Decorah council rejects proposal to add Alliant feasibility study link to city voter-education page

The Decorah City Council voted on and rejected a motion to add a link to Alliant Energyfeasibility study to the city's online voter-education materials about an upcoming ballot referendum on municipal electric utility formation, after council members said the city should keep its online materials factual and neutral.

The motion to place the Alliant study link on the city website failed on a roll call in which Councilmember Chisel and Councilmember Missalinich voted yes and Councilmember Olson, Councilmember Zittergruen, Councilmember Whittle and Councilmember Parker voted no.

Why it matters: Council members who opposed adding the link said the Concentric Energy Advisors study included assumptions and disclaimers that make it more an advocacy document than a neutral factual resource and that hosting it on the city's site could create the appearance the city endorsed a partisan position.

Council discussion and public comment focused on whether the city's role should be limited to neutral background information or include links to outside analyses. Resident Julie Olson urged the council to ensure the Concentric study was made available to voters, saying the report "speaks volumes" about the cost risks of forming a municipal electric utility and that she was "not willing to vote yes to provide any group an undetermined amount of money to further their special interest agenda."

City Manager Travis told council members he had forwarded the question to the city's ethics board and that the board informed staff that providing the link did not violate Iowa Code Chapter 68A. "I heard back this afternoon that it does not run a foul of that code section," he said. But several council members said an ethics clearance is not the same as meeting a neutrality standard for the city's information pages.

Other council members and staff described the city's policy on external links. Carrie, a city staff member working on web content, said the city typically links only to affiliate partners such as the chamber of commerce or local job pages and that adding a campaign-oriented feasibility study from a for-profit firm would be a departure from past practice.

Councilmember Zittergruen said he reviewed the Concentric study's own disclaimer and pointed to language that, he said, showed the report contained preliminary estimates and assumptions: "If you read further on in that, it said, all statements, assumptions, opinions, positions, and conclusions set forth in this study are solely and exclusively provided by the attributable to Concentric and no other party whatsoever," he said, and noted the report itself labeled certain figures "preliminary estimates."

Councilmember Parker, Councilmember Whittle and others likewise said the Alliant material and the Concentric report were readily available from outside sources and that the city's role should be to summarize neutrally what a "yes" or "no" vote would mean for Decorah voters.

The motion failed. The council left in place the two-page neutral informational materials the city had prepared explaining what a yes or no vote would entail and advised residents to consult Alliant and Decorah Power material directly through their own channels.

Votes at a glance: Motion to add Alliant Energy feasibility study link to city voter-education page: failed (Chisel, Missalinich yes; Olson, Zittergruen, Whittle, Parker no).

What's next: Councilmembers who opposed the addition said Alliant and Decorah Power are free to publish their own analyses and that the city should continue to refine its neutral voter-education materials.