Boulder City Council gathers facts ahead of municipal-utility settlement

BOULDER — City Council members had the chance to ask city and Xcel Energy officials for more information Tuesday night about two proposed settlement plans to replace litigation informing a municipal electric utility.

Representatives for the city and Xcel presented city council members information about a franchise partnership between the two, a buyout of Xcel and municipalization as it was originally planned through litigation.

Because litigation hearings are slated for April 26, City Council has to make a recommendation as to whether to put either of the settlement options on a fall ballot by April 19.

SPONSORED CONTENT

The many benefits of simple, coordinated healthcare

Kaiser Permanente combines health care and coverage in one connected system to maximize employee health and minimize employer costs.

Wednesday night was a study session for city council. On April 17, a public hearing will take place, and council will deliberate and make its decision on April 17 or 18.

During the three-hour-plus meeting, city council members sought details before it makes its recommendations.

A major focus was on how Xcel would make a partnership with the city work: specifically, how Xcel would help the city meet its goal of 100 percent renewable energy by 2030.

“We cannot do it soon enough,” Mayor Suzanne Jones said to David Eves, Xcel Colorado president. “We’re committed to 2030. We’re looking at a path where it’s possible versus a path where it’s guaranteed. With a partnership, how do we make that commitment real and how do we know it will happen?”

For his part, Eves pledged to work with the city to flesh out that type of information.

He added that he was excited about the prospect for a partnership.

“I’m excited about what we can do together,” Eves said. “We can build off of this. I think it’s a question of how quickly we can beat 100 megawatts [local installed renewable energy] and get to 100 percent renewable. Let’s start right away instead of waiting three to five years. Let’s leverage the strength of citizens here and get about adding renewables.”

However, Eves did make it clear that getting to 100 percent renewable energy would be a challenge for Xcel: By 2021, only 40 percent of its power throughout the state will be from renewable sources.

It was also made clear that the franchise agreement held a special provision for Boulder to exit after five years if it doesn’t like the results it’s seeing. City attorney Tom Carr said that exit was unique to Boulder. There would also be the opportunity to exit at year 10 and 15 of the franchise.

Carr added that if the city does decide to work with Xcel, a franchise agreement can make day-to-day operations easier. Boulder currently uses Xcel without a franchise agreement.

“Right now we don’t have any rules,” he said. “It can be a lot harder for day-to-day operations if we don’t have a set of rules established. It’s a lot more tedious. In my personal preference, we should either have our own utility or have a franchise, because it can be harder to operate without one.”

In addition to learning more about the buyout option and the franchise, council members also took the opportunity to learn about the city’s plans for going through municipalization through litigation.

Those hearings would take place April 26, unless council decides before April 19 that it’s going to put the settlement issues to ballot instead. If that’s the decision Council makes, then the litigation process will end.

“This is not a placeholder,” Carr said. “If we tell the Public Utilities Commission there’s a settlement, then there’s a settlement.”

In 12 days, City Council will take the information shared at the study session and open the floor to the public before deliberation.

“We wanted to take this opportunity to fully vet this for the public and ask all the questions we can think of,” Jones said. “We’re eagerly awaiting the public hearing.”