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City staff lay out timeline for Excel Energy franchise renewal; council questions fee transparency
Summary
City staff told the East Grand Forks council they are finalizing two ordinances to renew Excel Energy’s franchise and a flat-fee structure, proposing a first reading Aug. 5 and an effective date of Dec. 1, 2025; council members pressed staff on lack of a customer-level fee breakout and distributional fairness.
City staff said at a July 8 East Grand Forks City Council work session that they are near completion of two ordinances to renew Excel Energy’s franchise and to set a new fee structure, and that they plan a first reading and public hearing at the Aug. 5 council meeting so the ordinance can take effect Dec. 1 when the current franchise expires.
“Mr. Golstead and myself have been working through any amendments to the ordinance language itself and have that nearly completed,” staff member Reed Hutton told the council. Hutton explained the process: the city will publish the ordinance amendments per the charter, complete two readings, and allow Excel Energy to provide a 90-day notice to customers required by statute.
Hutton described the package as two ordinances — a long-form document covering governance and right-of-way use and a separate ordinance setting the fee structure so future fee changes could be limited to that second ordinance. To meet statutory limits, Excel provided a recommended fee table that converts a 5% statutory cap into equivalent monthly flat fees for different customer classes.
Council member Mr. Pukinsky pressed staff on whether the city could see how the fees apply to commercial "firm demand" and "small interruptible" customers. Hutton said Excel will not disclose customer-level breakouts and provided the city only with aggregate checks and company-provided equivalent monthly fee calculations. Hutton recited recent franchise receipts for context: $119,726 in 2024, $146,731 in 2023, $180,487 in 2022 and $84,883 in 2021, with a four-year average of $132,957.
Mr. Pukinsky said that without a customer-level breakdown it is hard to judge whether some commercial customers would receive a de facto discount while others would pay more, and he said that uncertainty made him reluctant to commit to a vote now. Hutton told the council Excel had recommended the equivalent monthly flat fees to keep the city within the 5% statutory limit and that the company told staff it would implement whatever fee the city adopted so long as the ordinance stayed within state limits.
Staff recommended placing the first reading and public hearing on the Aug. 5 council agenda; no ordinance was adopted at the July 8 work session. Council discussion focused on fee transparency and fairness, and staff said they would continue to negotiate open items with Excel over the coming weeks.
