Winter Park announced Monday that the only submissions came from California and North Carolina companies. Orlando Utilities Commission, which lost a separate bid to provide bulk power, didn't apply this time.

Present provider Progress Energy Florida, which the city voted to dump last fall, stayed out of the competition in hopes that the city would change its mind and renew a franchise agreement.

Progress Energy officials say the out-of-state bids were one indication that Winter Park's effort may fail.

"If they move forward with this, they will have a less reliable system," said Billy Raley, regional vice president of Progress Energy Florida, the subsidiary of North Carolina-based Progress Energy.

Raley said it's also a bad sign when the companies trying to get involved only want to assign about a dozen people to the Winter Park area.

In its proposal, California-based ENCO Utility Services offered to assign 13.3 employees to Winter Park to manage and respond to issues such as engineering, service, distribution and line trouble. Shaw Energy Delivery Services, a North Carolina subsidiary of Shaw Group, offered 17 people to provide the same services.

Raley, who Monday night was attempting to persuade yet another city, Maitland, to renew its franchise with Progress, said his company has five operating centers, 291 line trucks and more than 550 line personnel, engineers and support staff within 20 miles of Winter Park.

But Winter Park Assistant City Manager Randy Knight said Progress Energy doesn't back up its talk.

It's using the same "scare tactic" it used throughout the city's battle to take over the utility, he said.

"They continue to put out this misinformation. Whether they're trying to protect their future franchises, I don't know," Knight said.

Unlike Progress, Knight said, ENCO and Shaw could offer Winter Park what its citizens demand -- first priority.

"These employees would be dedicated only to Winter Park," Knight said.

"It's a function of scale."

The issue of who is and who isn't out of state is also being debated.

Shaw EDS is headquartered in North Carolina, but has a Florida office in Palm City.

The company says it has contracts with Florida Power & Light and Sumter Electric Cooperative.

ENCO doesn't have offices or contracts in Florida, but it does have experience providing services to cities, such as Moreno Valley in California.

Dennis Eastman, ENCO president and CEO, said the company's workers in Winter Park would concentrate on day-to-day management. If big storms or major outages hit, the company would contract for help.

"We will bring in additional crews just like Progress Energy does to restore service," Eastman said.

Progress says the other companies can't match its reliability in Winter Park. From January to June this year, the average Winter Park customer was without power for 45 minutes compared with 51.8 minutes during the same time period in 2003, a 13 percent improvement, according to Progress.

But the city, in its bids request, asked potential contractors to work around a reliability standard of 140 minutes, based on the last information city officials got from Progress, Knight said.

Knight said he simply didn't trust Progress' reliability numbers based on the number, frequency and length of outages in Winter Park this year.

He said the new maintenance and operations contract will have penalties and rewards tied to reliability standards.

Maitland Mayor Sascha Rizzo said it seems as if Progress is putting too much effort into fighting cities that are considering buying out their service. Instead, the company should offer reasons those cities should stick with Progress, he said.

"If I were to give Progress Energy some advice, I would focus on what is the best offer they can offer each individual city as opposed to telling us what we're doing wrong," Rizzo said.

As for whether Winter Park will go back to Progress and its franchise agreement, City Commissioner John Eckbert responded by laughing.

"I find it hard to hear that Progress Energy is saying this system won't work," said Eckbert, who led the fight to take over Progress. "Winter Park is a cash cow, and that's why they want to keep it. Anything to the contrary is public relations -- or more appropriately propaganda."

Winter Park is expected to pick a maintenance and operation provider by the end of August.