The
Flyer doesn’t have Sudoku, the popular Japanese puzzle. When we want
to torture our brains and chew up pencils, we compare utility bills.
Calculators ready? Relax, if
a liberal arts graduate can do it, so can you.
Nashville gets its natural
gas from Nashville Gas via Piedmont Natural Gas, based in Charlotte, N.C.
Memphis, of course, has Memphis Light, Gas and Water.
In January, Piedmont gave
its Nashville gas customers a 36 percent price cut on top of a 15 percent cut
approved by state regulators two weeks earlier.
“With the recent sharp
decline in wholesale gas prices, it is only appropriate that customer bills
reflect these significantly lower wholesale costs,” said Piedmont CEO Thomas
Skains in a January 17, 2006, press release.
The wholesale price of
natural gas, according to recent reports in The Wall Street Journal,
has fallen from $15.40 per million BTUs in December to $7.48 per million BTUs in
February — a 51 percent decline.
Piedmont measures gas usage
in therms and dekatherms (10 therms). MLGW bills measure usage in “ccf,” or
hundreds of cubic feet. A “ccf” is not exactly equal to a therm, but it’s close.
The conversion factor used by the industry is 1.04 (100 ccf equals 104 therms).
A residential bill sent out
by MLGW last week shows gas usage of 146 ccf at a cost of $201, including the
purchased gas adjustment of .611700/ccf, which was down 9 percent from .6749000/ccf
the previous month. It would be less confusing if MLGW left out the seven
decimal places, rounded this off to 61 cents, and simply gave us the
all-inclusive unit cost in dollars and cents, but we’ll do it instead: $1.38/ccf.
Piedmont charges Nashville
gas customers $1.08/therm.
The Memphian who uses 100
ccf pays $138. The Nashvillian who uses 104 therms pays $112. In this winter of
our discontent, Nashville’s gas rate is 19 percent lower.
Anyone who has driven a car
in Canada or Europe knows how confounding it can be to convert the cost of a
liter of gasoline to the more familiar cost per gallon. This is what consumers
and reporters have to do in order to compare natural gas rates. If utility
companies standardized their unit costs the way gas stations do and made their
bills clearer, the price differential for natural gas would be as plain as the
price at the pump. A 19 percent differential, for example, means gasoline
selling for $2 a gallon versus $1.62 a gallon. How many gas stations could stay
in business if they’re 19 percent higher than the guy down the street?
One year and a day after the
death of Memphis businessman Willard Sparks, his estate filed a lawsuit in
Circuit Court against Dean and Kristi Jernigan and Blues City Baseball, Inc.,
which operates AutoZone Park for the Memphis Redbirds Foundation.
Sparks, who died of cancer
on January 30, 2005, was business partners with Dean Jernigan in Storage USA and
the Redbirds. His widow, Rita Sparks, is president of the nonprofit Memphis
Redbirds Baseball Foundation. Executors of the Sparks estate are his sons Brian
Sparks and Robert Sparks along with David M. Johnson.
The lawsuit says that in
order to fund its operations, Blues City Baseball borrowed $2.1 million from
Trust One Bank in 2003. The note was guaranteed by Willard Sparks and the
Jernigans. On May 6, 2005, Trust One Bank filed a claim against the Sparks
estate demanding payment of the loan in full. On January 19, 2006, an order in
favor of Trust One Bank was entered in Probate Court for $1,807,372. The
lawsuit seeks a prorated portion of that from the Jernigans.
The Jernigans were the
driving force behind building AutoZone Park and bringing the AAA St. Louis
Cardinals affiliate to Memphis. The Redbirds have been one of the top two teams
in minor-league attendance since coming to AutoZone Park. The stadium was
financed with $72 million in bonds, with the public investment limited to about
$8.5 million.
According to its 2004
tax form, the Memphis Redbirds Foundation had $18,305,962 in revenue,
$20,256,941 in expenses, and a deficit of $1,950,979.
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