Politics & Government
Darien Electricity Referendum Will Be Back on Ballot in March
City will again seek voters' permission to negotiate for lower rates.
The Darien City Council voted Monday to that, if approved, would allow the city to attempt to negotiate lower electricity rates on behalf of its residents.
The by a vote of 51.39 percent to 48.61 percent.
According to Mayor Kathleen Weaver, the previous because residents either were unaware the initiative was on the ballot or misunderstood the language in it.
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“The way they phrased the referendum was almost a double negative,” Weaver said in a work session held before Monday night’s City Council meeting.
Third Ward Alderman John Poteraske agreed that some Darien residents might not have had enough information to feel comfortable supporting the previous referendum. But, he said, the measure was approved by residents of other Illinois communities last spring.
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“Forty of them passed across the state,” Poteraske said. “I guess they knew something we didn’t.”
Potential savings
Before council members voted, resident Ray Krusinski urged them to .
As a member of his church’s environmental stewardship committee, Krusinski said he had recently heard a presentation about how to negotiate lower electricity rates for his church, and thought such a program would be beneficial for Darien.
“Then I found out it had already been on the ballot and it failed,” Krusinski said. “We need to make this happen. If residents would pass this (referendum), it would be a great way to put a lot of money in people’s pockets.”
Community aggregation
According to the Northern Illinois Municipal Electric Collaborative, a municipality can reduce its Commonwealth Edison bills by bundling, or aggregating, its residential and small-commercial electric accounts and taking bids for lower-cost power, “similar to how municipalities negotiate contracts for waste disposal or cable television.”
If voters in Darien approve the referendum in March, all eligible residents and small businesses would automatically be enrolled in the program, but could opt out if they did not want to participate.
