“I have good news and bad news,” Scott Shreve said when addressing the Iola City Council Monday evening — a concise way to sum up a complicated issue on gas and electric utilities. AN ORDINANCE to allow chickens inside city limits has met with some resistance, but may have enough support to follow through.
Shreve is the consultant on utilities for the city. He is employed by EMG Inc., Topeka. He was at Monday’s meeting to answer questions regarding unusually high gas bills in recent months. The culprit? An “interim” rate put in place by Southern Star Pipeline for transportation costs, which happen to be nearly 200 percent higher than normal costs.
“How do they justify that,” City Attorney Bob Johnson asked.
According to Shreve, increases in delivery costs and tariffs have resulted in changes in the industry, and the pipeline company has the right to put the rates in place for a limited time, then refund the excess money that was paid for the cost. Other than that, Shreve said there is no justification for such a high transportation rate.
He said the costs have already been seen on last month’s bill, and the company hopes to have its rates in place before the next billing cycle — so they can lower them and issue the refund. However, nothing is certain at this point.
Shreve did attempt to put the council’s mind at ease. While the 200 percent increase may seem astronomical, the transportation costs are only 20 percent of the total cost of the natural gas. So customers only really saw an increase on that portion of the cost, not the total cost.
Still, council members expressed confusion on a topic that has so many loose ends. Shreve said the refunds “should” ease the pain of high bills, but any guarantee is yet to be seen.
“It’s all mind-boggling,” Councilman Steve French said. “It’s very hard to understand.”
The council tabled any decision to make a few final changes to an ordinance drafted by Iola Administrator Carl Slaugh.
While the same issues were raised in opposition to the ordinance — smell, space, enforcement, violations — others voiced their opinion as to why chickens could be a positive influence in the city. French’s opinion came from a civil mindpoint.
“I would like to see this as a model policy to address issues. An ordinance that has some teeth to it,” said Council member Steve French.
French said city policies have limited the amount of actual punishment that can be given to violators of any ordinance, including trash and animal violations. The chicken ordinance could be a model, complete with class C misdemeanors in place, to show citizens they must follow policies inside the city.
Education could be another benefit, SAFE BASE Director Angela Henry said.
“You can teach kids where food comes from, that Walmart is not the only place food comes from,” Henry said.
Council member Sandy Zornes said much of the feedback she has received has been against the ordinance — those who voiced their opinions said the animals do not belong in the tight confines of Iola.
Overall, the council made a motion to adopt the ordinance, but retracted it to make some final changes — first, raising a permit fee slightly and second, changing the space needed to have a coop on one’s property.
Thrive Allen County Executive Director David Toland spoke for his organization in support of the changes, and that the community sometimes can have a kneejerk reaction to change in general.
“It’s kind of like the movie ‘Groundhog Day,’” he said. “Where the same things happen over and over again.”
He listed all of the projects that had strong opposition at the start: rail trails, the dog park, Mad Bomber Run and others. People feared the negative consequences of change, he said, but they “rarely ever happen.”
‘Good news and bad news’ – City council updated on high natural gas costs, outlook
