Du Quoin and Pinckneyville Electric Ratepayers May Wind Up With Ameren Subsidiary

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Back-to-back special meetings of the Du Quoin City Council this Thursday at 6 p.m. and next Thursday (August 2) at 6 p.m. may decide who the City of Du Quoin signs a contract with to provide electrical service to ratepayers in the city.

The Pinckneyville city council Monday night set 4 p.m. on Friday, August 3 as the date of its special meeting.

Any local home and business owners who switch may wind up with a wholly owned unregulated subsidiary of Ameren anyway.

Some electric ratepayers have already switched to companies like Direct Energy or some other provider. Others will elect to stay with Ameren because Ameren is what they are use to. Eventually, local Ameren users will get letters asking you if you want to stay with Ameren or switch. You will have 14 days from the date of the letter to decide.

The City of Du Quoin relied on utility consultants Select Energy Partners to help put a referendum on the ballot last spring where voters decided to let the council pick an electric provider. Select Energy representative Anna Baluyot said her company solicited proposals from 13 independent energy providers. Of those eight responded.

Of the eight, four provided verbal rate quotes which were immediately discarded, leaving four bidders.

They were given options of submitting rate quotes for 12, 18, 24 and 30 months.

Presentation of the bids to the council was certainly less than dynamic--at many times almost disjointed and straying.

The presentation also struck a note of skepticism that Select Energy's final recommendation was from a company called Home Field Energy, a wholly owned and unregulated subsidiary of Ameren.

Baluyot said Home Field Energy's short term bid would provide an average 12 percent savings on rates to customers in Du Quoin and Pinckneyville who voted to let their councils pick a new provider. The 12 percent savings is somewhat less than the 17 to 20 percent savings that was pitched before the referendum.

Baluyot said any contract with Home Field Energy would include a safety net that provides for a price match guarantee. Current Ameren customers can go back to Ameren if this doesn't work out.

Any contract would also have a 9 percent savings for space heating (electric heat pump) customers and would include a budget billing provision.

Baluyot struck a note of immediacy in her presentation, asking both councils to sign contracts quickly so the changeover could take place by October.

Baluyot did not produce the contract for both councils to look at Monday night, but said copies of the proposed five-page contract would be faxed and e-mailed to the cities today so commissioners could go through it before they meet again.

In other action, the council:

placed on public display Ordinance 2012-O06-05: An ordinance amending Chapter 7, Business, to include coin operated video gaming machines.

began consideration of an agreement for construction (boring) underneath the Canadian National Railroad crossing, cost of permitting and associated insurance-Washington Street. It is a work in progress.

approved funding for the city's promotional fair tent at the Du State Fair (up to $1,500)

approved the nomination of Kelly Stacey to the Zoning Commission

The council approved the reappointments of Doris Rottschalk, Joy Upton and Heather Bookstaver to the Library Board

approved a contract between the City of Du Quoin and Ben Wasson to maintain Web sites for the city and create a web site to promote the industrial park.