Peoria teams with other cities to buy water works
Peoria is teaming up with Champaign, Urbana and Pekin to look into buying their water systems from the Illinois American Water Company:
Urbana Chief Administrative Officer Bruce Walden disclosed the effort at Monday night’s meeting of the Urbana City Council, saying the city managers and attorneys in the four communities have been talking on a regular basis.
“We’ve been moving forward,” Walden said.
Those discussions have been prompted by the November announcement by German energy giant RWE that it intends to sell its U.S. and British water businesses. RWE officials said then that they intend to divest themselves of American Water, the parent company of Illinois American Water, either through a sale or an initial public stock offering.
Walden said the four cities have tentatively agreed to the following joint steps:
- To budget $1 per capita ($37,000 in Urbana’s case) for hiring a consultant to advise the cities.
- To enter into an intergovernmental agreement to organize the joint efforts.
- To pursue state legislation to permit the sale of water company assets, including supporting legislation introduced by state Rep. Renee Kosel, R-New Lenox, that would give communities the right of first refusal to purchase water company assets where the water system is to be sold.
- To contact other Illinois communities served by Illinois American Water to determine their interest in joint efforts.
Hat tip to Matt Varble.
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
[...] Yesterday, the Journal Star reported on agreement between Peoria, Pekin, Champaign and Urbana to team-up to buy the Illinois American Water Company. I’ve read the same story before, last week. [...]