Sparks Fly At Council Meeting Over Power Generation Strategic Review

MEDICINE HAT, AB - While council was unanimous and pretty much on the same page when it came to utility rate relief for ratepayers, some debate on how much, how long and the exact structure was had on the issue.

Both the Mayor and some councilors were wondering if the relief could be related to the actual utility costs of the consumer, not a flat rate as proposed. It was made clear to council that this is a cost relief program and not utility relief program and therefore could not be related to usage levels of each customer of the electric utility.

Sparks were flying - all pun intended - between councilors regarding the motion and debate around a strategic review of the power utility. It was clear that two camps emerged on the issue of a strategic review when the ownership structure of the utility was included in the motion.

Councilor Van Dyke, Chair of the Energy committee, was adamant that no ownership review be in the motion and made an amendment to remove it. Councilor Robbins, Dumanowksi and Mayor Clark all supported the amendment but were voted down by council 5-4.

Councilors McGrogan, Hirsch, Sharps and Knodel all spoke to a complete review is essential if council is looking out for the best interests of the city. All of them stating that a review does not mean that anything has to change from its current structure, but ignoring all options available, and the pros and cons of those options, would be a dis-service to residents of the city.

Councilor Dumanowski and Mayor Clark were stuck on the issue that bullet point one of the list of things to review was ownership, and did not want to focus on that as the first order of business in a review. There was nothing that stated that had to be done in the order listed but the councilors in favour of removing ownership as part of the review were using it to make a point that they supported city ownership and ran in the election on that issue.

Councilor Hirsch stated that many cities "use an MCC structure and there is much information out there that supports their use". Councilor Sharps asked acting COA Dennis Egert specifically if, "an MCC is still a publicly owned company." Mr. Egert confirmed that an MCC is an entity owned 100% by the City of Medicine Hat and allowed by the Municipal Government Act of Alberta if that is the structure chosen by council after a review.

Selling the utility, loss of public ownership, large bonuses paid to executives and loss of control were mentioned by councilors, along with the Mayor, as concerns they had about ownership structure review and were unwilling to review all options.

A timeline was agreed upon that administration would have some utility rate setting options and comparables for council to review by calendar year end in hopes of creating more flexibility and simplicity for ratepayers of the utility. It was a long debate an discussion and surely not the last one to be had before the next election in 2 years time.