Cleveland Public Power (also known as CPP) is a publicly owned electricity generation and distribution company in Ohio. It was founded in 1907 by Cleveland Mayor Tom L. Johnson. Before 1983 it was known as Municipal Light (or "Muny Light" for short). CPP does not have sufficient capacity to compete across the entire Greater Cleveland area. Rather, it is intended to create additional capacity and to create a benchmark price in order to prevent price gouging by local private utilities.
In December 1978, Mayor Dennis Kucinich refused to sell the company when a number of banks, which were heavily invested in Muny Light's privately owned competitor, the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company (better known as CEI or The Illuminating Company) refused to roll over the city's debt, as had previously been customary. This was seen as a bad move at the time - unable to pay its debts, the city became the first since the Great Depression to enter default - but Kucinich's decision was later vindicated by both city officials and the U.S. Senate, which found that CEI and the banks had acted improperly.
In December 2006, a new commissioner for CPP, Ivan Henderson took over the reins from the incumbent James Majer. Under the new commissioner's guidance CPP is poised to take over the streetlight maintenance from CEI.
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