It's been a year since a majority of City Council voted to put Black Hills Energy on notice it wanted to look at creating a municipal power company by ending its franchise contract with the electric utility in 2020.

At the time, the decision got an ovation from the audience in council chambers and other supporters, such as the group Pueblo's Energy Future. Several years of increasing electric rates and Black Hills' push for building even more capacity had angered local ratepayers.

As one PEF adviser put it, "Just the fact we're having this debate (in Pueblo) will cause Black Hills economic pain."

In fact, Black Hills replaced its top executive in Pueblo that same week, bringing in Vance Crocker to head its Colorado electric division.

So where is the city in its quest to get a divorce from Black Hills?

First, council established a Pueblo Electric Utilities Commission to oversee the initial process of finding a consulting firm to look at the possible costs of breaking loose.

Just last month, council hired EES Consulting of Kirkland, Wash., to take on that job. That decision came just after the city also hired Slate Communications to handle the public relations job of keeping city voters informed on the utility issue.

"The city got off to a slow start, but it's catching up now," said Steve Andrews, a retired utility consultant who is a PEF member.

There is a timetable here.

If council decides it would be beneficial for the city to create a new utility, it would need to have city voters affirm that position by August 2020. That most likely would mean a city ballot question in November 2019 � or just a year away.

If the city can't get approval from voters in time, the next opportunity to end the franchise agreement is in 2025.

Finding or establishing a new city power utility would be challenging enough, but Pueblo is trying to do it at the same time it elects a new mayor � and it is assumed that the mayor will provide important leadership on the utility issue.

The EES feasibility study is expected to be completed in December or January � timing that could play an important role in the mayor race. If one of the 16 candidates on the ballot can't win the November election outright (with at least a 50 percent, plus-one majority), then the top two vote-getters will face off in a Jan. 22 runoff election.

By that time, EES is expected to have finished its analysis of what it will cost � and what Pueblo might save � by pursuing its own utility.

That would be the very first issue handed to the new mayor � what to do about Black Hills?

In fact, PEF and a local renewable energy group are hosting a mayoral forum at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 9 at the Robert Hoag Rawlings Public Library in the InfoZone to focus on the utility question and related issues.

proper@chieftain.com