 Monday evening, Mayor Keith Snyder said that neither man was
available to attend this week's meeting. However, Michael Maniscalco,
executive director of the Lincoln & Logan County Development
Partnership, and partnership board member Steve Smith were in
attendance on behalf of BlueStar Energy. Last fall at the
Illinois Municipal League conference in Chicago, some of the city
aldermen had the opportunity to meet and talk with BlueStar at a
booth the company had set up for the conference.
Later, BlueStar was invited to Logan County to meet with various
officials throughout the county.
The development partnership brought BlueStar to a city council
meeting several weeks ago, and the firm's representative George
Voorhees explained electric aggregation and the benefits it could
have for Lincoln residents.
Later Rasty attended a meeting with the council and also
discussed the benefits and outlined the process of establishing a
referendum to allow electric aggregation.
During the course of these meetings, there has been some
confusion as to what BlueStar's role is in the process of electric
aggregation for the city of Lincoln.
Part of this confusion comes from the fact BlueStar serves not
only as consultants, but also as independent energy providers.
Up until Monday night, it wasn't clear whether or not BlueStar
would be consulting plus bidding for the electric business inside
city limits. One point Smith drove home was that BlueStar, as the
city of Lincoln's consultant, will not be bidding on the city's
electric needs.
Smith said that as consultants, the first order of business for
BlueStar will be to educate the public and get a referendum passed
saying voters are interested in electric aggregation.
After the referendum passes, if it does, their role would then be
to act as the agent for the city, seeking bids on electricity from a
wide variety of providers. According to Smith, approximately 17 to
19 will be contacted for the bid process.
BlueStar would also be the ones to discuss with the city what
type of program or programs they would want to offer to citizens.
Snyder said he has had conversations about this with Rasty and
has seen samples of contracts from providers. He noted some
contracts include incentives such as senior discounts.
Snyder said in his conversations with Rasty, he had asked some of
the questions the council had voiced last week.
One big question that had come up last week was if customers
aren't happy, whom their contract is with and whom they complain to.
Rasty told Snyder that BlueStar would always be the ones customers
should come to with their issues.
Smith also talked about the safety net for residents in the
aggregate programs. He said it first had to be voter-approved for
the city to move forward at all. In addition, if and when it is
approved, if the rates from the other providers end up being higher
than Ameren, the whole thing can be dropped. In addition, for the
residents, they have the ability to "opt out" of the city's chosen
program, and in addition, they can go in search of their own
provider, and they won't necessarily be locked back into Ameren.
For the most part, the aldermen were not concerned with the act
of electric aggregation. They felt they understood the process
and were comfortable that the city should go forward with it.
Their primary concern was whether or not they were making a
mistake going with the first and thus far only consultant firm that
has approached them.
Aldermen David Wilmert asked why the council would not want to
look at other consultants.
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Smith said there were a variety of reasons. With the exception of
Good Energy out of the state of New York, most of the consulting
firms out there are simply one-man operations with no staff behind
them.
BlueStar is also local, with offices located in Peoria.
In addition, the firm played a large role in getting state laws
passed that would allow for aggregation.
BlueStar Energy is being endorsed by the development partnership
and has already gained consulting contracts with the villages of
Atlanta, Emden and Middletown, and a vote was taking place in Mount
Pulaski Monday night.
Alderman Tom O'Donohue commented that BlueStar had come before
the council three times because the development partnership brought
them to the city. He wanted to know what the partnership's process
for choosing BlueStar had been.
Maniscalco said they had done their due diligence in selecting
BlueStar. The partnership had looked at the fact the firm had been
invested in writing the laws regarding electric aggregation, had
published articles on the subject and is local.
O'Donohue then wondered why the partnership's due diligence had
not been relayed to the city. It was then brought up there had been
a meeting of several officials, countywide, and that Alderwoman
Kathy Horn had been in attendance.
Smith commented, "We did reach out to invite the council."
Alderman Buzz Busby asked how BlueStar would make money working
for the city. The answer was the firm would collect their fees
basically from the supplier the city ends up signing with.
Busby is also one who has been very concerned about the rates in
the contract. Once he learned that BlueStar would not be bidding on
the actual electricity, he became more comfortable with the decision
to hire them as consultants.
When the council voted to hire BlueStar two weeks ago, it was
with conditions. The contract presented to the city had no length of
service in it. The motion was made "subject to" the contract term
being of an agreeable length of time.
Since that vote, city attorney Bill Bates had contacted BlueStar
about this, and they had said the contract could take effect
immediately and be written to end with the first expiration date of
the contract with the chosen supplier.
Smith said this would still be something that couldn't be decided
immediately. He said different companies would offer different
service terms and attach their best prices to them. He said, for
example, one company might offer their best price on a one-year
contract, while another would offer their best price on a three-year
contact.
Bates also told the council that on this week's agenda is a
motion to go forward with the referendum by passing an ordinance to
that effect. He told the council he would not advise passing that
ordinance until they were certain of a consultant. He noted
promotion of the referendum and the process of seeking bids and
selecting a provider were things the aldermen and city officials had
neither the time nor the knowledge to do on their own, and a
consultant really was needed to carry this out.
In the end the council agreed they were ready to stick with
BlueStar as their consultant, and later in the evening they approved
by unanimous vote the ordinance needed for the referendum.
The referendum will be on the March ballot, and an alternate
energy provider may be offered to Lincoln constituents this coming
summer.
[By NILA SMITH] |
