Iola officials will watch with interest on Wednesday a meeting of the Kansas Power Pool’s board of directors.
At the meeting, KPP directors will decide on a number of requests by the city, such as allowing Iola to get financial considerations for being able to generate its own electricity.
The meeting’s outcome likely will decide whether Iola decides to leave the pool in order to purchase wholesale electricity on its own.
Iola City Council members visited Monday with Scott Shreve, the city’s energy consultant, and City Administrator Carl Slaugh about the Kansas Power Pool, a consortium of more than 40 municipalities acting as a single customer for wholesale electricity.
The city joined the pool in 2007 after ending a decades-long agreement with Westar, the state’s largest utility provider.
Since then, a number of factors have arisen that make being a part of the power pool less attractive for cities such as Iola, Shreve said.
For example, the city no longer receives financial considerations for having the capacity to generate its own electricity in order to reduce its demand on the power pool’s resources in times of high demand. Iola also is being asked to either sign a long-term commitment with KPP or pay an added surcharge so the power pool can afford to buy an interest in a Kansas City area power plant.
Those concerns were supposed to be debated by KPP’s board previously, but that meeting was delayed until Wednesday, Shreve said.
“The bottom line, quite honestly, is we just don’t have any control,” Shreve said. “They’re wanting to push us all into these 20-year agreements. There are other options that are continuing to manifest themselves as we speak.”
One such option is entering a deal once again with Westar.
Councilman Kendall Callahan referred to a ballyhooed “secret” meeting that he, City Administrator Carl Slaugh, power plant superintendent Mike Phillips and fellow Councilman Ken Rowe attended with Westar.
In the meeting, Westar presented information, Callahan said, that could mean up to $300,000 in savings annually if the city leaves KPP for the utility giant.
The information illustrates how the tables have turned, Shreve said, because the city left Westar in 2007 in part because the utility provider was not willing to negotiate with the city. “Now, they are.”
Likewise, Kansas Power Pool formerly was able to offer such breaks, but cannot now for a number of reasons, Shreve said.
Callahan noted the city cannot seek a formal proposal from Westar until it announces its intentions to leave KPP.
IOLA will seek bids for firms to handle the city’s 2011 audit.
The audit was handled over the past three years by Lowenthal, Webb and Oderman of Lawrence. The firm presented a contract to extend its services for another year, but that contract was eschewed for the bid request.
The vote to seek bids passed 6-2, with members Joel Wicoff and Don Becker opposed.
