THE SUCCESSFUL 2014 CAMPAIGN TO INCLUDE COMMUNITY INPUT INTO
THE CITY-UTILITY PARTNERSHIP
The 2014 version of the Minneapolis
Energy Options campaign was very different than the 2013 version. The once
blurry campaign goals for 2014 became clear once the City of Minneapolis started
actively working to form an innovative,
first-in-the-nation Clean Energy Partnership with Xcel Energy and CenterPoint
Energy by the year’s end.
It was clear that Minneapolis
Energy Options campaign of 2013 was the motivator for Xcel and CenterPoint to take such strong
interest in wanting to partner with the City. The goal of the campaign then
became to get the city to provide Xcel and Centerpoint a thorough opportunity
to demonstrate that they are actually serious about being good partners with
the city and prove not just using the offer to partner as a duck and cover from
the threat of municipalization. But another element was needed in order for a
city-utility partnership to provide Xcel and Centerpoint a thoroughly valuable
opportunity to demonstrate that they're serious about collaborating with the
City to meet our adopted Energy Vision. The partnership has to be inclusive of deep community
participation instead of becoming a closed-off layer of bureaucracy. NOTE 1
The primary 2014 campaign goal
for Minneapolis Energy Options was to arrange the city-utility partnership so
that it would be inclusive of community input. Page 52 of the Energy
Pathways Study is what provided the opening. Page
52 suggests the City
Utility Partnership provide an “advisory committee of businesses and community
leaders” that helps guide and inform the decision makers within the
city-utility partnership by vetting all proposed programs, goals and evaluation
criteria. NOTE 2 Ideally, this advisory board would keep
the partnership dynamic and accountable by suggesting new programs that have
strong grassroots support.
Establishing a City Utility
Partnership with
community advisory provides Xcel and Centerpoint a thorough
opportunity to demonstrate that they are serious about being good partners with
the City.
The inspiring vision
Minneapolis Energy Options had in mobilizing for the advisory committee was for
a diverse coalition of energy sector labor unions, clean energy experts,
advocates for low-income residents, businesses owners, building owners,
environmental justice advocates, and other energy stakeholders all asking city
hall for a seat at the table in the city-utility partnership. Under that
outcome, the pressure to include that community input into the partnership
would become irresistible.
The secondary 2014 goal for
Minneapolis Energy Options was for the city to propose a 2 year franchise
agreement length as the starting point in its utility franchise negotiations in
hopes of getting a franchise agreement that was 5 or 6 years maximum as a
compromise.
From April to July
Minneapolis Energy Options collected hundreds of petition cards addressed
to their City Council members asking to structure the city utility partnership
so that it is inclusive of community input and for a 2-year length for the next
utility franchise agreements.
The end result the campaign wanted was for all 6 council members on the
HE&CE committee to speak from the dais at their upcoming July 7th
hearing that they have heard constituent support for having community input
into the city-utility partnership and for a 2 year length for the next
franchise agreement.
The campaign was successful in
arranging 6 different meetings where supportive advocates for the campaign
submitted the Petition Cards to each respective City Council Member on HE &
CE in time for the July 7th hearing.
CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS
HOLD PRODUCTIVE DISCUSSION AT THE JULY 7TH HEARING
On July 7th, 2014 the Health,
Energy and Community Engagement committee on the Minneapolis City Council held an
informal hearing where the
City Coordinator shared the Utility
Franchise Negotiation Update, as well as the City-Utility
Clean Energy Partnership Outline and a receive and file Request about recent
decisions on Energy in Minneapolis.
We heard that during the summer
months of 2014, the city would be negotiating the city-utility partnership
agreement simultaneously
with the new utility franchise agreements, with the goal of completing
negotiations by sometime in September.
The campaign efforts paid off
at the July 7th hearing. After the City Coordinator’s
presentation, Minneapolis City Council members on the Health, Environment and
Community Engagement Committee held productive discussion and made it clear
from the dais they intend for the proposed city-utility partnership to take action to accomplish some
significant change in meeting the city's energy goals and vision.
Council Member Jacob Frey
echoed Minneapolis Energy Option’s expectations about the city utility
partnership:
“What I want to make sure is
that this partnership structure ultimately has some teeth... to make some
decisions at the end of the day. As many of you know I am not for just for
setting up a work group or a task force or a commission or something that talks
a whole bunch and goes home and watches TV. I want something to happen at the
end of this and so I just need to make sure we are moving in that direction….”
Committee Chair Cam Gordon
addressed Jacob Frey’s concern by stating he has a priority to approve a work
plan for the first year of the partnership so that they will have items to work
on right from the get go.
CONFIDENCE THAT THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE
WILL HAPPEN
The best news was that the
City of Minneapolis's documents for the clean energy partnership did include an
Energy Vision Advisory Committee (EVAC) which was the community input that
hundreds of residents had signed petition cards for through the help of Minneapolis Energy Options.
While the EVAC will not be a
decision making body it will support the partnership board by providing
feedback and recommendations on its work plan and annual performance. The EVAC
could also research special initiatives the partnership board shows interest in
and can tap into networks to promote the board initiatives. In addition,
Councilmember Cam Gordon said the officials he met with from the utilities were
open and receptive to the idea of having the Energy Vision Advisory
Committee.
However, the details on how
the partnership will be structured and the make-up of the advisory committee
were still unclear on July 7th.
SUPPORT FOR A 2-YEAR FRANCHISE AGREEMENT
Council Member Alondra Cano
echoed the other 2014 campaign goal for Minneapolis Energy Options regarding a
2 year length for the next utility franchise agreement.
“I support a 2 year
franchise agreement because I believe it positions Minneapolis residents
strongly and in a very pro-active manner in ensuring that we are always getting
the best that we can get from the companies and the corporations that want to
do business with us. It keeps Minneapolis competitive, it keeps companies on
their toes, it keep us innovating and it keeps us, above all, in line with some
of the energy and sustainability goals that we have put together.”
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND OUTREACH IN
RELATION TO THE PARTNERSHIP
Council
Member Cano then drew attention to the importance of the city making deep and
meaningful educational outreach efforts to diverse communities in this
discussion on Minneapolis’ energy future. She pointed out the Transition Town conversations about Peak Oil as an example for
engagement. A
form of community engagement that I personally look forward to is closing the
knowledge gap for effective service programs that deal with unlinking energy
and poverty.
Out of respect the value of
transparency, Committee Chair Cam Gordon encouraged people to advocate and
organize the public around the
information shared from the hearing.
Minneapolis Energy Options
was already in accordance with this mission of awareness raising by running the
Powerful
Conversations Tour, a
series of community education events hosted by neighborhood residents
and organizations.
Following the July 7th
hearing, the campaign became confident that all 13 city council members would
vote to approve the City-Utility partnership and that no council member would
have any reason to object. Instead of working to form ward teams to secure the
support of the 7 non-HE&CE council members as originally planned, the work
of the Minneapolis Energy Options campaign shifted to collecting petition cards
addressed to Xcel and Centerpoint asking them to reach a partnership agreement
with the city and sign onto it.
The campaign released the
hundreds of the petition cards and print-outs of the online signers to Vice
Presidents David Sparby and Laura McCarten of Xcel and Vice President Joe
Vortherms of CenterPoint on October 6th immediately following a
public hearing at City Council.
THE OCTOBER 6TH
PUBLIC HEARING
The long-awaited results
of the franchise agreement and partnership agreement negotiations between the city and both
utilities were revealed in an online city press release on October 2nd, 2014 NOTE 1
Overall, the agreement fulfilled the recommendations
of this year's Energy Pathways Study which included a dual goal of:
1: A shorter utility
franchise agreement with stronger reporting and transparency
2: A city-utility/ clean
energy coordinating partnership that gives the city real decision-making
power in conjunction with the utilities on helping achieve its climate
action plan goals and energy vision.
The Minneapolis City
Council's Health
Environment & Community Engagement committee held a presentation of the City-
Utility Partnership agreement MOUs and a corresponding public hearing on October 6th, 2014.
This HE & CE meeting was
a love-fest compared to the August 1st, 2013 public hearing. Every
party present at the October 6th public
hearing was in agreement and supportive of having the Clean Energy partnership
and the Energy Vision Advisory Committee (EVAC).
After spokespeople from both
utilities gave their commentary, a total of 15 speakers from the community came
up to the podium at the October 6th public hearing. Every last speaker was unanimous in support of signing
the Clean Energy Partnership and giving Xcel/ Centerpoint every opportunity to
demonstrate they are serious about being good partners with the city on our
energy goals. Not a single person bothered to show up to express an opinion
that the partnership is a waste of property taxpayer dollars, or that it should
not be a priority for the city, that it would be a waste of time and effort,
that it may raise their utility bills or that a lot of their neighborhoods
won’t care about it. This was an indication to City Council Members that there
was no organized opposition among their constituents against the
Minneapolis Clean Energy Partnership or the Energy Vision Advisory Committee
while there is considerable organization among constituents in favor of the
Partnership being successful.
In addition many of the
constituents who spoke, Such as John Farrell on behalf of the Institute for
Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), were doing extra work specifically to help the
partnership. ILSR had published a report on an alternative grid model for Minneapolis just in time for the October 6th
hearing so that the EVAC and the Partnership board could have an independent
analysis that can guide it going forward. NOTE 2
HOW SUCCESSFUL WERE OUR
2014 PETITION ASKS?
Even before the July 7th meeting of the HE & CE committee,
it was pretty clear that we would have success in reaching a city-utility
partnership agreement that is inclusive of community input through an Energy
Vision Advisory Committee (EVAC).
However, the campaign goals
regarding the duration of the next utility franchise agreements were met with
more mixed success. The good news was that negotiators were overall successful
in achieving a shorter franchise term contingent upon progress in meeting city
energy goals and vision. Under the newly negotiated agreement, the city will be
locked into franchise contracts with both Xcel and Centerpoint for a minimum of
5 years and a maximum of 10 years, with a 12 month notice required to terminate
the contract between years 5-10. If the City quickly finds that the utilities
are not honoring their commitment to the clean energy partnership, January 1st, 2019 would be the earliest date Minneapolis
could announce intent to end the new franchise agreement. However a move to
terminate the franchise agreement before 10 years elapses would require a 9
vote supermajority vote on the city council rather the simple majority of 7
votes. On the other hand, if the City finds good faith that the utilities are
making efforts to honor commitment of the clean energy partnership even after
10 years, the new franchise agreement could be extended for 2 additional 5-year
terms before an entirely new franchise agreement has to be negotiated.
The 9 vote supermajority requirement was
the part of the City’s new energy agreement that generated the most discontent among
speakers at the October 6th public
hearing. While speaking, the Minneapolis CEAC member Michele Schroeder expressed
she would rather see a 5-year long contract term with a renewal process to opt
in favor of another 5 year agreement rather than have renewal be by default and
that we should take a 7 majority vote in favor of renewing the franchise rather
than a requiring a 9 vote supermajority to opt out. Leslie Mackenzie echoed
that same concern while she was speaking at the public hearing. Addressing this
concern, Ward 3 council member Jacob Frey asked if it was a normal procedure to
require 9 votes to eliminate a city contract. Committee Chair Cam Gordon
replied that the 9 vote requirement applying only to early termination of the
franchise agreement came about as a point of the negotiations and that “one or
both of the utilities thought that this was important”.
Notes from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2hYoCUcu-c&list=PLcNuebgSUruBwfFHKPC6QOuHosXodOMSH&index=1
HOW THE PARTNERSHIP WILL
BE STRUCTURED
By October 6th, the
structure of the city-utility partnership became a lot clearer than it was in
report back hearing on July 7th.
The partnership will meet at
least quarterly and the partnership board will contain 8 people: 2 city council
members, the mayor and the city coordinator plus 2 people each from Xcel and
Centerpoint.
While speaking at the public
hearing Betty Tisel suggested the board should meet bimonthly and include input
from the advisory group at every meeting. NOTE 1
The formal partnership board
will have support by both the staff team (additional staff that work for the
city and either utilities) and the EVAC. Even if the partnership board and the
EVAC do end up only meeting quarterly, the staff team of individuals hired by
both the city and the utilities will do a lot of work in carrying out the
partnership in the time between these meetings. The partnership board will
present at least annually to city council and utilities on progress made toward
goals.
THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE
STRUCTURE AND MEMBERSHIP STILL YET TO BE DETERMINED
On October 6th,
the membership structure of the EVAC remained as unclear as it was on July 7th.
Ward 10 Council Member Lisa Bender emphasized the fundamental importance of the
EVAC and then followed up with a question on which leadership will be included in
the advisory committee. The acting city coordinator responded that there was
not enough time left in the negotiating process to really get down to more
specifics on the EVAC, and that the EVAC will be established and approved by
the partnership board once it is functional in early 2015. The acting city
coordinator mentioned “Business, neighborhood, environmental justice and other
technical experts...” as constituencies who could join the EVAC. While speaking
at the public hearing Betty Tisel suggested we add specifically renters, senior
citizens and youth. Shalini Gupta speaking at the hearing for Center for Earth
Energy and Democracy proposed the EVAC should have not just one, but multiple
seats for environmental justice experts, renter advocates and those with specific
knowledge of energy issues. NOTE
1
Following the October 6th
hearing, the Clean Energy Partnership MOUs and the new utility franchise
agreements were accepted as inevitable givens. In the days immediately
following the post-October 6th email blast to the Minneapolis Energy
Options list, I recall a lot of people congratulating me and the campaign.
The next phase for Minneapolis
Energy Options was to come up with recommendations for what energy programs the
partnership should have in its two-year work plan as well as suggesting members
for the EVAC.
THE HISTORIC
PARTNERSHIP DEAL SIGNED OCTOBER 17TH
On October 17th,
the full city council unanimously passed the franchise and partnership
agreements on a voice vote. The unanimously passed the City Utility Partnership
MOU which reads “The Parties each commit to provide staff and resources
appropriate to complete the Work.” Following the vote, City Council Members
with the Mayor and Vice Presidents of both Xcel and Centerpoint held a
well-publicized press conference photo-op where the partnership agreement was
signed.
This timing of the formal signing provided
more than the required 60 day window of time for the Public Utilities
Commission to permit both the agreements to go live at beginning of 2015.
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