Since 2011, Boulder has been on a mission to become the first city in Colorado since 1974 to successfully form a municipal electric utility.
It now appears that another Colorado community could follow Boulder’s lead and also attempt to break the 43-year dry spell.
Pueblo City Council President Steve Nawrocki earlier this week suggested to his colleagues that the city explore possibly breaking free from the incumbent utility, Black Hills, to create its own municipal electric provider.
The rest of Pueblo’s council didn’t necessarily disagree, but also haven’t taken any action yet to further the plan.
Nawrocki — who, like Boulder Mayor Suzanne Jones, is the highest-ranking official on the council, but does not have any greater policy-setting power than his colleagues — said in an interview Wednesday that he believes “everybody’s on board about wanting to get more information and then move forward.”
Boulder’s municipalization push has been attended by increasing controversy in recent months, but city officials have long maintained it’s a worthy pursuit because it’s important to demonstrate local initiative on climate action.
Simply by trying to leave the incumbent Xcel Energy, they’ve claimed, the municipalization effort has helped encourage others around the state and country to also attempt to seize local control, then go greener and cheaper on a faster timeline than their incumbent would.
“I think because of the fact that there was another community that was actually committed to pursuing it,” Nawrocki said of Boulder, “it’s not like dreaming in the clouds or something. There is a community similar in size doing this, and socioeconomically it’s a totally different community, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t feel like we couldn’t still have an opportunity to do something, too.”
If Pueblo indeed initiates an exploration, it would not be the city’s first. In 2005, the City Council paid a consultant to investigate municipalizing the electric utility, which was then up for sale by the company Aquila.
Pueblo voters resoundingly rejected the plan, by a nearly three-to-one margin, and Black Hills bought the utility.
But, in 12 years, Nawrocki said, “a lot of things have changed.” Social awareness of climate change has expanded, as has the insistence from Boulder and other similarly-minded places on climate leadership from individual municipalities.
Pueblo on Monday joined Boulder, Denver and 20 other American cities in committing to transition to a 100 percent renewable electricity supply, so clearly the elected representatives there agree on a basic level with those in Boulder when it comes to the urgency of climate action.
But Nawrocki thinks it’s Black Hills’ increasingly high rates that could make the proposal a success this time around.
“The rate increases for residents is one of the most talked-about issues within our community,” he said.
The undertaking in Pueblo would be significant, as it has been in Boulder. Voters have the chance to revisit the city’s franchise agreement with Black Hills in 2020, but even with citizen support on Election Day, some officials there believe the city could spend up to about $1 billion buying out the incumbent.
“It’s not an easy thing to do,” said Daniel Hodges, executive director of the Colorado Association of Municipal Utilities. “It’s not an effort that ever should be undertaken lightly and just realizing the expense involving in acquiring an electric system from an incumbent provider is not easy.”
That’s one big reason few have tried, and none have succeeded, in four decades in Colorado.
It is possible, though. In this state, 29 towns and cities have their own electric utilities, and nationally there are more than 2,000 municipal electric systems.
Many others — including Pueblo, evidently — are keeping close watch on the Boulder saga.
“Boulder has set up a template for these communities to have these conversations,” Hodges said. “I go to a lot of national conferences and statewide ones, and whether or not Boulder ultimately succeeds, it’s a subject that comes up from community leaders from all over.”
Alex Burness: 303-473-1389, burnessa@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/alex_burness
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