In 2014, mayor asked question he can certainly answer
Then-mayor Michael B. Coleman was excited – you might say energized – by the prospect that aggregation of electricity and gas in Columbus could save residents money on their utility bills.
If Coleman wanted a single message to resonate during his 16 years as mayor, it might have been that Ohio's capital city had a bright and unwavering future. Aggregation, he suggested in a meeting back in June 2014, might help get us there.
“Energy, how we pay for it, what it costs, is a critical issue in our country and in our city,” he told a committee that he and the City Council – then led by president Andrew Ginther, later to become the current mayor – had formed to look into aggregation, during the meeting immortalized on Youtube. “This will have a tremendous impact in the city, no matter what your recommendation is ...”
Toward the meeting's close, he asked: “Why has it taken us so long to consider aggregation in Columbus?”
It was a question the newly convened committee was not meant to answer, and so the only answer came as a ripple of awkward laughter among the members.
The mayor looked directly into the camera.
“I guess no one has an answer to that,” he had said, with an expression
of light-hearted bemusement.
The committee’s recommendation, it turned out, was that aggregation of energy to help save residents money was worth trying, and therefore putting before the voters of Columbus. Aggregation would use the city’s bulk-buying power to negotiate electricity and natural gas rates on behalf of consumers.
Instead, the proposal died swiftly and quietly, and new reporting by The Dispatch’s Bill Bush finally reveals why.
The then-chairman of that committee says the group was pressured by aides to Coleman and Ginther to water down its recommendation to pursue aggregation. Local provider AEP Energy was concerned, he said the aides advised, that the proposal as it stood left the company at risk of being outbid by a rival.
Ultimately, the city did not act on the committee’s first report or even a second, watered-down version created at the request of the aides.
And once again, we have a glimpse into how the business of this city is conducted.
How voters are circumvented because politicians and power-brokers know better.
How decisions are made not in Council Chambers but in conference calls and corporate boardrooms.
How the city, for instance, gives away a Rt. 315 freeway ramp, right under your noses and despite safety concerns.
Mark Shanahan was chairman of the now-defunct Columbus Energy Review Committee that initially made a clear recommendation to pursue aggregation.
The first report was delivered with a cover letter that said aggregation “will offer eligible Columbus customers the potential for meaningful cost savings,” and would make Columbus “a national leader in crafting a comprehensive and sustainable energy plan for its citizens,” according to a copy that Shanahan provided to Bush.
“National leader in...”
That’s a turn of phrase that usually makes Coleman and Ginther salivate. Not this time.
Shanahan said he was told that American Electric Power Ohio did not want an aggregation program in which residents were automatically signed up and had to opt out on their own because AEP was concerned the company would be beat out by rival Firstenergy.
The idea was buried and stayed that way for years. It was resurrected only after City Council agreed to put to voters last fall the question of whether the city should create an aggregation program for residents that delivers green energy at a good rate. Voters overwhelmingly approved the idea, and this time, Columbus had found a way for AEP Energy to win the aggregation contract before the vote took place.
Seven years later, Coleman’s initial question lands differently.
“Why has it taken us so long to consider aggregation in Columbus?” he had asked. “I guess no one has an answer to that.”
It looks clear now that a few people in town do have an answer to that, and that despite any claims to the contrary, Coleman and his protégé, Mayor Ginther, likely are among them.
Shortly after making his final remarks in 2014, Coleman took his leave of the aggregation committee. A few minutes later, Shanahan made an interesting remark to his committee.
“Why we haven’t done it before is really not a question for us to answer, as we did not,” he said, to polite laughter from those seated with him. “The mayor and council could discuss that among themselves if they wish.”
Among themselves, or maybe with a few powerful friends. tdecker@dispatch.com @Theodore_decker