Members of the Westville Village Board have rejected a proposal to borrow up to $850-thousand dollars to go toward payment of an unexpected spike in natural gas prices. Westville Mayor Mike Weese says a Texas company that sells natural gas to the village is reporting the cost spiraled between February 11th and 22nd –
Audio Player“They’re telling us $1.2 (or) $1.4 million dollars is what our bill is going to be. We don’t know for sure – but it may be more than that,” said Weese. “That’s why we’re going to borrow this $850,000 to pay them to get away from them and see if they’ll let us out of our contract. We have five more years with ‘em, and we want to get away from them. We’ve got another company waiting to take us over, and it would be a lot cheaper. And we hope it doesn’t ever happen again,”
Former Westville Mayor Jeff Slavik said he was speaking in behalf of all senior and poor citizens of Westville when he suggested taking some money that is currently in reserve to help pay the bill. Slavik said Westville Gas and Water has $668-thousand dollars in gas reserves alone. ‘’I’m not saying we use all $668-thousand dollars,’’ added Slavik.
A special village board meeting at St. Mary’s was packed with concerned Westville citizens. Some suggested getting out of their current contract with the Texas gas supplier and then switching to Ameren. In response to some citizen suggestions that Westville sell its gas and water company, Mayor Weese cautioned them to look at Oakwood. ‘’They sold their water company and bills are now four times what they were,’’ said Weese.
Weese says a conference call is scheduled for April 21st with a Chicago attorney to try to decide the next course of action. The motion to borrow up to $850-thousand dollars failed for lack of a second.
