By: Hailey Colwell

Although the orange and blue “vote no” stickers have vacated the clipboards of Minneapolis Public Interest Research Group members, they can still be found on the Washington Avenue Bridge asking students to sign postcards.

This time, their charge is getting University of Minnesota student support to help them change the future of Minneapolis energy.

MPIRG is teaming up with Minneapolis Energy Options to push the city to evaluate a range of energy possibilities before locking into a new long-term utility contract with Xcel Energy and CenterPoint Energy. Among the coalition’s top priorities are lowering utility rates, expanding renewable energy generation and upping citizen control over the local energy system.

The city currently holds 20-year utility franchise agreements with Xcel for electricity and CenterPoint for natural gas, both of which expire at the end of 2014. As negotiations for new franchise agreements develop, the coalition is working to bring Minneapolis Energy Options onto precinct caucus ballots.

Campaigners have approached Minneapolis City Council members for public endorsements, said campaign manager Dylan Kesti. The coalition is also reaching out to small businesses and community organizations, encouraging members to present the issue at their precinct caucuses, he said.

Kesti said a number of city councilmembers have agreed to support a resolution to look into the city’s energy options on the ballot. This may be because the resolution would not require the city to municipalize its utilities — or turn control of them over to citizens — but rather list it as a possibility, he said.

In addition to requiring the city to look into a variety of energy sources, the measure would also make it evaluate the length of a new energy contract, Kesti said.

“The rate at which the clean energy economy technologies are changing,” he said, “why would we sign something that’s 20 years which has such an impact on our community?”

Young energy

In addition to approaching city government and residents, MPIRG is targeting University of Minnesota students as a source of support for the campaign.

Volunteers are collecting postcard petitions from students to send to their legislators, said MPIRG task force leader and University sophomore Kristen Peterson.

Though energy issues may not always be on students’ minds, the financial implications of Minneapolis Energy Options may spark student interest, Peterson said.

“Even if people aren’t that interested in environmental issues, they are going to be very interested in Xcel Energy, for example, hiking up their rates,” she said. “They are paying energy bills.”

Campaigners submitted a grant proposal to the University’s Institute on the Environment, said MPIRG member and University junior Cora Ellenson-Myers. She said the grant money would help the group bring an expert from Boulder, Colo. — an energy-municipal city — to a public forum the group plans to hold in the spring.

The forum will teach students how to bring the issue onto their parties’ platforms, Ellenson-Myers said.

“Mobilizing the student voice on this issue would show significant support and expose students to local politics in a meaningful way,” she said.

Kesti said student support will be vital to Minneapolis Energy Options going forward.

“A lot of them are … seeing this as an opportunity to move Minneapolis energy forward and moving Minnesota forward.”