Lawsuit demands Georgetown provide information on solar panel cost

Highlights

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City Council Member Steve Fought told Putnam that a “payback analysis” had been performed and that Putnam should request it through open records, Henneke said.

After Putnam made his first open records request Nov. 16, 2016, the city referred it to the Texas attorney general’s office, which determined the information could be withheld because it was a competitive matter related to a public power utility, the lawsuit said.

Putnam submitted a second open records request Aug. 28, 2017, asking for information on why the issue was a competitive matter, but the city said Putnam’s request was repetitive and that it had already answered the question. It also said the documents required legal research the city was not required to do, according to the lawsuit.

Henneke said that Putnam was not asking the city to create new records but was asking for a document that Fought said was available.

“The greater issue here is how government asserts these exceptions to public disclosure,” he said.

Ross said the “main point of the suit has been ruled on in Georgetown’s favor on multiple previous occasions by the Texas attorney general’s office, and in my view, as mayor, the suit is baseless and without merit.”

“The Georgetown taxpayer funds being wasted in defending this suit could be better used to fund Georgetown public safety, roads or other essential city services,” Ross said.

In early August, a policy analyst at the foundation ran an editorial in the American-Statesman saying Georgetown’s reliance on 100 percent renewable energy would not work for other Texas cities in part because such energy is only feasible because of “impressive tax subsidies.”

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The editorial also said if the wind and solar power that Georgetown relies upon fails, the city will have to get power from the grid run by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas that includes energy from all sources, including fossil fuels.

Ross later ran an editorial in the Statesman defending the city’s policy, saying Georgetown “did not set out to influence other energy providers or shakeup the state grid.”

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Ross said Friday that “under market rules as defined in the market by ERCOT and the Public Utility Commission, Georgetown has 100 percent renewable energy.”

“Georgetown’s generation of wind and solar power continue to provide more energy, on an annual basis, than Georgetown consumes.”

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