KROS NEWS

(Clinton) -- Franchise fee approval is a separate process from the renewal of the franchise with Alliant Energy for service in the community-that was stressed at last night's council discussion on the issue.

The Clinton City Council has forward a renewal of a franchise agreement with Alliant Energy for natural gas and electric service in the community to the next business meeting for approval. At the committee of the whole session the renewal was discussed and approved to be considered at the next business meeting. The renewal includes language that would allow the city to implement a franchise fee-that is collected by the energy company from customers and paid to the city.

Council member John Rowland questioned why more details of a process of approval could not be in the franchise agreement. City Attorney Jeff Farwell said the approval process of a fee is not part of the franchise agreement and is a separate process that is outlined in the Iowa code and decided by the council as a separate issue. But, he said, could not be enacted without some type of council action that could include a public vote. But, he says the current council can not commit a future council to a specific process.

Council member Jennifer Graf clarified with City Attorney Farwell that the process to implement a franchise fee is up to the council.

Keith Sherman of Alliant told the council that franchise fee language is becoming more common in the agreements. He said 82 of the agreements with various communities served by Alliant have the franchise free language and 35 have implemented the fee. He also said the fee does not produce any revenue for the company; it all goes back to the city. He says there are cities that have had the fee and some have recently lowered it and some raised it. Sherman says the utility does not advocate either way on the fee issue.

The council did approve a ten year review of the agreement in the renewal.

Nicole Dunkel of Alliant Energy also updated the council on some questions that had been raised at an earlier committee meeting. She said the company does work on repairing street lights and believed they had repaired all the lights that had been reported. She also used rate figures to show Alliant is competitive in industrial development. Dunkel also had communication from Alliant officials on the former Allied Steel site. Those letters indicated the firm is still working with the Iowa DNR on the contaminated site and it could be late 2013 or early 2014 before the site is released to the company. Future uses are still unknown according to Alliant officials.

The council approved helping to fund a county tourism function with one-thousand dollars in this budget year-dependent on the effort receiving a grant from the County Development Association. JoElla O’Connell is promoting the idea and says the effort has support and funding commitments from the communities in the county and the county board – all dependent on the grant.

The council approved second readings of an identity theft protection ordinance to allow the city to collect social security numbers in a way to pursue past due sewer bills and updated to the noise control ordinance. But with one member absent and one member voting no on suspending the rules for a final approval both measures will have to be considered for a final time at the next council meeting. It takes six votes to suspend the rules and there were five votes to move ahead.

Written 8/29/2012 by Dave Vickers - KROS News

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