CITY UTILITIES WANT TO CLOSE RECORDS

Many of us have been surprised, actually shocked, to open our gas bills this winter and see the price we are being charged. Some citizens have questioned whether the increases are justified, and recently Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon has indicated he will look into the situation to confirm that there is no evidence of price gouging by either utilities or the suppliers that service them. These investigations will require access to the utility companies' financial records.

But as the natural gas utility companies provide these records for these investigations, they are also in our state legislature seeking permission to close those records, including the very records relating to the cost of the service they provide to us. Those utilities seeking to close records are municipal utilities owned by taxpayers.

Senate Bill 19, Senate Bill 157 and House Bill 403, bills introduced this session in the Missouri General Assembly, each contains a provision to close municipal utility records to the public.

The reason for the legislative effort, the utility companies say, is that if deregulation is adopted in Missouri for such utility operations, they need to protect this information from being available to private competitors who might seek to move into their markets.

Specifically, they are seeking to close records and business plans containing information such as the name of their service supplier and the cost of this service, and their records relating to future marketing and service expansion.

Another reason they give for this is that the Sunshine Law already provides such an exemption to municipal electric utilities. It is important to note, however, that this exemption for municipal electric utility companies will end on Dec. 31 this year.

Municipalities operating natural gas and electric services are working to broaden this exemption and to extend its life. Meanwhile, there is no indication at this time that restructuring will be adopted in Missouri, in part because of the news coming out of California, where deregulation has created chaos due to rolling power outages around the state.

These municipalities need to be reminded that your tax dollars built, and in some cases still maintain, these utility operations. It is critical that the public have access to all financial information of these publicly owned utilities. They continue to rely on their ability to tap into your tax dollars, should it be necessary. They continue to avoid paying real estate taxes on their property because they are taxpayer-owned. They continue to borrow money for expansion based upon the citizens' support of bond issues.

Because these are your gas and electric companies, they should have no right to close off any information relating to their financial status or their future expansion plans. Let them know that these efforts are wrong and that the public expects full and complete accountability from these public entities.

When you write that check to pay this month's municipal gas or electric bill, don't put your pen down until you write notes to your state senator and state representative telling them you oppose efforts to close public utility records.

Jean Maneke is a Kansas City lawyer and counsel for the Missouri Press Association.