3 days ago
Rockford ComEd users may soon have to pay higher monthly fees and here's why:
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — The City Council is split over whether or not to agree to ComEd's cost increase for 11th Street Reconstruction plans.
Back in 2024, the city agreed to pay $4,460,362 to ComEd for Phase 1 of the 11th Street Reconstruction Plan. This plan includes the relocation of utility poles underground.
City officials said ComEd was 60% of the way complete with Phase 1 when members approached Council and asked for a cost increase of $9,300,000, nearly double the original agreement.
Third Ward Alderman Chad Tuneberg is a member of the Finance and Personnel Committee and said the idea to put these poles underground is a good one.
'I think everyone would appreciate power lines being buried not only cosmetically, aesthetically, but also for the power outages that that may not occur with power lines buried,' the Alderman said.
But Tuneberg said the cost increase would impact ComEd the monthly fees for ComEd users.
'Each and every resident of Rockford would be affected by this,' Ald. Tuneberg said. 'Small, mid and large businesses would be really affected by it. We just could not put that on the backs of our residents and our businesses within our city.'
George Gaulrapp is the External Affairs Manager for ComEd and released a statement saying, 'ComEd is committed to working with municipalities as they develop plans to improve their communities,' he said. 'Per our process, we provided a preliminary, initial estimate prior to a robust engineering design process that resulted in a revised estimate. We are continually reviewing and improving our internal processes to ensure we provide more accurate cost estimates for our customers. We are dedicated to working with Rockford to bring this project to fruition.'
The vote Monday was to deny this cost increase request from ComEd. If the Council had approved that denial, construction would have continued and the power lines would have remained above ground.
The Council voted 7-5 in favor of the denial. Then, Alderwoman Janessa Wilkens retracted her vote, which made it a 6-6 tie. Mayor McNamara was tasked with the tie-breaking vote, and he voted against the denial, resulting in a 6-7 vote and a failed approval of the denial.
This means that an Ordinance on this item will be written for the Council to vote on at the meeting on June 16th. If the Ordinance gets eight votes in favor of it, the monthly fee increases will take effect.
Tuneberg said he is concerned with how Phases 2 and 3 of this project could impact Rockford residents.
'We're looking at businesses that would be paying thousands upon thousands of dollars a month each month during the duration of this project,' Tuneberg said. 'I don't know how we can ask them to do that.'
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