10 SIGNS YOUR CHILD MIGHT BE A VICTIM OF BULLYING

Ten signs your child might be a victim of Bullying

One of the biggest fears of parents is finding out their child is a victim of bullying. Bullying these days can range from online intimidation to being brutally attacked by other children. We expect our kids to be safe at school and free from harassment. However this is not always the case. Many children hide the shame of being a victim of bullying from their parents and teachers for various reasons. Sometimes its fear of retaliation and sometimes is fear of being talked down to by their parents for not standing up for themselves.

Here at 10 Signs that can help you determine if your child is a victim of bullying.

1.      Comes home with torn, damaged, or missing pieces of clothing, books, or other belongings. The less reasonable your child's explanation, the more likely bullying is involved.

2.      Frequent headaches or stomach aches, feeling sick, or faking illness, especially in the mornings. This could either be to avoid the bullying or as a result of the bullying. Typically, it's both.

3.      Changes in eating habits. Skipping meals, unable to eat meals, or binge eating. Kids may come home from school hungry because they did not eat lunch.

4.      Difficulty sleeping, frequent nightmares, or complaints of headaches. Processing the abuse can take a toll even when sleep should provide rest and healing.

5.      Declining grades, loss of interest in schoolwork, or not wanting to go to school. Simply put, it's tough to concentrate on anything else when anxiety is working in the background.

6.      Loss of friends or avoidance of social situations. Victims often lose the few friends they have. Other kids don't want to be associated with victims or they're afraid it's "catching." Victims seldom become "loners" by choice.

7.      Feelings of helplessness or decreased self-esteem. This may include anxiety-based behavior and self-destructive behaviors such as running away from home, harming themselves, or talking about hurting themselves.

8.      Generalized fear. Your child may seem afraid of going to school, walking to and from school, riding the school bus, or taking part in organized activities with peers (such as clubs).

9.      Appears sad. Not just sad, but moody, teary, or depressed when he or she comes home. A huge part of this is that he or she won't talk about what's wrong.

10.    Begins to bully other children. This is a disturbing sign that's often a natural consequence of being bullied. Victims may begin to take it out on siblings or weaker friends and become aggressive and uncooperative with their parents.

As a martial arts instructor, I’m often asked by parents about the best ways to help their children to deal with bullies. While there are many approaches to the problem, I think one of the best ways is to instill self-confidence in your children. And martial arts is just one way to instill self-confidence.

No matter which tactics you try, you want to start by creating an open line of communication with your child. You want your child to feel comfortable to discuss any bullying incident with you. You can do that by simply listening to what they have to say. Then, you can continue to ask questions until you understand the whole story.

You can also share your own personal experiences with bullies. This will help them to understand that you know how they feel. Then you can try some ways to help counter the situation.

Here are three ways you can help with your child being bullied.

1) Role play. For the same reasons you role-play to anticipate tough questions during a job interview, role-playing a few bullying scenarios with your child will teach him how to respond to a stressful confrontation. When practicing martial arts, we are basically role-playing various self-defense scenarios. When practiced enough, the student can recall and instinctively respond if he finds himself in a dangerous situation. At home, you can simply role-play some bullying scenarios to help your child practice for any confrontation. When he finds himself in a difficult situation, he will have more self-confidence since he’s better prepared to handle it.

2) Teach body language and communication skills. Martial arts stances exude confidence. In martial arts training, the posture of the attention stance is body straight, eyes focused and feet firmly on the ground. Also, instruct your child to breathe properly (calm breath equals calm composure) and speak in a confident tone to help deflect any immediate threat from a bully. Any action taken on the part of your child should not be done in a manner that might be perceived as trying to challenge the bully. While standing one’s ground with an air of composure — despite the actual feeling of fear — should be learned, and practiced, children should also learn how to communicate and create rapport with others. Using words to defuse a situation can help prevent it from becoming physical.

3) Take to the mat. Consider enrolling your child in a reality based martial arts program, such as Muay Thai Kickboxing, MMA or Krav Maga. The training at most self-defense academies does not promote the use of violence, however, having that knowledge will help your child feel more self-assured. And if your child does need to defend himself, his practice on the mat will provide a level of safety by allowing him to perform the moves instinctively when threatened. Besides learning self-defense skills — and understanding when it would be appropriate to employ them — he will take away life skills and leadership lessons that will bolster confidence throughout his life.

Bullying should never be taken lightly. While we’ve made great strides against bullying — bullying policies have been implemented by schools, the workplace and the government — we need to, as a community, prepare and educate our children on how to deal with this serious issue. I believe, only through education can we truly make a difference.

Until our next newsletter be safe…

Instructor Joe Chao
Modern Martial Arts & Fitness
9025 Biscayne Blvd. Miami Shores
www.miamishoreskravmaga.com

Two Free Tickets to Hear Leon Foster Thomas

Good news, bad news, I suppose.  The good news is great news.  Having heard Leon Foster Thomas before, I can attest that he is in fact a virtuoso of the steel pan drum.  If you look him up, you'll see him described as a "rare hidden treasure."  I don't know how hidden he is, since he's now a local here, and he has performed world wide, but he is without question a treasure.  He's from T&T, but he's settled in Miami, and he did his schooling here (FIU).  If ever there was a virtuoso on the steel pan drum, Leon Foster Thomas is unquestionably it.

Long ago, in anticipation of this concert season, I got two tickets for this show.  The show is on Saturday, May 1.  I had no way to know then that two of my friends would be getting married that day, and that I would absolutely be there.  So now, I have two tickets I can no longer use.

The less than great news for some of us up here in the north part of the County is that the venue, which I love, is in Cutler Bay.  I've already clocked it, and it's 27 miles from here.  It's the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center.  Everything they put on there is top shelf, Leon Foster Thomas is top shelf, and it's well worth the drive.  I take I-95 to South Dixie, it's a straight line, and it's about an hour plus from here.  If you take 836 to 826/Turnpike, it's more miles, but quicker.  And you have to pay tolls.

So I have these tickets.  There are two of them.  I can't use them.  If you want them, they're yours.  The other good news, if I can tout SMDCAC, is that if no one wants them, I will turn them back in, and SMDCAC will give me credit for them against next year's purchases.  Who does that?

"Communication Breakdown." And a Perversely Perfect Storm.

Led Zeppelin has stolen frequently and shamelessly from lots of people, and I don't feel one bit sheepish about co-opting part of the title of this post from them.  As for the "perfect storm," it appears to be essentially public domain, it's so trite now.  So I snagged that, too.  Sue me.

One of our neighbors told me today about something I had missed.  Our grand entrance sign coming north just over the 6th Avenue bridge had nice landscaping in front of and around it.  Apparently, that shrubbery is now gone, and it has been replaced by common sod.  It was our neighbor's understanding that what happened was that the Parks and Parkways Advisory Board, or some representative of it, didn't like the plantings that were there, and somehow, this antipathy resulted in a change in landscaping.  No one from P&P would have taken it upon him/her/themselves to go out and remove shrubs and replace them with sod, and the only way this would have happened is if members of the Public Works Department of the Village did the work.  But they wouldn't do it on their own initiative, or in response to a request from anyone from P&P, and the work would only have been done if the Manager had ordered it.  And someone would have had to pay for the new sod, so that expense could only have been approved by the Manager.

There is a protocol, and a chain of command, for decisions like these.  P&P, as is true of some other Village Boards, is an "advisory" board.  It can conceptualize whatever it wants, but it cannot make anything happen without approval from the Commission.  It is the Commission, and not anyone else, whom the Board advises.  That did not happen in this case.

For the record, our neighbor was not personally happy about the landscaping change, and for the record, neither am I.  But that's not even the point.  Under proper conditions of protocol, and propriety, and respect, my aesthetic, or that of our neighbor, could have been outvoted.  I have no problem being outvoted.  It happens, and it's a fair outcome when there are various opinions about something.  What I do have a problem with is being circumvented and disregarded, if someone invents his or her own protocol, in order not to have to deal with the opinions of others.  That appears to be what happened here.

P&P cannot attempt to effect action by circumventing and ignoring the Commission.  That is not the deal, with "respect" to the Village Charter.  And even if they tried, the Manager should have redirected them to the Commission for a decision like this one.  But the Manager has apparently been mad at us, culminating in her resignation, and she appears to have decided to 1) ignore proper protocol, and cut out the Commission, and 2) spend/waste Village money undoing something that most of us liked very much.

The communication breakdown was not a mistake or an oversight.  It was mischief made by two parties.  One party has long complained about the landscaping around the sign, and the other party recently got mad at the Village.  They colluded, each out of antipathy and passive-aggressiveness, to poke their fingers in our eye.  This is not OK.


PS: I have explored this matter with the Chair of P&P.  I am told that at a P&P meeting, where the landscape architect (LA) was present, both the LA and the P&P Chair (and the rest of P&P?) agreed with each other that the array of foliage installed when the sign was erected under the guidance of the prior Manager was somehow not the original design or part of someone's original intent or preference, and that the current/departing Manager agreed to remove it in exchange for the common sod that is now there.  "The [now departing] Manager made the decision."  As a result of the discussion I had with the P&P Chair, I will stand by the conclusions I already formed.

Vote RAUL for JUDGE

Raul Perez-Ceballos is running for Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge.

• He has been a lawyer for over 13 years.
• Author of the Florida Family Law Blueprint (Book)
• Author of various professionally published articles
• Awarded "10 Best 2015" by the American Institute of Family Law Attorneys for Client Satisfaction
• Named in the 2016 Best Miami Divorce Lawyers by expertise.com
• Rated "10" on Avvo.com
• Chair of the Dade County Bar Family Courts Committee (2015-2016)
• CLE Developer and Lecturer

Elections are held August 30th, 2016

Please like our Facebook page "Elect Raul Perez-Ceballos for Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge"
raul4judge.com

Political Advertisement approved by the Committee to Elect Raul Perez-Ceballos for Judge

Will You Help Us Choose a New Manager?

The Village Commission is looking to appoint members to a Resident Review Committee.  This Committee will be responsible for reviewing the resumes submitted for the Village Manager position and as a group, select ten (10) top candidates, which will then be forwarded to the Commission for their review and final selection.

If you are interested in serving on this board, you will need to be available to review the resumes that will be submitted to each board member on May 13th, and then to meet as a Board at a public meeting which has been tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, May 24, 2016, at 6:30pm, at the Log Cabin, 640 NE 114th Street, Biscayne Park, FL.

The Commission needs to select the seven (7) member board by Wednesday, April 20th, where each Commissioner will appoint one member, and two will be selected at large.

In order to be considered as a board member, please send an email to the Village Clerk at villageclerk@biscayneparkfl.gov, provide your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address, and if you'd like a brief statement as to why you would be interested in being on this board.  All responses will be forwarded to the entire commission for their consideration and they will contact you directly to discuss further.  Please reply by no later than Monday, April 18th.

Thank you for your interest and participation!
Maria Camara, Village Clerk

In the past month we have seen an increase in violent and sexual assaults in South Florida, as the title states, “Miami isn’t safe anymore especially for Women”. Violence towards women has been on the increase.  In Davie, Police have released a sketch of a man suspected of groping and flashing women, at two different Broward County parks. According to the Davie Police Department, a female jogger was approached by a man at 12:30 p.m., on March 15, at Vista View Park, located at 4001 S.W. 142nd Ave. The victim was allegedly groped by the unknown suspect, and when she kicked and screamed, the groper fled the scene.
Read more here

The Coral Gables Police Department has released a sketch of a man suspected in a sexual assault and robbery that occurred in the city last week.
Officials distributed flyers around nearby neighborhoods Tuesday afternoon, in the hopes of catching the suspect. "It's very traumatic, because it's a surprise," said Coral Gables Police spokesperson Kelly Denham.
According to Coral Gables Police, on March 13, at approximately 6:48 a.m., a woman was walking southbound along the 1300 block of Granada Boulevard, when a man grabbed and sexually battered her. They said the suspect then stole her belongings and fled. "Pulled her behind a tree, and then he sexually assaulted her, in a manner where he's unwanted touching, unwanted fondling of her"
Read more here

 Even teens and younger adults are in danger. The Margate Police Department is searching for a missing endangered juvenile. Sixteen-year-old Alexandra Tatiana Harris from Plantation was reported missing by her mother and was last seen on Monday after being dropped off at a friend's house in Margate.
Read more here

Even large parties can be dangerous for women. At the Ultra Music Festival Police arrested Miami-Dade County employee Carl Lee Wilt, a Metro mover supervisor, for allegedly raping a 25-year-old female who attended Ultra, Saturday. Miami-Dade Police charged the 41-year-old with sexual battery and kidnapping.
A witness flagged down a police officer who said they saw someone taking a heavily intoxicated woman into a utility room at the Metro mover Station off of Northeast Second Avenue and Eighth Street, at around 9:30 p.m. When police arrived, they said, they found the woman unconscious and Wilt with his zipper down.
Read more here

Now you may ask. Where am I going with this?

Simple…

I would like to give back to the community by offering a FREE Woman’s Survival Workshop to you, your friends, and coworkers and family.
Let me introduce myself, my name is Joe Chao and I am a certified instructor in the most proven form of self-defense in the world. I teach Israeli Krav Maga, which is used by the Israeli Defense Forces, FBI, Many Special Forces as well as Police Departments throughout the USA.

Unlike traditional martial arts where you spend years punching and kicking in the air and performing choreographed movements that resemble a dance. Krav Maga teaches simple techniques designed to counter a specific attack. Krav Maga uses natural movements and enhances them into deadly strikes and takedowns designed for anyone to defend themselves from almost any attack.

What to expect at this workshop:
·  Situational Awareness - Recognizing possible threats and avoiding them
·  Placing yourself in safety zones anywhere
·  Abduction prevention and retaliation
·  Defense against the most common attacks by Sexual Predators
·  Finding help after your encounter
Things to bring:
·  Loose comfortable clothing
·  Acceptance that bad things happen to good people
·  A desire to learn

Space is limited so contact us today by email or phone today to reserve your spot.
Our FREE Woman’s Survival Workshop is going to be held on:
Saturday April 9th, 2016
2pm to 4pm
At Modern Martial Arts & Fitness
9025 Biscayne Blvd., Miami Shores, FL 33138
305-542-5549

www.mma-f.com

My Big Fight This Week with Roxy Ross

It was during the Commission meeting, and it started out as a point of agreement.  Somehow, it worked its way around to a dispute.

We were talking about the garbage.  Specifically, we were discussing when it could be placed for pick-up, and where it should be placed.  Come to think of it, Rox and I have had two big fights about the garbage.  When, and now where.

A couple of months or so ago, Rox proposed that garbage should be placed for pick-up as soon as 9:00 AM the day before pick-up (so Monday morning and Thursday morning), and empty containers should be removed by homeowners by 9:00 AM the morning after pick-up (so Wednesday morning and Saturday morning).  It seemed to me this left way too much time in the week (four days!) that containers could rest as a lingering blight in front of BP houses.  I said so.  I said no.  I proposed placement not before 5:00 PM the day before pickup, and removal by the end of the day of pick-up.  I got outvoted for two reasons.  One was that Roxy said that she likes the symmetry of the same number for the first placement hour and the last removal hour (9), and she thought it would be easier to remember, and the other was that she and others (she's very persuasive, in that charming way of hers) agreed (with each other, not with me!) that the hours I proposed wouldn't leave enough time and opportunity for people to be able to set out their garbage, then remove the empty containers.  I won't even summarize some of the ridiculous hypothetical examples of people who couldn't theoretically do this.  Just take my word for it: the others were wrong, and I was right.  But still, Rox and I fought about this at the meeting some months ago.

Anyway, this past Tuesday, at the Commission meeting, we revisited the matter of when the garbage could be put out, and empty containers removed.  Although I had already been outvoted on this matter, I thought I'd just take the last opportunity to harp, and wouldn't you know, Rox changed her mind.  Or, as we say in my business, she apparently overcame her OCD.  She agreed that we could switch the placement time to 5:00 PM the day before pick-up, and for whatever reasons, others generally agreed with her.  Or maybe it was always 2-2, and she was just the swing vote.  In any event, we agreed to change the placement time, and I agreed not to fuss about the removal time: 9:00 AM the day after pick-up.

Since I was on a bit of a roll, I decided to whine about the where of garbage pick-up, too.  This was also to address a point raised by Dan Keys, regarding how far back on the property garbage and containers could be placed. Dan's point, which was not technically wrong, was that if we use the property line as a standard (garbage and containers could be placed essentially on the property line), then those people with oddly platted lots, with property lines as deep as 30 feet from the street, could place their garbage that far back.

The easy way to solve this, which we soon enough adopted, was to say that the reference for where garbage could be placed would be the street edge, not the property line.  But I suggested one other possibility.  Because Dan theoretically had no complaint about how far off the street garbage could be left, and since some of our neighbors want pick-up so far from the street that it's in the side yard of the house, I suggested that we just use the street as a reference (no more than 10 feet from the street edge, was my suggestion), and eliminate side yard pick-up altogether.

This suggestion inflamed Dan, with whom I was also having a fight this week (I know, I need to see someone about all this fighting in which I seem to get myself involved), and Dan argued that side yard garbage and trash pick-up was a long-standing "right" of BP residents.  We discussed this further, and Dan was perhaps very grudgingly willing to understand that what he was describing was an unquestioned (thus far) tradition, not a "right."  But he and some others still held to the idea that it would be some sort of deprivation to remove from BP residents the opportunity to have garbage men waste their time collecting garbage and trash from side yards, then return empty containers there.   There was not even an attempt to describe the kind of person who could take garbage and trash from inside the house or from the yard, and deposit it at the side yard, but not take it to the "curb."

But in the meantime, Rox came to adopt the same ill-tempered and depriving imposition that I suggested.  She, too, thought we should eliminate side yard garbage and trash service.  That was the moment of agreement between us regarding that issue.  But the moment didn't last long, because Dan was making such a stink, and I could see I was outvoted on this matter and didn't need to stand on principle about it, that I told myself that I would just agree not to oppose side yard pick-up.

When the final vote on this whole matter was taken, Rox voted an emphatic "NO," Barbara Watts voted "No, but for a different [unrevealed] reason," and the rest of us (the boys) voted yes.

Roxy Ross is a genius of public service.  She has great instincts, works harder than anyone I've ever known, and is very nearly never wrong.  I hate going against her, especially when she's agreeing with a position I VERY recently took for myself.  But that's what happened.  And she later publicly scolded me for it.  Of course, she was right.  I lost my nerve.  I'm sorry, Rox,  As always, or perhaps very, very nearly always, you were right.

"Relay For Life:" This Coming Saturday, April 9, 2016. (From Roxana Ross)

Dear Neighbors,

This happening is so BIG and so important that it is the only topic in this Village Update.

If you haven’t already heard, I want to highlight for you that Biscayne Park has joined with North Miami, North Miami Beach and Miami Shores in a Relay for Life Event to take place this Saturday, April 9, starting at 4 pm and running through10 pm (Luminary Ceremony at 9pm) at our Ed Burke Recreation Center, 11400 NE 9 Court.  Its a fundraising walk, its a team relay, its food and beverages, its family, friends and neighbors, its music and entertainment, its activities and fun, bounce houses even, all for a very worthy cause.

Imagine a world without cancer…… This insidious illness has caused so much harm to so many and for so long, that we are hard pressed to find anyone who has not been touched by cancer, personally, within the family or through a close friend’s experience.

Join us Saturday to help the American Cancer Society in the fight for every birthday threatened by every cancer in every community, and, in the meantime ...check out our Relay pages at www.relayforlife.org/northmiamifl where you can look up a team or participant, donate, cheer for your favorites, and take the easy steps to join one or start your own team.

The Village invites cancer warriors and survivors to be honored at the event.  Please contact the Village Managervillagemanager@biscayneparkfl.gov or Recreation Manager sbartley@biscayneparkfl.gov or call (305) 899-8000 for details.

Working together, we’ve seen how we can and do continue to make the Village of Biscayne Park a better place to be.  This Saturday, let’s work together to broaden that impact, join our neighboring communities, think BIG and help make the world a better place without cancer.

See you at Relay for Life.  Kind regards, Rox

A "Witch Hunt"

I imagine last night's Commission meeting looked different to different people, depending on which side of the Commission desk you occupied, and who you were.  Various parts of it were frankly ugly affairs.

The meeting was better-attended than are most, and it turned out that the issue that drew most of the crowd was our recently completed and dedicated new construction: the new Village Hall and the restored log cabin.  We learned for the first time that we are substantially over budget on these projects, and a number of our neighbors had something to say about that fact.  As well, perhaps, they should.  It is, and will be, as they correctly pointed out, our own money.  Well, the overage and some of the rest is our money.  Most of the money came from the State.  But be that as it may, we will now have to figure out how to pay for what we bought.

That, in itself, was not the biggest problem.  It was disappointing and concerning to learn we will have to find ways to dig deeper, and there will certainly be ample further discussion about how bad is the damage, and how to resolve it.  In fact, we decided not even to attempt the discussion last night, and we have scheduled a special meeting to discuss only this issue.  The meeting is to be in the log cabin on April 20 at 6:30.

The problem was the attitude of a number of our neighbors.  They were angry, sure, but they were also nasty and very quick to blame and accuse.  They had found scapegoats and other targets, and they were very eager to take aim at them.  In at least one case familiar to me, a mutual personal vendetta was rationalized as a reason to attack the Manager.  It was tit for tat, for sure, but still, the venom was unnecessary.  Another of our neighbors, who somewhat typically does this, used the opportunity to point out that in his career of leadership, he has never been so irresponsible.  It seemed important to him to declare others irresponsible, so he could profit from what he presented as a contrast.  Another neighbor thought the Manager and all the Commissioners should be dismissed.  A couple of people used the opportunity to "conclude" (although it was actually already their premise) that we should now severely cut back expenses.  For example, they repeatedly reminded themselves, as if it had just occurred to them, we should definitely not replace Krishan Manners, who had been preceded by Candido Sosa-Cruz, whose position had been created by a different Manager.  No, this was taken as the opportunity to scrap the position altogether.

And of course, there was the harping about the furniture, and the "dais."  The project we thought we planned was going to cost us about $400K more than we were granted by the State of Florida.  Some of us have complained about that: that we should actually have to spend any of our own money on our own enhancement.  But we knew about it, and we agreed to it.  We borrowed for that.  What we just learned is that the actual cost of this project was about $300K more than we expected it to be.  The target of complaint, though, was about $8000 in furniture for the new building (that's $8000 beyond what was very generously donated to the Village by David Coviello's law firm, and Roxy and Chuck Ross personally) and a $24K Commission table produced by the contractor, who happens to be a Village resident.  I agree $24K is a lot for that table.  We got bids, and no one could reliably do it better and cheaper.  The only one who might have come close is a Village resident who, for whatever were his reasons, was willing to donate the labor.  We only had to pay for materials, though we never learned what the cost of those materials would be.  But let's assume the furniture that resident would have made would have been cheaper.  And let's assume we could somehow have spent less on the other building, maybe by shopping at Ikea or someplace.  In fact, let's assume we could have gotten the furniture and Commission desk for free (since it offends us to pay for anything).  Let's assume we save the whole $32K.  Does that mitigate the $400K we borrowed, or the $300K more that we now have to figure out how to raise?  It's a great arguing point, though, even though it doesn't actually mean anything.  "And you horrible, irresponsible people spent $24K for a 'throne' (for yourselves)?"

And that's what happened last night.  Fury got unleashed.  Not just about the furniture, but about a general sense of incompetence or disinterest on the parts of the Manager and the Commission.  One of our neighbors who was raging, the one who wanted everyone fired, also criticized us for listening to him and others without crying, begging for forgiveness, or whatever other expression he was apparently hoping to see.

One of our neighbors wrote to us today to complain about last night's "witch hunt."  He didn't like it that it seemed like a witch hunt.  Neither did I.  And it did.

As I said, there's a special meeting to talk about nothing but this issue.  It's on April 20 at 6:30.  Please come.  It's an important issue.  We have to understand it and deal with it.  Slogans and spitting aren't going to help much, so maybe leave those at home.

Electricity Rates to Go Up. Oh, no? Oh, Yes!

I'm going to run the risk of being accused of something.  I'm afraid it won't be the first time, and perhaps it won't be the last.  I think some perceive me as being anti-populist, and whenever I take one of those seemingly anti-populist positions, someone thinks I'm up to something that is not good.  Once, I was indirectly accused of taking a bribe.

We have recently had an advance communication that FPL has requested a rate increase through the State's Public Service Commission.  The Commission has to approve proposed rate changes from utilities, of which FPL is likely the biggest example in Florida.  The request is for three staggered increases over four years, to begin in 2017.  "Typical residential customer[s]" will, if the rate requests are approved by the PSC, pay $8.56 more per month in 2017, a further $2.64 per month in 2018, and an additional $2.08 per month in 2019, so that the total increase by 2020 will be about $13.28 per month, more than rates are now.  The "total typical residential 1000 kWh" bill is expected to be $101.18 in January, 2017, $104.45 in January, 2018, and $107.29 in January, 2019.  FPL adds, in its request, that "even with the proposed increases, FPL's typical residential bill through 2020 is estimated to increase roughly in line with inflation, to remain well below the national average, and to be lower than it was 10 years ago, in 2016 (i.e. $108.61)."

FPL claims that the reason for the requested increases, other than, presumably, keeping up with inflation, is "to continue its successful long-term strategy to improve value and service to customers."  The proposal also includes FPL's claim to have a "long-term strategy of sustained investment in modern, fuel-efficient technologies" and a "commitment to manage operating costs efficiently," resulting in the company's being "positioned...to rank consistently among the very best companies in the electric utility industry," with "electric service that is cleaner and more reliable than ever before."  The utility adds that it has "one of the cleanest generation emissions rates of all large U.S. utilities."

Does the application go on and on, and on?  Yes, of course it does.  And it's filled with similar self-promotion.

As a frame of personal reference, let me reveal that my typical January bills are in the $40s and $50s, and my summer rates in the neighborhood of about $110.  So my anticipated increase, assuming it's calculated by percent, will be about half that estimated in the application.  You can judge your own estimated planned increases yourselves.  My winter usage is in the low 300s kWh per month.  I imagine my summer usage is about double that.

I looked up electricity rates in this country (http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/10/27/141766341/the-price-of-electricity-in-your-state), and I'm not sure FPL is strictly accurate in its claim of having rates that are "well below the national average."  It might depend on how you calculate the national average.  The cheapest electricity in the country is in Idaho, which reportedly gets much of its electricity from hydroelectric dams, which require no fuel, and which are paid for over a long period of time.  Idahoans pay 8 cents per kWh.  Florida is number 33 on the list I saw, with a cost of 11.7 cents per kWh.  Michigan and Pennsylvania were 13 and 13.2 cents per kWh, respectively, and California is number 43, with a kWh cost of 15.2 cents.  Most of the highest charges were clustered in the 18 cent per kWh neighborhood (NY at 18.1 cents per kWh), with Hawai'i being the off-the-chart highest charge of 33.2 cents per kWh.  But all the states in the northeast were more expensive, electricity-wise, than is Florida, California was higher, and large states like Illinois, Texas, and Ohio were even with us or just a couple of tenths of a cent per kWh less than we pay.  So population-wise, we might be among the cheaper.  It might be that more Americans pay more than we do per kWh for electricity than pay less.  I'm guessing FPL is doing a bit more bragging than they should, but we're certainly not being gouged.

It seems likely enough that we will pay more for electricity than we did in the recent past.  Not a lot more, but more.  But what are we getting for it?

"Cost of inflation?"  I guess that's fair.  Cost of failed projects?  Maybe.  New construction, repairs, and development?  I can't imagine why not.

I wrote before about a scheme some private companies have to increase the amount of renewable energy (from wind) in the system.  All electricity, no matter what its source, goes into the same grid.  The offer was if private customers, like you and me, want to fund the erection of more wind turbines, we can agree to pay a small extra fee, which will be collected by our supplier (FPL), and which will be passed along to the developers of the new windmills and turbines.  I didn't choose to do that, but I'm thinking that FPL might want to invest like that.  In the long run, it's cheaper and easier for them to have windmills and solar panels than to keep burning stuff to make electricity.  So nobody told me this, and FPL don't assert a specific commitment to it, but I'm thinking, and hoping, that that's where some of the money will go.

I think we're doing pretty well, energy cost-wise.  Lots of people move to south Florida, and very few show any interest in minimizing their electricity usage.  So we have to live with paying for what we need.  According to FPL, we're still doing better than we were 10 years ago, in terms of writing a check to them every month.  So I don't see where there's much basis for complaint.  Do you see this differently?