Alva Review-Courier -

The City of Alva does not have a franchise agreement with Oklahoma Natural Gas (ONG). The last one expired in 2019. Alva residents haven't noticed any change except that a franchise fee was removed from their ONG bills, causing them to be a bit lower.

At Monday's Alva City Council meeting, representatives of ONG spoke to ask the city to approve scheduling an election on a franchise agreement. Marti Oyler and attorney Dustin Fredrick spoke while local manager Jay Cooper sat in the audience.

When the matter was brought to the council in 2019, Daniel Winters led opposition to the franchise. He ascertained that the franchise fee charged on ONG bills was a pass-through fee. Everything collected on that fee went directly to the city. In 2019, that was around $60,000 according to Mayor Kelly Parker. At that time, Winters said it was an added tax on citizens. In 2019 the council turned down the agreement and franchise election.

Oyler told the council there are currently about 3,000 ONG customers in Alva. She said most of the ONG infrastructure is underground, and they have reliability of 99 percent.

Mayor Parker said he had multiple conversations with ONG and learned it is a statutory requirement that utilities like ONG have a franchise agreement with cities they serve. He said the franchise is an agreement for use of public ways, but the franchise fee is optional. The standard fee is three percent which would bring in $100,000 to the city.

Winters said, "If I'm any other entity and I need to utilize the easement where I need to do work then I have to come and get permitting, right? That costs." While he said there are some benefits to having the franchise agreement in place, Winters added, "I staunchly oppose anything except zero percent."

Parker agreed saying he would only be interested in a fee on bills if the council decided there was a cause it needed to go to.

Frederick explained that the franchise agreement, aside from fees, provides indemnification rights for the city. Also if the city needed gas lines to be moved for something like a sidewalk or widening streets, a franchise would mean ONG would have to move their lines at their cost with no charge to the city.

Councilmember Joe Parsons expressed concern about the 25 year length of the franchise. He asked what would be the shortest acceptable term. Frederick said they have some for ten years and one for 15, but they prefer 25. Other councilmembers said if there's no franchise fee, the 25 year span doesn't matter.

Wanting to get an agreement in place, Mayor Parker said he was hearing that everyone wanted a zero percent fee. ONG will prepare a document for a 25 year franchise at zero percent, and it will be on a later council agenda for a vote.

A video of the lengthy city council meeting may be viewed at http://www.AlvaReviewCourier.com.