Wheaton City Council members have agreed to take a vote Tuesday on whether to make Commonwealth Edison the city’s sole electricity supplier until the year 2036.
Under an agreement offered by the utility, council members can pare about $45,000 from the city’s 1993 budget if they approve the franchise agreement before Jan. 31. That amount, according to City Manager Donald Rose, is what Wheaton pays Commonwealth Edison to power the city’s traffic signals.
Commonwealth Edison’s current franchise to operate in Wheaton, adopted in 1960, expires in the year 2010. The utility’s “model franchise,” a uniform franchise approved over the last several years by about 95 percent of the municipalities Edison serves, is a 50-year pact that replaces existing agreements. Included in the model franchise is an offer of free electricity for traffic signals for the duration of the agreement.
Because Wheaton’s franchise has 16 years remaining, Commonwealth Edison decided to add half that number to the 50-year agreement, resulting in a 58-year agreement that could be terminated after 43 years. If council members approve the proposed agreement before the end of the month, the utility will make the traffic signal credit retroactive to 1993.
“We have the possibility of getting $45,000, which we could lose if we don’t approve this agreement,” said Councilwoman Linda Davenport. “If we don’t negotiate this, we’re not going to be in a stronger position in 16 years.”
Gene Gascoigne, an Edison spokesman, conceded that no real savings will result for the utility’s Wheaton customers from the new agreement. Commonwealth Edison will merely shift the costs it incurs for powering traffic signals from the budgets of local governments to its residential and business customers.
Gascoigne also told council members they would likely see the same agreement in front of them in 2010 if they don’t approve the proposed franchise.
Although a majority of council members have in the past agreed to approve the franchise, several councilmen speaking at a planning session Monday raised concerns about the inflexibility of the model franchise.
“Why wouldn’t Edison agree to any of our suggested modifications?” asked Councilman Robert Mork.
Utility representatives have refused council members’ requests to make portions of the document more specific, asserting that the same agreement must be approved by each municipality. And the model franchise, negotiated by the Northwest Municipal Conference, a mayors and managers association in the northwest suburbs, was several years in the making and very inclusive, Gascoigne said.
Commonwealth Edison officials have touted the decennial review of the model franchise, at which time a municipality could make suggestions on improving service. Changes would only be made, however, if they were in the “best interests” of the utility, Gascoigne said.
Other Du Page communities that have not yet signed the model franchise include Bloomingdale, Darien, Oakbrook Terrace and Woodridge, Gascoigne said.
