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Boulder City Council approves ballot measures on municipalization Page 1 of 2 Foblic Rower Dnily Monday, Auguet 22, 2011 Boulder City Council approves ballot measures on municipalization Residents of Boulder, Colo., will vote this fall on whether the city should create a municipal electric utility. The effort to create acity-owned utility appears to be driven in large par[ by a desire for cleaner, more renewable sources of energy. Last year, the city decided against renewing Xcel Energy's 20-year franchise. In July, the City Council voted to proceed with the effort to form a municipal utility. That vote came after what the local newspaper, the Boulder Daily Camera, called "a year of intense debate and public outreach on a scale that has rivaled any policy issue Boulder has tackled in the last decade." On Aug. 16, the Boulder City Council approved several ballot questions to be considered by city voters between now and Nov. 1, including two questions on whether the city should form acity- owned electric utility. One of those questions will ask voters to decide whether to authorize the creation of a locally run electric utility. Based on specific limitations in the ballot language and a related ordinance, the City Council would not be allowed to issue bonds until all start-up costs are finalized -and only if customer rates would be no more than those charged by Xcel Energy at the time of acquisition. The second question will ask voters to consider extending and increasing a tax on Xcel Energy called the "utility occupation tax" for a limited amount of time to fund the costs associated with determining those concrete start-up expenses and taking the interim steps to set up a local utility. The tax takes the place of a franchise fee, since the city voted last year not to renew Xcel Energy's 20-year franchise. The election will be conducted by mail-in ballot. Ballots will be mailed to active voters between Oct. ] 0 and Oct. 14 and will be due at the Boulder County's Election Division by 7 p.m. on Nov. 1. Survey finds strong support for renewable energy A telephone survey earlier this summer found that Boulder voters support creation of acity-owned electric utility by a wide margin and that residents overwhelmingly want a reduction in cazbon emissions. Seventy-one percent of survey respondents said they support municipalization and said they thought the city would be better than Xcel Energy at offering renewable sources of energy and at reducing carbon emissions. A smaller, but majority, percentage (57%) thought the city would do a better job than Xcel Energy at finding innovative solutions to energy problems. Ninety-one percent of those surveyed said they would support an increase of between 5% and "as much as it takes" in their monthly electric bills to reduce carbon emissions and/or increase renewable sources of energy. http://www.naylornetwork.com/app-ppd/articles/print-V2.asp?aid=152028 8/26/2011