When will workshops on Naperville’s options for electricity procurement begin? What will be the content of the workshops? What steps, if any, should be taken before the workshops commence?
These were some of the questions the Naperville City Council grappled with at a Tuesday, June 17 meeting. A routine agenda item — setting the meeting schedule in July, August, and September — sparked a deep discussion, with varied viewpoints aired.
Looming large in the discussions is Naperville’s contract with the Illinois Municipal Electric Agency (IMEA), which runs through 2035. IMEA officials are asking member municipalities for a 20-year contract extension to 2055, reportedly to invest in renewable energy sources.
Councilman, manager have different takes on electricity workshops
Council members have shared different approaches toward reaching a decision on how the city should proceed in deciding an electricity procurement option beyond the next decade. The differing views were on full display at the recent council meeting.
In early June, Councilman Ian Holzhauer received support for holding a series of workshops in what he described as a hitting of the reset button on the discussion.
When pressed by Holzhauer, City Manager Doug Krieger at the June 17 meeting detailed his concept for the forthcoming workshops.
“What we had kind of envisioned would be to bring many of the experts who had spoken at the Public Utilities Advisory Board (PUAB),” Krieger said. The list of participants could include the IMEA, the Naperville Environment and Sustainability Task Force (NEST), Customized Energy Solutions, among others, he noted.
The intent, Krieger said, is to present a broad array of experts, but in a limited duration for each, “so there isn’t one option that overwhelms the presentation.”
Holzhauer, in response, gave a pointed critique to the proposal Krieger laid out for the forthcoming workshops.
“This was significantly different than what I had envisioned when making the motion a couple of weeks ago,” Holzhauer said. “What I kind of envisioned was that we would have a strategic level discussion, where we are talking about Naperville’s overall priorities, rather than selecting from a narrow menu of options.”
Holzhauer also suggested bringing into the fold additional organizations that could shed further light on the options Naperville could pursue, noting, “There are a lot of great entities that could participate in this.”
City council members urge workshop before August
IMEA’s initial deadline for a decision on the contract extension was April 30. With the date having passed, the possibility of an extension on a decision within Naperville to August has been discussed as a possibility.
Several council members discussed IMEA’s potential late summer deadline extension as a factor to digging into the issue at workshops. Councilmen Josh McBroom and Nate Wilson, in particular, spoke of their concerns with the IMEA contract.
The agenda item pertaining to the July, August, and September meeting schedule did include a proposed date for an electricity procurement workshop in July, but it ultimately was removed from the schedule since not all nine councilmembers reportedly could attend on the proposed date.
Wilson, who serves as the council’s representative on the PUAB, had suggested having members unable to attend a meeting in person do so virtually. The PUAB previously voted, 4-3, with a favorable recommendation of extending the IMEA contract.
“How long do you want to delay? That’s the question,” Wilson said of the timeline for making a decision beyond 2035.
In response to Holzhauer’s call for the reset button on discussions, McBroom said he believed it would be imprudent not to include experts who provided input at the PUAB, including Chris Townsend, energy law partner at CJT Energy Law LLC, and Mark Pruitt, principal at The Power Bureau, who the city hired as consultants in the exploratory exercise.
“I’m just going to call out this joke of a charade,” McBroom said. “This is a deliberate attempt to eliminate an IMEA option. That’s all that is going on here, and I know that to be true. Other people might suspect that to be true. That’s what’s going on.”
In one pointed remark, McBroom stated to his elected colleagues, “I’m going to make you all vote on the IMEA contract. It’s going to happen.”
Councilmembers defend desire for deeper analysis
Councilman Benjamin White countered McBroom’s claims and said the intent behind the deeper analysis was not focused on ending the city’s agreement with IMEA.
“If it happens, it happens, but that is not the purpose of what we’re trying to do,” White said. “The idea that’s been projected here is, ‘Let’s find out what we want to do as a city,’ instead of just coming up with options. … I’m not going to be pressured into making a decision for something that is 10 years out.”
Councilwoman Mary Gibson said she believed a community survey would be a good course of action in advance of the workshops. She pointed to similar overtures within the Naperville Park District; prior to joining the council in May, Gibson had been serving on the Naperville Park Board.
“We are really great here in the city about community outreach,” Gibson said. “We know how to do that; we know how to do that well.”
During the “new business” portion of the meeting agenda, Holzhauer made a motion to hold the workshops in September or later. However, it failed with only two of the required five hands in the air for support.
Further discussion on one or more specific workshop dates could occur at the next regularly scheduled city council meeting on Tuesday, July 15.
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