Winnetka residents urged officials last week to take their time and seek alternatives before deciding whether to renew the village’s contract with its longtime wholesale provider of electricity.
At a Village Council planning session on Feb. 11, the Council heard a pitch from Illinois Municipal Electric Agency to renew its contract for another 20 years. The Village Council must decide by April 30.
IMEA is a nonprofit consortium that provides electricity to 32 municipalities. Activists in Naperville, which is one of those 32 that relies on IMEA for electricity, urged that city not to renew with IMEA because of what they called its significant reliance on coal for power.
Village President Chris Rintz invited residents to join the council as it continues evaluating its decision, but warned that most of the options trustees heard in their previous study session in December looked “pretty bleak.”
“We did not hear a lot of options,” Rintz said near the close of Tuesday’s meeting. “We have options, but we don’t have a lot of them. The list feels inadequately short today. It would be great if staff can turn over some rocks and come up with a few more.”
The decision is difficult because the contract is complex and renewable energy is a complicated, technical subject that few people fully comprehend, he said.
“We are not subject matter experts and it’s hard to make decisions,” Rintz said. “We’re trying our hardest to make sure everyone learns and comes along for the ride, just like we are.”
Kevin Gaden, president and CEO of IMEA, said the non-profit organization must hear from its 32 member municipalities as soon as possible in order to continue providing competitive, reliable and increasingly sustainable energy to them.
Winnetka’s current contract does not expire until 2035, but IMEA must hear from its members by April 30 to maintain the energy capacity to keep prices stable, Gaden said.
“We have taken a proactive approach,” he said. “We believe it is critical to begin planning in the near term, because long-term planning takes a long time.”
As of Feb. 11, 23 of the other 31 member municipalities had already renewed their contract and another was expected to do so within a few weeks, Gaden said.
“We think we have the most robust resource mix in the short term and long term for our municipalities. In the short term, our lowest cost resources are adequate to meet their needs until 2035,” he said. “We can’t contract for a 20-year power supply for customers we might not have after 2035.”
Village Manager Robert Bahan said the council considered two categories of alternatives, including solo and group approaches. The IMEA “ranked fairly well” on a scorecard comparing the options, Bahan said.
The only comparable option on the scorecard, which was included in the council’s meeting packet Tuesday, was joining another “joint action agency” similar to IEMA.
“(The other agencies) had a pretty high rating for independence. Their scale was not so good. Cost compatibility, governance and the horizon were all pushes,” Bahan said, suggesting the others ranked about the same on those factors.
Former Trustee King Poor urged the board to approach its decision on renewal with humility, after viewing a slide presentation by IMEA officials.
“You’re being asked to look into the future 10, 20, 30 years,” Poor said. “It’s well intentioned, but this market is rapidly changing. Things can go wrong. These slides might look a whole lot different in five years. The ability of humans to forecast is by definition imperfect and becomes less and less perfect as they go out farther and farther.”
Meredith White, a freshman at New Trier High School, warned the council that the effects of extending the contract will become her generation’s problems, not those of current trustees.
“I speak for my entire generation when I say we care deeply about the planet in ways past generations have not,” White said. “We see ourselves as stewards of the planet. I worry if you renew this contract, you will leave Winnetka in worse shape than it is now.”
