I have a plan to stand up to Duke Energy and reduce our electric bills for our homes and local businesses. Our franchise agreement with them expires in 6 years, and I have contacted the FMEA 
and other experts to find out the best of our alternatives. We can begin holding workshops to discuss our alternatives, so when it comes time to renegotiate our contract we can stand strong. In 1960, (then known as) Florida Power used to pay for our street lights, then in 1990 (then known as) Progress Energy stopped paying for our lighting and began charging us for it, right now Duke Energy is planning to continue to charge us for the next four years for a nuclear power plant
that they themselves have admitted they will never build. In 2006, the State passed Senate bill 888 which gave Duke the ability to TAX us for their proposed power plant, they called it Advanced Cost Recovery and the State put in a loophole that said they could take our money even if the power plant wasn’t built. We must put a stop to this. Our next franchise agreement must be negotiated differently. We can begin by having presentations by the Florida Municipal Electric Association on how to create a municipal utility company. We can also begin contacting TECO and asking them what they would have to offer our city if we chose to buy power from them. It is important to start this process now, so we can establish our willingness to stop doing business with Duke Energy unless they give us our money back. Getting our money back can be done in a variety of ways, first by them paying for our street lights again, and then lowering the rates for our businesses and our homes. They can also give us grants for our solar projects around town. Some people have tried to argue that this is impossible, and that’s exactly what I was told about stopping Wal-Mart from building on the River. I stopped Wal-Mart from doing that…thereby proving nothing is impossible. 
Not to mention the City of Winter Park, FL successfully broke free from Progress Energy and created their own municipal utility. There are over 30 municipal utilities in Florida right now.
I have a plan to help families stay out of foreclosure and keep their homes. Instead of using eminent domain as has been done in Richmond, California, I propose using the code enforcement board and the housing authority to take homes away from banks and resell them to the homeowners at the proper market value.
I have a plan to transport the elderly to their doctors offices and to the local stores. We can get local car dealers to donate vehicles to the program and get volunteer drivers to go through a safety screening with our police department. We can then get businesses that benefit from this program to donate a set amount of money for each resident that is brought to them and shops at their store or uses their medical facility, in order to pay for fuel and insurance costs.
I have a long term plan to help the homeless. We must do more than simply feed the homeless, and as Tarpon Springs Police Chief Kochen said, “We can’t arrest our way out of a homeless problem”, we must find other ways to get them off of the streets. We can create a business that is eventually run by and owned by the homeless who work there. We begin with a labor pool business that offers higher pay than the competitors like Able Body Labor. The workers will have more money in their pockets immediately as well as be earning shares in the company. The warehouse that this is run out of will also house homeless that are unable to work, getting them off of the streets. By coordinating with the local food suppliers and other shelters, this can become a viable safe haven for many. And can help lift many out of poverty as the business expands into manufacturing of items like solar water heaters. The city of Tarpon will play an important role in coordinating efforts for this project, but then will step aside and let the market take over.