Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Electric contract on council's agenda

The Prescott City Council is expected to consider approving a contract that would make SwepCo the citys new electric provider. The issue is slated for the Sept. 17 meeting of the Council.

Council meetings are held at 5:30 p.m. at city hall and are open to the public.

The city has its own electric company but purchases electricity from an outside producer, then resells it to the citys individual and business customers. That process has recently come under fire as the city had issues with erratic billing for several months just more than a year ago. Customers complained that their bills were higher than their neighbors bills and that some were out of line with others. The complaints prompted a public meeting with more than 100 people in attendance and coverage from state news media.

The city officials insisted that electricity was simply high and that the bills for homes and businesses in Prescott were no higher than for similar customers in other areas. The council approved a measure to have the city pay the fuel surcharge for one month so that charge was then based on actual charges from the previous month rather than predicted charges from the coming month.

The city was purchasing power from Entergy, but then signed a contract with AECC and are now expected to contract with SwepCo. City consultant Henry Thompson told council members that SwepCo was the citys only viable option and encouraged the council to begin the contracting process early so that theres no need to pay the higher fees for an interim contract. The citys contract with AECC expires in 2008.