Mayor Diane Therrien said a plan to sell Peterborough Distribution Inc. (PDI) to Hydro One has "gone too far" for council to back out now.

The costs to renege on the deal would be "significant" for the city and for PDI, she said following a committee meeting on Monday.

Councillors might've debated backing out of the deal, on Monday - but they didn't. They briefly asked questions of staff and moved on.

In a media scrum afterward, Therrien said she's not expecting a motion to come forward from council to kill the deal at a future meeting.

When asked whether she thinks the issue has been put to rest, she said yes.

"I think so, at this point," she said, adding that the decision is before the Ontario Energy Board for approval.

She said it's now it's up to the OEB to decide whether PDI gets sold.

"It's out of council's hands right now," Therrien said.

The previous city council voted 6-5 in December 2016 to sell PDI to Ontario Hydro for $105 million.

The deal took nearly two years to negotiate; it was finalized in August, but the transaction hasn't taken place yet.

The deal includes the wires, poles and transformers of Peterborough Utilities, which deliver electricity to 37,000 customers in Peterborough, Lakefield and Norwood.

Approval from the OEB - the energy regulatory board - is expected in a few months, according to a city staff report. If approval comes soon, the utility could change hands this summer.

But some members of the current council - Coun. Stephen Wright, Coun. Dean Pappas and Coun. Keith Riel - have said since the election on Oct. 22 they'd like to quash the deal.

Council later asked city staff for a report to explain whether that's possible - and if so, how much it would cost.

That report was on the agenda for Monday evening's meeting: it explains that backing out of the deal would cost the city and PDI $3.46 million in legal fees already incurred to negotiate the sale.

Kill the deal and those plans evaporate, the report points out - not to mention the net sale proceeds of somewhere between $50 million and $55 million net gain for the city from the $105 million sale.

Prior to the open session on Monday, councillors spoke behind closed doors to their legal counsel about the deal.

That meeting was held in private, states the agenda, because councillors would be receiving legal advice that is subject to client-solicitor privilege.

In open session immediately afterward, a few councillors asked questions of John Stephenson, president and CEO of Peterborough Utilities Group.

For example, Coun. Stephen Wright asked how much PDI could be expected to pay the city in dividends in 2019.

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Stephenson said $700,000 - a figure that has decreased from roughly $1.2 million, five years ago.

Coun. Gary Baldwin pointed out that the staff report "only advocates for the sale of PDI."

"Are there any advantages to keeping PDI?" he asked.

Stephenson said there are pros and cons to keeping the utility in public hands - as the previous council discussed in detail two years ago.

One advantage to keeping PDI is that many citizens apparently want the utility to remain in public hands; it may be good "optics," he said.

"But I think the world is changing such that that optic is less effective than in the past," he added.

Therrien, Pappas and Riel were silent during the short discussion in the public session.

In the media scrum later, Therrien said councillors had many questions - which they asked to staff recently behind the scenes.

She doesn't expect council to do much more from here except wait to hear what the OEB has to say.

"It's up to them (the OEB) to make a decision."

joelle.kovach

@peterboroughdaily.com

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