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La Grange voters favor plan to lower electric bills
Updated: November 7, 2012 6:08PM
LA GRANGE — Residents strongly supported a measure at the polls to lower their electric bills.
With 11 of 12 precincts reporting, 4,103 residents, or 65 percent, supported a referendum proposal to allow the village authority to aggregate, or pool, the electric load of residents and small businesses and buy electricity on their behalf. The process is similar to the way the village negotiates for garbage and cable services for the entire community.
Some 2,108 residents voted against the measure, about 35 percent of the votes cast.
Once the measure is approved, ComEd will continue to bill residents for delivery of electricity and maintain the power grid to provide service. But with deregulation, the company will be in competition with other electrical suppliers.
LaGrange Park officials, for example, negotiated in June with First Energy, based in Akron, Ohio, to pay 4.93 cents per kilowatt hour, saving the average household $347 annually for the next two years.
Under the program, residential and small business customers will be automatically enrolled unless they choose to opt out.
