Jackson, AmerenEnergy strike deal for power

After two years of negotiations, the city of Jackson has worked out a deal with AmerenEnergy that will enable the city and the company to buy electricity from each other.

The agreement will pay Jackson to be a standby supplier of electricity to AmerenEnergy whether the energy trading and marketing company needs to buy electricity or not. Jackson, one of the few cities in the region that generates its own power, already buys electricity from AmerenEnergy during peak-use periods.

The negotiations were complex enough that the city brought in outside counsel, a specialist in energy deals, to review the contract.

"I'm real happy this has come to a successful conclusion," Mayor Paul Sander said Thursday. "It has been a long, drawn out negotiation. This is to the city's benefit as well as providing Ameren with a source of energy."

The Jackson Board of Aldermen is scheduled to consider approving a three-year contract with the St. Louis-based company at the board's regular meeting Monday night.

In other business Monday, the board will set a public hearing to discuss the 2003 budget. The hearing will be held Dec. 16.

Assistant city administrator Larry Koenig said the city's current sales tax revenue are about 5 percent above the revenue in 2001. The city generates about $1.7 million annual in sales tax and about half that amount through a transportation sales tax.

"I've heard a lot of gloom and doom, but I guess we're doing pretty good," Koenig said.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182