use the hot water they
need, turn it off. When they come home in the afternoon, turn it on. When you
finish using it, turn it off and you will save probably about one-third.. We are a
society that believes everything's got to be there right now.
Many people come to me with utility concerns and I tell them, "You need to lower
your thermostat." The first thing they tell me, if it's in the summer and they're
having a high bill, "I'm not going to be hot!" And then the same thing in the
winter: "I'm not going to be cold!" They complain about high electric bills when
they would not do anything to help lower it. I think, with all the expectations of
the heating oil and natural gas [prices] - it's going to be rough for a lotta, lotta
people.
We were talking about that man with the $700 electric bill? He passed. But he said
he wasn't going to turn [the thermostat] down. He said, "I'm going to stay warm,"
and warm to him may have been 78 degrees. Somewhere, logic needs to come in.
If I have a house as large as (the public library), and I don't have it sectioned off
where I can just heat a portion of it, and I'm going to heat the entire library, it's
going to cost me some money.
Q: Why does the city seem to be so reluctant to force owners of downtown
buildings to either clean up those buildings or tear them down? Look what
the city is trying to do with the old shirt factory [condemn it]. Why don't they
use that same kind of muscle downtown?
A: The code's different. We can't force the owners to do it. See, we're not going to
force the owners to do anything to the shirt factory. We can set it up, condemn it
and have it demolished. All that cost would come to us. We can take a lien out but
you don't have any way to force them to pay. That's the same thing that's going to
happen with the shirt factory, most likely, because the owner is in Charlotte. I had
high hopes that was going to be the location for Dobbs training school. I worked
many hours with (two other men) trying to get that site, hoping the owners would
have it ready to build so when we got ready to build, that would be ready. But I
found out after a couple of months that that wasn't going to happen.
Q: How are things going with the Dobbs expansion?
A: We are going to get those 32 beds out at Dobbs.
Q: When?
A: They should be coming to the city next month to present the plan. I did a lot of
work on that plan. When it first started, it was very convenient and the [state]
Senate allowed it be be changed to a 65-bed unit and all of it going to Nash
County. I had to go see Sen. Albertson and Sen. Thomas until we got it switched
back so we could have one of those units.
Q: So 32 beds will come here and 32 will go to Nash County?
A: Right.. That's the way it originally was planned by the health and human
services department - to spread them out. But I had to go several times to see Sen.
Albertson and Thomas to get it switched back. But nobody cares about that.
Q: Maybe you didn't blow your own horn enough?
A: Yeah, but I still don't believe in patting myself on the back. I believe that what
I'm doing is for the community.
Next: KinstonPress.com wraps up a two-day interview with former Mayor Johnnie
Mosley as he reveals what he's most proud of accomplishing during his eight-year
tenure as mayor, the prospects for jobs that would encourage young people to
make their homes in Kinston and how Gov. Mike Easley tried to pluck $2.5
million from Kinston's pocket. | |
